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diff --git a/old/gp19w10.txt b/old/gp19w10.txt deleted file mode 100644 index a9a2888..0000000 --- a/old/gp19w10.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,12080 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook Northern Lights, Complete, by G. Parker -#19 in our series by Gilbert Parker - -Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the -copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing -this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. - -This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project -Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the -header without written permission. - -Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the -eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is -important information about your specific rights and restrictions in -how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a -donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. - - -**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** - -**EBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** - -*****These EBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers***** - - -Title: Northern Lights, Complete - -Author: Gilbert Parker - -Release Date: July, 2004 [EBook #6191] -[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] -[This file was first posted on September 6, 2002] - -Edition: 10 - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - - - - - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NORTHERN LIGHTS, ENTIRE, BY PARKER *** - - - -This eBook was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net> - - - -[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of the -file for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making an -entire meal of them. D.W.] - - - - - -NORTHERN LIGHTS, Complete - -By Gilbert Parker - -Volume 1. - - - -CONTENTS - -Volume 1. -A LODGE IN THE WILDERNESS -ONCE AT RED MAN'S RIVER -THE STROKE OF THE HOUR -BUCKMASTER'S BOY - -Volume 2. -TO-MORROW -QU'APPELLE -THE STAKE AND THE PLUMB-LINE - -Volume 3. -WHEN THE SWALLOWS HOMEWARD FLY -GEORGE'S WIFE -MARCILE - -Volume 4. -A MAN, A FAMINE, AND A HEATHEN BOY -THE HEALING SPRINGS AND THE PIONEERS -THE LITTLE WIDOW OF JANSEN -WATCHING THE RISE OF ORION - -Volume 5. -THE ERROR OF THE DAY -THE WHISPERER -AS DEEP AS THE SEA - - - - -INTRODUCTION - -This book, Northern Lights, belongs to an epoch which is a generation -later than that in which Pierre and His People moved. The conditions -under which Pierre and Shon McGann lived practically ended with the -advent of the railway. From that time forwards, with the rise of towns -and cities accompanied by an amazing growth of emigration, the whole life -lost much of that character of isolation and pathetic loneliness which -marked the days of Pierre. When, in 1905, I visited the Far West again -after many years, and saw the strange new life with its modern episode, -energy, and push, and realised that even the characteristics which marked -the period just before the advent, and just after the advent, of the -railway were disappearing, I determined to write a series of stories -which would catch the fleeting characteristics and hold something of the -old life, so adventurous, vigorous, and individual, before it passed -entirely and was forgotten. Therefore, from 1905 to 1909, I kept drawing -upon all those experiences of others, from the true tales that had been -told me, upon the reminiscences of Hudson's Bay trappers and hunters, for -those incidents natural to the West which imagination could make true. -Something of the old atmosphere had gone, and there was a stir and a -murmur in all the West which broke that grim yet fascinating loneliness -of the time of Pierre. - -Thus it is that Northern Lights is written in a wholly different style -from that of Pierre and His People, though here and there, as for -instance in A Lodge in the Wilderness, Once at Red Man's River, The -Stroke of the Hour, Qu'appelle, and Marcile, the old note sounds, and -something of the poignant mystery, solitude, and big primitive incident -of the earlier stories appears. I believe I did well--at any rate for -myself and my purposes--in writing this book, and thus making the human -narrative of the Far West and North continuous from the time of the -sixties onwards. So have I assured myself of the rightness of my -intention, that I shall publish a novel presently which will carry on -this human narrative of the West into still another stage-that of the -present, when railways are intersecting each other, when mills and -factories are being added to the great grain elevators in the West, and -when hundreds and thousands of people every year are moving across the -plains where, within my own living time, the buffalo ranged in their -millions, and the red men, uncontrolled, set up their tepees. - - - - -NOTE - -The tales in this book belong to two different epochs in the life of the -Far West. The first five are reminiscent of "border days and deeds"-- -of days before the great railway was built which changed a waste into a -fertile field of civilisation. The remaining stories cover the period -passed since the Royal North-West Mounted Police and the Pullman car -first startled the early pioneer, and sent him into the land of the -farther North, or drew him into the quiet circle of civic routine and -humdrum occupation. - -G. P. - - - - -Volume 1. - -A LODGE IN THE WILDERNESS -ONCE AT RED MAN'S RIVER -THE STROKE OF THE HOUR -BUCKMASTER'S BOY - - - - -A LODGE IN THE WILDERNESS - -"Hai--Yai, so bright a day, so clear!" said Mitiahwe as she entered the -big lodge and laid upon a wide, low couch, covered with soft skins, the -fur of a grizzly which had fallen to her man's rifle. "Hai-yai, I wish -it would last for ever--so sweet!" she added, smoothing the fur -lingeringly, and showing her teeth in a smile. - -"There will come a great storm, Mitiahwe. See, the birds go south so -soon," responded a deep voice from a corner by the doorway. - -The young Indian wife turned quickly, and, in a defiant fantastic mood ---or was it the inward cry against an impending fate, the tragic future -of those who will not see, because to see is to suffer?--she made some -quaint, odd motions of the body which belonged to a mysterious dance of -her tribe, and, with flashing eyes, challenged the comely old woman -seated on a pile of deer-skins. - -"It is morning, and the day will last for ever," she said nonchalantly, -but her eyes suddenly took on a faraway look, half apprehensive, half -wondering. The birds were indeed going south very soon, yet had there -ever been so exquisite an autumn as this, had her man ever had so -wonderful a trade--her man with the brown hair, blue eyes, and fair, -strong face? - -"The birds go south, but the hunters and buffalo still go north," -Mitiahwe urged searchingly, looking hard at her mother--Oanita, the Swift -Wing. - -"My dream said that the winter will be dark and lonely, that the ice will -be thick, the snow deep, and that many hearts will be sick because of the -black days and the hunger that sickens the heart," answered Swift Wing. - -Mitiahwe looked into Swift Wing's dark eyes, and an anger came upon her. -"The hearts of cowards will freeze," she rejoined, "and to those that -will not see the sun the world will be dark," she added. Then suddenly -she remembered to whom she was speaking, and a flood of feeling ran -through her; for Swift Wing had cherished her like a fledgeling in the -nest till her young white man came from "down East." Her heart had leapt -up at sight of him, and she had turned to him from all the young men of -her tribe, waiting in a kind of mist till he, at last, had spoken to her -mother, and then one evening, her shawl over her head, she had come along -to his lodge. - -A thousand times as the four years passed by she had thought how good it -was that she had become his wife--the young white man's wife, rather than -the wife of Breaking Rock, son of White Buffalo, the chief, who had four -hundred horses, and a face that would have made winter and sour days for -her. Now and then Breaking Rock came and stood before the lodge, a -distance off, and stayed there hour after hour, and once or twice he came -when her man was with her; but nothing could be done, for earth and air -and space were common to them all, and there was no offence in Breaking -Rock gazing at the lodge where Mitiahwe lived. Yet it seemed as though -Breaking Rock was waiting--waiting and hoping. That was the impression -made upon all who saw him, and even old White Buffalo, the chief, shook -his head gloomily when he saw Breaking Rock, his son, staring at the big -lodge which was so full of happiness, and so full also of many luxuries -never before seen at a trading post on the Koonce River. The father of -Mitiahwe had been chief, but because his three sons had been killed in -battle the chieftainship had come to White Buffalo, who was of the same -blood and family. There were those who said that Mitiahwe should have -been chieftainess; but neither she nor her mother would ever listen to -this, and so White Buffalo, and the tribe loved Mitiahwe because of her -modesty and goodness. She was even more to White Buffalo than Breaking -Rock, and he had been glad that Dingan the white man--Long Hand he was -called--had taken Mitiahwe for his woman. Yet behind this gladness of -White Buffalo, and that of Swift Wing, and behind the silent watchfulness -of Breaking Rock, there was a thought which must ever come when a white -man mates with an Indian maid, without priest or preacher, or writing, or -book, or bond. - -Yet four years had gone; and all the tribe, and all who came and went, -half-breeds, traders, and other tribes, remarked how happy was the white -man with his Indian wife. They never saw anything but light in the eyes -of Mitiahwe, nor did the old women of the tribe who scanned her face as -she came and went, and watched and waited too for what never came--not -even after four years. - -Mitiahwe had been so happy that she had not really missed what never -came; though the desire to have something in her arms which was part of -them both had flushed up in her veins at times, and made her restless -till her man had come home again. Then she had forgotten the unseen for -the seen, and was happy that they two were alone together--that was the -joy of it all, so much alone together; for Swift Wing did not live with -them, and, like Breaking Rock, she watched her daughter's life, standing -afar off, since it was the unwritten law of the tribe that the wife's -mother must not cross the path or enter the home of her daughter's -husband. But at last Dingan had broken through this custom, and insisted -that Swift Wing should be with her daughter when he was away from home, -as now on this wonderful autumn morning, when Mitiahwe had been singing -to the Sun, to which she prayed for her man and for everlasting days with -him. - -She had spoken angrily but now, because her soul sharply resented the -challenge to her happiness which her mother had been making. It was her -own eyes that refused to see the cloud, which the sage and bereaved woman -had seen and conveyed in images and figures of speech natural to the -Indian mind. - -"Hai-yai," she said now, with a strange touching sigh breathing in the -words, "you are right, my mother, and a dream is a dream; also, if it be -dreamt three times, then is it to be followed, and it is true. You have -lived long, and your dreams are of the Sun and the Spirit." She shook a -little as she laid her hand on a buckskin coat of her man hanging by the -lodge-door; then she steadied herself again, and gazed earnestly into her -mother's eyes. "Have all your dreams come true, my mother?" she asked -with a hungering heart. "There was the dream that came out of the dark -five times, when your father went against the Crees, and was wounded, and -crawled away into the hills, and all our warriors fled--they were but a -handful, and the Crees like a young forest in number! I went with my -dream, and found him after many days, and it was after that you were -born, my youngest and my last. There was also"--her eyes almost closed, -and the needle and thread she held lay still in her lap--"when two of -your brothers were killed in the drive of the buffalo. Did I not see it -all in my dream, and follow after them to take them to my heart? And -when your sister was carried off, was it not my dream which saw the -trail, so that we brought her back again to die in peace, her eyes seeing -the Lodge whither she was going, open to her, and the Sun, the Father, -giving her light and promise--for she had wounded herself to die that the -thief who stole her should leave her to herself. Behold, my daughter, -these dreams have I had, and others; and I have lived long and have seen -the bright day break into storm, and the herds flee into the far hills -where none could follow, and hunger come, and--" - -"Hai-yo, see, the birds flying south," said the girl with a gesture -towards the cloudless sky. "Never since I lived have they gone south so -soon." Again she shuddered slightly, then she spoke slowly: "I also have -dreamed, and I will follow my dream. I dreamed"--she knelt down beside -her mother, and rested her hands in her mother's lap--"I dreamed that -there was a wall of hills dark and heavy and far away, and that whenever -my eyes looked at them they burned with tears; and yet I looked and -looked, till my heart was like lead in my breast; and I turned from them -to the rivers and the plains that I loved. But a voice kept calling to -me, 'Come, come! Beyond the hills is a happy land. The trail is hard, -and your feet will bleed, but beyond is the happy land.' And I would not -go for the voice that spoke, and at last there came an old man in my -dream and spoke to me kindly, and said, 'Come with me, and I will show -thee the way over the hills to the Lodge where thou shalt find what thou -hast lost.' And I said to him, 'I have lost nothing;' and I would not -go. Twice I dreamed this dream, and twice the old man came, and three -times I dreamed it; and then I spoke angrily to him, as but now I did to -thee; and behold he changed before my eyes, and I saw that he was now -become--"she stopped short, and buried her face in her hands for a -moment, then recovered herself--"Breaking Rock it was, I saw before me, -and I cried out and fled. Then I waked with a cry, but my man was beside -me, and his arm was round my neck; and this dream, is it not a foolish -dream, my mother?" - -The old woman sat silent, clasping the hands of her daughter firmly, and -looking out of the wide doorway towards the trees that fringed the river; -and presently, as she looked, her face changed and grew pinched all at -once, and Mitiahwe, looking at her, turned a startled face towards the -river also. - -"Breaking Rock!" she said in alarm, and got to her feet quickly. - -Breaking Rock stood for a moment looking towards the lodge, then came -slowly forward to them. Never in all the four years had he approached -this lodge of Mitiahwe, who, the daughter of a chief, should have married -himself, the son of a chief! Slowly but with long slouching stride -Breaking Rock came nearer. The two women watched him without speaking. -Instinctively they knew that he brought news, that something had -happened; yet Mitiahwe felt at her belt for what no Indian girl would be -without; and this one was a gift from her man, on the anniversary of the -day she first came to his lodge. - -Breaking Rock was at the door now, his beady eyes fixed on Mitiahwe's, -his figure jerked to its full height, which made him, even then, two -inches less than Long Hand. He spoke in a loud voice: - -"The last boat this year goes down the river tomorrow. Long Hand, your -man, is going to his people. He will not come back. He has had enough -of the Blackfoot woman. You will see him no more." He waved a hand to -the sky. "The birds are going south. A hard winter is coming quick. -You will be alone. Breaking Rock is rich. He has five hundred horses. -Your man is going to his own people. Let him go. He is no man. It is -four years, and still there are but two in your lodge. How!" - -He swung on his heel with a chuckle in his throat, for he thought he had -said a good thing, and that in truth he was worth twenty white men. His -quick ear caught a movement behind him, however, and he saw the girl -spring from the lodge door, something flashing from her belt. But now -the mother's arms were round her, with cries of protest, and Breaking -Rock, with another laugh, slipped away swiftly toward the river. - -"That is good," he muttered. "She will kill him perhaps, when she goes -to him. She will go, but he will not stay. I have heard." - -As he disappeared among the trees Mitiahwe disengaged herself from her -mother's arms, went slowly back into the lodge, and sat down on the great -couch where, for so many moons, she had lain with her man beside her. - -Her mother watched her closely, though she moved about doing little -things. She was trying to think what she would have done if such a thing -had happened to her, if her man had been going to leave her. She assumed -that Dingan would leave Mitiahwe, for he would hear the voices of his -people calling far away, even as the red man who went East into the great -cities heard the prairies and the mountains and the rivers and his own -people calling, and came back, and put off the clothes of civilisation, -and donned his buckskins again, and sat in the Medicine Man's tent, and -heard the spirits speak to him through the mist and smoke of the sacred -fire. When Swift Wing first gave her daughter to the white man she -foresaw the danger now at hand, but this was the tribute of the lower -race to the higher, and--who could tell! White men had left their Indian -wives, but had come back again, and for ever renounced the life of their -own nations, and become great chiefs, teaching useful things to their -adopted people, bringing up their children as tribesmen--bringing up -their children! There it was, the thing which called them back, the -bright-eyed children with the colour of the brown prairie in their faces, -and their brains so sharp and strong. But here was no child to call -Dingan back, only the eloquent, brave, sweet face of Mitiahwe. . . . -If he went! Would he go? Was he going? And now that Mitiahwe had been -told that he would go, what would she do? In her belt was--but, no, that -would be worse than all, and she would lose Mitiahwe, her last child, as -she had lost so many others. What would she herself do if she were in -Mitiahwe's place? Ah, she would make him stay somehow--by truth or by -falsehood; by the whispered story in the long night, by her head upon his -knee before the lodge-fire, and her eyes fixed on his, luring him, as the -Dream lures the dreamer into the far trail, to find the Sun's hunting- -ground where the plains are filled with the deer and the buffalo and the -wild horse; by the smell of the cooking-pot and the favourite spiced -drink in the morning; by the child that ran to him with his bow and -arrows and the cry of the hunter--but there was no child; she had -forgotten. She was always recalling her own happy early life with her -man, and the clean-faced papooses that crowded round his knee--one wife -and many children, and the old Harvester of the Years reaping them so -fast, till the children stood up as tall as their father and chief. That -was long ago, and she had had her share--twenty-five years of happiness; -but Mitiahwe had had only four. She looked at Mitiahwe, standing still -for a moment like one rapt, then suddenly she gave a little cry. -Something had come into her mind, some solution of the problem, -and she ran and stooped over the girl and put both hands on her head. - -"Mitiahwe, heart's blood of mine," she said, "the birds go south, but -they return. What matter if they go so soon, if they return soon. If -the Sun wills that the winter be dark, and he sends the Coldmaker to -close the rivers and drive the wild ones far from the arrow and the gun, -yet he may be sorry, and send a second summer--has it not been so, and -Coldmaker has hurried away--away! The birds go south, but they will -return, Mitiahwe." - -"I heard a cry in the night while my man slept," Mitiahwe answered, -looking straight before her, "and it was like the cry of a bird-calling, -calling, calling." - -"But he did not hear--he was asleep beside Mitiahwe. If he did not wake, -surely it was good luck. Thy breath upon his face kept him sleeping. -Surely it was good luck to Mitiahwe that he did not hear." - -She was smiling a little now, for she had thought of a thing which would, -perhaps, keep the man here in this lodge in the wilderness; but the time -to speak of it was not yet. She must wait and see. - -Suddenly Mitiahwe got to her feet with a spring, and a light in her eyes. -"Hai-yai!" she said with plaintive smiling, ran to a corner of the -lodge, and from a leather bag drew forth a horse-shoe and looked at it, -murmuring to herself. - -The old woman gazed at her wonderingly. "What is it, Mitiahwe?" she -asked. - -"It is good-luck. So my man has said. It is the way of his people. -It is put over the door, and if a dream come it is a good dream; and if a -bad thing come, it will not enter; and if the heart prays for a thing hid -from all the world, then it brings good-luck. Hai-yai! I will put it -over the door, and then--"All at once her hand dropped to her side, as -though some terrible thought had come to her, and, sinking to the floor, -she rocked her body backward and forward for a time, sobbing. But -presently she got to her feet again, and, going to the door of the lodge, -fastened the horseshoe above it with a great needle and a string of -buckskin. - -"Oh great Sun," she prayed, "have pity on me and save me! I cannot live -alone. I am only a Blackfoot wife; I am not blood of his blood. Give, -O great one, blood of his blood, bone of his bone, soul of his soul, that -he will say, This is mine, body of my body, and he will hear the cry and -will stay. O great Sun, pity me!" The old woman's heart beat faster as -she listened. The same thought was in the mind of both. If there were -but a child, bone of his bone, then perhaps he would not go; or, if he -went, then surely he would return, when he heard his papoose calling in -the lodge in the wilderness. - -As Mitiahwe turned to her, a strange burning light in her eyes, Swift -Wing said: "It is good. The white man's Medicine for a white man's wife. -But if there were the red man's Medicine too--" - -"What is the red man's Medicine?" asked the young wife, as she smoothed -her hair, put a string of bright beads around her neck, and wound a red -sash round her waist. - -The old woman shook her head, a curious half-mystic light in her eyes, -her body drawn up to its full height, as though waiting for something. -"It is an old Medicine. It is of winters ago as many as the hairs of the -head. I have forgotten almost, but it was a great Medicine when there -were no white men in the land. And so it was that to every woman's -breast there hung a papoose, and every woman had her man, and the red men -were like leaves in the forest--but it was a winter of winters ago, and -the Medicine Men have forgotten; and thou hast no child! When Long Hand -comes, what will Mitiahwe say to him?" - -Mitiahwe's eyes were determined, her face was set, she flushed deeply, -then the colour fled. "What my mother would say, I will say. Shall the -white man's Medicine fail? If I wish it, then it will be so: and I will -say so." - -"But if the white man's Medicine fail?"--Swift Wing made a gesture toward -the door where the horse-shoe hung. "It is Medicine for a white man, -will it be Medicine for an Indian?" - -"Am I not a white man's wife?" - -"But if there were the Sun Medicine also, the Medicine of the days long -ago?" - -"Tell me. If you remember--Kai! but you do remember--I see it in your -face. Tell me, and I will make that Medicine also, my mother." - -"To-morrow, if I remember it--I will think, and if I remember it, -to-morrow I will tell you, my heart's blood. Maybe my dream will come -to me and tell me. Then, even after all these years, a papoose--" - -"But the boat will go at dawn to-morrow, and if he go also--" - -"Mitiahwe is young, her body is warm, her eyes are bright, the songs she -sings, her tongue--if these keep him not, and the Voice calls him still -to go, then still Mitiahwe shall whisper, and tell him--" - -"Hai-yo-hush," said the girl, and trembled a little, and put both hands -on her mother's mouth. - -For a moment she stood so, then with an exclamation suddenly turned and -ran through the doorway, and sped toward the river, and into the path -which would take her to the post, where her man traded with the Indians -and had made much money during the past six years, so that he could have -had a thousand horses and ten lodges like that she had just left. The -distance between the lodge and the post was no more than a mile, but -Mitiahwe made a detour, and approached it from behind, where she could -not be seen. Darkness was gathering now, and she could see the glimmer -of the light of lamps through the windows, and as the doors opened and -shut. No one had seen her approach, and she stole through a door which -was open at the rear of the warehousing room, and went quickly to another -door leading into the shop. There was a crack through which she could -see, and she could hear all that was said. As she came she had seen -Indians gliding through the woods with their purchases, and now the shop -was clearing fast, in response to the urging of Dingan and his partner, -a Scotch half-breed. It was evident that Dingan was at once abstracted -and excited. - -Presently only two visitors were left, a French halfbreed call Lablache, -a swaggering, vicious fellow, and the captain of the steamer, Ste. Anne, -which was to make its last trip south in the morning--even now it would -have to break its way through the young ice. Dingan's partner dropped a -bar across the door of the shop, and the four men gathered about the -fire. For a time no one spoke. At last the captain of the Ste. Anne -said: "It's a great chance, Dingan. You'll be in civilisation again, and -in a rising town of white people--Groise 'll be a city in five years, and -you can grow up and grow rich with the place. The Company asked me to -lay it all before you, and Lablache here will buy out your share of the -business, at whatever your partner and you prove its worth. You're -young; you've got everything before you. You've made a name out here for -being the best trader west of the Great Lakes, and now's your time. It's -none of my affair, of course, but I like to carry through what I'm set to -do, and the Company said, 'You bring Dingan back with you. The place is -waiting for him, and it can't wait longer than the last boat down.' -You're ready to step in when he steps out, ain't you, Lablache?" - -Lablache shook back his long hair, and rolled about in his pride. "I -give him cash for his share to-night someone is behin' me, share, yes! -It is worth so much, I pay and step in--I take the place over. I take -half the business here, and I work with Dingan's partner. I take your -horses, Dingan, I take you lodge, I take all in your lodge--everyt'ing." - -His eyes glistened, and a red spot came to each cheek as he leaned -forward. At his last word Dingan, who had been standing abstractedly -listening, as it were, swung round on him with a muttered oath, and the -skin of his face appeared to tighten. Watching through the crack of the -door, Mitiahwe saw the look she knew well, though it had never been -turned on her, and her heart beat faster. It was a look that came into -Dingan's face whenever Breaking Rock crossed his path, or when one or two -other names were mentioned in his presence, for they were names of men -who had spoken of Mitiahwe lightly, and had attempted to be jocular about -her. - -As Mitiahwe looked at him, now unknown to himself, she was conscious of -what that last word of Lablache's meant. Everyt'ing meant herself. -Lablache--who had neither the good qualities of the white man nor the -Indian, but who had the brains of the one and the subtilty of the other, -and whose only virtue was that he was a successful trader, though he -looked like a mere woodsman, with rings in his ears, gaily decorated -buckskin coat and moccasins, and a furtive smile always on his lips! -Everyt'ing!--Her blood ran cold at the thought of dropping the lodge- -curtain upon this man and herself alone. For no other man than Dingan -had her blood run faster, and he had made her life blossom. She had seen -in many a half-breed's and in many an Indian's face the look which was -now in that of Lablache, and her fingers gripped softly the thing in her -belt that had flashed out on Breaking Rock such a short while ago. As -she looked, it seemed for a moment as though Dingan would open the door -and throw Lablache out, for in quick reflection his eyes ran from the man -to the wooden bar across the door. - -"You'll talk of the shop, and the shop only, Lablache," Dingan said -grimly. "I'm not huckstering my home, and I'd choose the buyer if I was -selling. My lodge ain't to be bought, nor anything in it--not even the -broom to keep it clean of any half-breeds that'd enter it without leave." - -There was malice in the words, but there was greater malice in the tone, -and Lablache, who was bent on getting the business, swallowed his ugly -wrath, and determined that, if he got the business, he would get the -lodge also in due time; for Dingan, if he went, would not take the lodge- -or the woman with him; and Dingan was not fool enough to stay when he -could go to Groise to a sure fortune. - -The captain of the Ste. Anne again spoke. "There's another thing the -Company said, Dingan. You needn't go to Groise, not at once. You can -take a month and visit your folks down East, and lay in a stock of home- -feelings before you settle down at Groise for good. They was fair when I -put it to them that you'd mebbe want to do that. 'You tell Dingan,' they -said, 'that he can have the month glad and grateful, and a free ticket on -the railway back and forth. He can have it at once,' they said." - -Watching, Mitiahwe could see her man's face brighten, and take on a look -of longing at this suggestion; and it seemed to her that the bird she -heard in the night was calling in his ears now. Her eyes went blind a -moment. - -"The game is with you, Dingan. All the cards are in your hands; you'll -never get such another chance again; and you're only thirty," said the -captain. - -"I wish they'd ask me," said Dingan's partner with a sigh, as he looked -at Lablache. "I want my chance bad, though we've done well here--good -gosh, yes, all through Dingan." - -"The winters, they go queeck in Groise," said Lablache. "It is life all -the time, trade all the time, plenty to do and see--and a bon fortune to -make, bagosh!" - -"Your old home was in Nove Scotia, wasn't it, Dingan?" asked the captain -in a low voice. "I kem from Connecticut, and I was East to my village -las' year. It was good seein' all my old friends again; but I kem back -content, I kem back full of home-feelin's and content. You'll like the -trip, Dingan. It'll do you good." Dingan drew himself up with a start. -"All right. I guess I'll do it. Let's figure up again," he said to his -partner with a reckless air. - -With a smothered cry Mitiahwe turned and fled into the darkness, and back -to the lodge. The lodge was empty. She threw herself upon the great -couch in an agony of despair. - -A half-hour went by. Then she rose, and began to prepare supper. Her -face was aflame, her manner was determined, and once or twice her hand -went to her belt, as though to assure herself of something. - -Never had the lodge looked so bright and cheerful; never had she prepared -so appetising a supper; never had the great couch seemed so soft and rich -with furs, so homelike and so inviting after a long day's work. Never -had Mitiahwe seemed so good to look at, so graceful and alert and -refined--suffering does its work even in the wild woods, with "wild -people." Never had the lodge such an air of welcome and peace and home -as to-night; and so Dingan thought as he drew aside the wide curtains of -deerskin and entered. - -Mitiahwe was bending over the fire and appeared not to hear him. -"Mitiahwe," he said gently. - -She was singing to herself to an Indian air the words of a song Dingan -had taught her: - - "Open the door: cold is the night, and my feet are heavy, - Heap up the fire, scatter upon it the cones and the scented leaves; - Spread the soft robe on the couch for the chief that returns, - Bring forth the cup of remembrance--" - -It was like a low recitative, and it had a plaintive cadence, as of a -dove that mourned. - -"Mitiahwe," he said in a louder voice, but with a break in it too; for it -all rushed upon him, all that she had been to him--all that had made the -great West glow with life, made the air sweeter, the grass greener, the -trees more companionable and human: who it was that had given the waste -places a voice. Yet--yet, there were his own people in the East, there -was another life waiting for him, there was the life of ambition and -wealth, and, and home--and children. - -His eyes were misty as she turned to him with a little cry of surprise, -how much natural and how much assumed--for she had heard him enter--it -would have been hard to say. She was a woman, and therefore the daughter -of pretence even when most real. He caught her by both arms as she shyly -but eagerly came to him. "Good girl, good little girl," he said. He -looked round him. "Well, I've never seen our lodge look nicer than it -does to-night; and the fire, and the pot on the fire, and the smell of -the pine-cones, and the cedar-boughs, and the skins, and--" - -"And everything," she said, with a queer little laugh, as she moved away -again to turn the steaks on the fire. Everything! He started at the -word. It was so strange that she should use it by accident, when but a -little while ago he had been ready to choke the wind out of a man's body -for using it concerning herself. - -It stunned him for a moment, for the West, and the life apart from the -world of cities, had given him superstition, like that of the Indians, -whose life he had made his own. - -Herself--to leave her here, who had been so much to him? As true as the -sun she worshipped, her eyes had never lingered on another man since she -came to his lodge; and, to her mind, she was as truly sacredly married to -him as though a thousand priests had spoken, or a thousand Medicine Men -had made their incantations. She was his woman and he was her man. As -he chatted to her, telling her of much that he had done that day, and -wondering how he could tell her of all he had done, he kept looking round -the lodge, his eye resting on this or that; and everything had its own -personal history, had become part of their lodge-life, because it had a -use as between him and her, and not a conventional domestic place. Every -skin, every utensil, every pitcher and bowl and pot and curtain, had been -with them at one time or another, when it became of importance and -renowned in the story of their days and deeds. - -How could he break it to her--that he was going to visit his own people, -and that she must be alone with her mother all winter, to await his -return in the spring? His return? As he watched her sitting beside him, -helping him to his favourite dish, the close, companionable trust and -gentleness of her, her exquisite cleanness and grace in his eyes, he -asked himself if, after all, it was not true that he would return in the -spring. The years had passed without his seriously thinking of this -inevitable day. He had put it off and off, content to live each hour as -it came and take no real thought for the future; and yet, behind all was -the warning fact that he must go one day, and that Mitiahwe could not go -with him. Her mother must have known that when she let Mitiahwe come to -him. Of course; and, after all, she would find another mate, a better -mate, one of her own people. - -But her hand was in his now, and it was small and very warm, and suddenly -he shook with anger at the thought of one like Breaking Rock taking her -to his wigwam; or Lablache--this roused him to an inward fury; and -Mitiahwe saw and guessed the struggle that was going on in him, and she -leaned her head against his shoulder, and once she raised his hand to her -lips, and said, "My chief!" - -Then his face cleared again, and she got him his pipe and filled it, and -held a coal to light it; and, as the smoke curled up, and he leaned back -contentedly for the moment, she went to the door, drew open the curtains, -and, stepping outside, raised her eyes to the horseshoe. Then she said -softly to the sky: "O Sun, great Father, have pity on me, for I love him, -and would keep him. And give me bone of his bone, and one to nurse at my -breast that is of him. O Sun, pity me this night, and be near me when I -speak to him, and hear what I say!" - -"What are you doing out there, Mitiahwe?" Dingan cried; and when she -entered again he beckoned her to him. "What was it you were saying? Who -were you speaking to?" he asked. "I heard your voice." - -"I was thanking the Sun for his goodness to me. I was speaking for the -thing that is in my heart, that is life of my life," she added vaguely. - -"Well, I have something to say to you, little girl," he said, with an -effort. - -She remained erect before him waiting for the blow--outwardly calm, -inwardly crying out in pain. "Do you think you could stand a little -parting?" he asked, reaching out and touching her shoulder. - -"I have been alone before--for five days," she answered quietly. - -"But it must be longer this time." - -"How long?" she asked, with eyes fixed on his. "If it is more than a -week I will go too." - -"It is longer than a month," he said. "Then I will go." - -"I am going to see my people," he faltered. - -"By the Ste. Anne?" - -He nodded. "It is the last chance this year; but I will come back-- -in the spring." - -As he said it he saw her shrink, and his heart smote him. Four years -such as few men ever spent, and all the luck had been with him, and the -West had got into his bones! The quiet, starry nights, the wonderful -days, the hunt, the long journeys, the life free of care, and the warm -lodge; and, here, the great couch--ah, the cheek pressed to his, the lips -that whispered at his ear, the smooth arm round his neck. It all rushed -upon him now. His people? His people in the East, who had thwarted his -youth, vexed and cramped him, saw only evil in his widening desires, and -threw him over when he came out West--the scallywag, they called him, who -had never wronged a man or-or a woman! Never--wronged-a-woman? The -question sprang to his lips now. Suddenly he saw it all in a new light. -White or brown or red, this heart and soul and body before him were all -his, sacred to him; he was in very truth her "Chief." - -Untutored as she was, she read him, felt what was going on in him. She -saw the tears spring to his eyes. Then, coming close to him she said -softly, slowly: "I must go with you if you go, because you must be with -me when--oh, hai-yai, my chief, shall we go from here? Here in this -lodge wilt thou be with thine own people--thine own, thou and I--and -thine to come." The great passion in her heart made the lie seem very -truth. - -With a cry he got to his feet, and stood staring at her for a moment, -scarcely comprehending; then suddenly he clasped her in his arms. - -"Mitiahwe--Mitiahwe, oh, my little girl!" he cried. "You and me--and -our own--our own people!" Kissing her, he drew her down beside him on -the couch. "Tell me again--it is so at last?" he said, and she -whispered in his ear once more. - -In the middle of the night he said to her, "Some day, perhaps, we will -go East--some day, perhaps." - -"But now?" she asked softly. - -"Not now--not if I know it," he answered. "I've got my heart nailed to -the door of this lodge." - -As he slept she got quietly out, and, going to the door of the lodge, -reached up a hand and touched the horse-shoe. - -"Be good Medicine to me," she said. Then she prayed. "O Sun, pity me -that it may be as I have said to him. O pity me, great Father!" - -In the days to come Swift Wing said that it was her Medicine; when her -hand was burned to the wrist in the dark ritual she had performed with -the Medicine Man the night that Mitiahwe fought for her man--but Mitiahwe -said it was her Medicine, the horse-shoe, which brought one of Dingan's -own people to the lodge, a little girl with Mitiahwe's eyes and form and -her father's face. Truth has many mysteries, and the faith of the woman -was great; and so it was that, to the long end, Mitiahwe kept her man. -But truly she was altogether a woman, and had good fortune. - - - - - - -ONCE AT RED MAN'S RIVER - -"It's got to be settled to-night, Nance. This game is up here, up for -ever. The redcoat police from Ottawa are coming, and they'll soon be -roostin' in this post; the Injuns are goin', the buffaloes are most gone, -and the fur trade's dead in these parts. D'ye see?" - -The woman did not answer the big, broad-shouldered man bending over her, -but remained looking into the fire with wide, abstracted eyes and a face -somewhat set. - -"You and your brother Bantry's got to go. This store ain't worth a cent -now. The Hudson's Bay Company'll come along with the redcoats, and -they'll set up a nice little Sunday-school business here for what they -call 'agricultural settlers.' There'll be a railway, and the Yankees'll -send up their marshals to work with the redcoats on the border, and--" - -"And the days of smuggling will be over," put in the girl in a low voice. -"No more bull-wackers and muleskinners 'whooping it up'; no more -Blackfeet and Piegans drinking alcohol and water, and cutting each -others' throats. A nice quiet time coming on the border, Abe, eh?" - -The man looked at her queerly. She was not prone to sarcasm, she had not -been given to sentimentalism in the past; she had taken the border-life -as it was, had looked it straight between the eyes. She had lived up to -it, or down to it, without any fuss, as good as any man in any phase of -the life, and the only white woman in this whole West country. It was -not in the words, but in the tone, that Abe Hawley found something -unusual and defamatory. - -"Why, gol darn it, Nance, what's got into you? You bin a man out West, -as good a pioneer as ever was on the border. But now you don't sound -friendly to what's been the game out here, and to all of us that've been -risking our lives to get a livin'." - -"What did I say?" asked the girl, unmoved. - -"It ain't what you said, it's the sound o' your voice." - -"You don't know my voice, Abe. It ain't always the same. You ain't -always about; you don't always hear it." - -He caught her arm suddenly. "No, but I want to hear it always. I want -to be always where you are, Nance. That's what's got to be settled -to-day--to-night." - -"Oh, it's got to be settled to-night!" said the girl meditatively, -kicking nervously at a log on the fire. "It takes two to settle a thing -like that, and there's only one says it's got to be settled. Maybe it -takes more than two--or three--to settle a thing like that." Now she -laughed mirthlessly. - -The man started, and his face flushed with anger; then he put a hand on -himself, drew a step back, and watched her. - -"One can settle a thing, if there's a dozen in it. You see, Nance, you -and Bantry's got to close out. He's fixing it up to-night over at -Dingan's Drive, and you can't go it alone when you quit this place. Now, -it's this way: you can go West with Bantry, or you can go North with me. -Away North there's buffalo and deer, and game aplenty, up along the -Saskatchewan, and farther up on the Peace River. It's going to be all -right up there for half a lifetime, and we can have it in our own way -yet. There'll be no smuggling, but there'll be trading, and land to get; -and, mebbe, there'd be no need of smuggling, for we can make it, I know -how--good white whiskey--and we'll still have this free life for our own. -I can't make up my mind to settle down to a clean collar and going to -church on Sundays, and all that. And the West's in your bones too. You -look like the West--" - -The girl's face brightened with pleasure, and she gazed at him steadily. - -"You got its beauty and its freshness, and you got its heat and cold--" - -She saw the tobacco-juice stain at the corners of his mouth, she became -conscious of the slight odour of spirits in the air, and the light in her -face lowered in intensity. - -"You got the ways of the deer in your walk, the song o' the birds in your -voice; and you're going North with me, Nance, for I bin talkin' to you -stiddy four years. It's a long time to wait on the chance, for there's -always women to be got, same as others have done--men like Dingan with -Injun girls, and men like Tobey with half-breeds. But I ain't bin -lookin' that way. I bin lookin' only towards you." He laughed eagerly, -and lifted a tin cup of whiskey standing on a table near. "I'm lookin' -towards you now, Nance. Your health and mine together. It's got to be -settled now. You got to go to the 'Cific Coast with Bantry, or North -with me." - -The girl jerked a shoulder and frowned a little. He seemed so sure of -himself. - -"Or South with Nick Pringle, or East with someone else," she said -quizzically. "There's always four quarters to the compass, even when Abe -Hawley thinks he owns the world and has a mortgage on eternity. I'm not -going West with Bantry, but there's three other points that's open." - -With an oath the man caught her by the shoulders, and swung her round to -face him. He was swelling with anger. "You--Nick Pringle, that trading -cheat, that gambler! After four years, I--" - -"Let go my shoulders," she said quietly. "I'm not your property. Go and -get some Piegan girl to bully. Keep your hands off. I'm not a bronco -for you to bit and bridle. You've got no rights. You--" Suddenly she -relented, seeing the look in his face, and realising that, after all, it -was a tribute to herself that she could keep him for four years and rouse -him to such fury--"but yes, Abe," she added, "you have some rights. -We've been good friends all these years, and you've been all right out -here. You said some nice things about me just now, and I liked it, even -if it was as if you learned it out of a book. I've got no po'try in me; -I'm plain homespun. I'm a sapling, I'm not any prairie-flower, but I -like when I like, and I like a lot when I like. I'm a bit of hickory, -I'm not a prairie-flower--" - -"Who said you was a prairie-flower? Did I? Who's talking about prairie- -flowers--" - -He stopped suddenly, turned round at the sound of a footstep behind him, -and saw, standing in a doorway leading to another room, a man who was -digging his knuckles into his eyes and stifling a yawn. He was a -refined-looking stripling of not more than twenty-four, not tall, but -well made, and with an air of breeding, intensified rather than hidden by -his rough clothes. - -"Je-rick-ety! How long have I slept?" he said, blinking at the two -beside the fire. "How long?" he added, with a flutter of anxiety in his -tone. - -"I said I'd wake you," said the girl, coming forwards. "You needn't have -worried." - -"I don't worry," answered the young man. "I dreamed myself awake, I -suppose. I got dreaming of redcoats and U. S. marshals, and an ambush in -the Barfleur Coulee, and--" He saw a secret, warning gesture from the -girl, and laughed, then turned to Abe and looked him in the face. "Oh, I -know him! Abe Hawley's all O. K.--I've seen him over at Dingan's Drive. -Honour among rogues. We're all in it. How goes it--all right?" he added -carelessly to Hawley, and took a step forwards, as though to shake hands. -Seeing the forbidding look by which he was met, however, he turned to the -girl again, as Hawley muttered something they could not hear. - -"What time is it?" he asked. - -"It's nine o'clock," answered the girl, her eyes watching his every -movement, her face alive. - -"Then the moon's up almost?" - -"It'll be up in an hour." - -"Jerickety! Then I've got to get ready." He turned to the other room -again and entered. - -"College pup!" said Hawley under his breath savagely. "Why didn't you -tell me he was here?" - -"Was it any of your business, Abe?" she rejoined quietly. - -"Hiding him away here--" - -"Hiding? Who's been hiding him? He's doing what you've done. He's -smuggling--the last lot for the traders over by Dingan's Drive. He'll -get it there by morning. He has as much right here as you. What's got -into you, Abe?" - -"What does he know about the business? Why, he's a college man from the -East. I've heard o' him. Ain't got no more sense for this life than a -dicky-bird. White-faced college pup! What's he doing out here? If -you're a friend o' his, you'd better look after him. He's green." - -"He's going East again," she said, "and if I don't go West with Bantry, -or South over to Montana with Nick Pringle, or North--" - -"Nancy--" His eyes burned, his lips quivered. - -She looked at him and wondered at the power she had over this bully of -the border, who had his own way with most people, and was one of the most -daring fighters, hunters, and smugglers in the country. He was cool, -hard, and well-in-hand in his daily life, and yet, where she was -concerned, "went all to pieces," as someone else had said about himself -to her. - -She was not without the wiles and tact of her sex. "You go now, and come -back, Abe," she said in a soft voice. "Come back in an hour. Come back -then, and I'll tell you which way I'm going from here." - -He was all right again. "It's with you, Nancy," he said eagerly. "I bin -waiting four years." - -As he closed the door behind him the "college pup" entered the room -again. "Oh, Abe's gone!" he said excitedly. "I hoped you'd get rid of -the old rip-roarer. I wanted to be alone with you for a while. I don't -really need to start yet. With the full moon I can do it before -daylight." Then, with quick warmth, "Ah, Nancy, Nancy, you're a flower-- -the flower of all the prairies," he added, catching her hand and laughing -into her eyes. - -She flushed, and for a moment seemed almost bewildered. His boldness, -joined to an air of insinuation and understanding, had influenced her -greatly from the first moment they had met two months ago, as he was -going South on his smuggling enterprise. The easy way in which he had -talked to her, the extraordinary sense he seemed to have of what was -going on in her mind, the confidential meaning in voice and tone and -words had, somehow, opened up a side of her nature hitherto unexplored. -She had talked with him freely then, for it was only when he left her -that he said what he instinctively knew she would remember till they met -again. His quick comments, his indirect but acute questions, his -exciting and alluring reminiscences of the East, his subtle yet seemingly -frank compliments, had only stimulated a new capacity in her, evoked -comparisons of this delicate-looking, fine-faced gentleman with the men -of the West by whom she was surrounded. But later he appeared to stumble -into expressions of admiration for her, as though he was carried off his -feet and had been stunned by her charm. He had done it all like a -master. He had not said that she was beautiful--she knew she was not-- -but that she was wonderful, and fascinating, and with "something about -her" he had never seen in all his life, like her own prairies, thrilling, -inspiring, and adorable. His first look at her had seemed full of -amazement. She had noticed that, and thought it meant only that he was -surprised to find a white girl out here among smugglers, hunters, squaw- -men, and Indians. But he said that the first look at her had made him -feel things-feel life and women different from ever before; and he had -never seen anyone like her, nor a face with so much in it. It was all -very brilliantly done. - -"You make me want to live," he had said, and she, with no knowledge -of the nuances of language, had taken it literally, and had asked him -if it had been his wish to die; and he had responded to her mistaken -interpretation of his meaning, saying that he had had such sorrow he had -not wanted to live. As he said it his face looked, in truth, overcome by -some deep inward care; so that there came a sort of feeling she had never -had so far for any man--that he ought to have someone to look after him. -This was the first real stirring of the maternal and protective spirit -in her towards men, though it had shown itself amply enough regarding -animals and birds. He had said he had not wanted to live, and yet he -had come out West in order to try and live, to cure the trouble that had -started in his lungs. The Eastern doctors had told him that the rough -outdoor life would cure him, or nothing would, and he had vanished from -the college walls and the pleasant purlieus of learning and fashion into -the wilds. He had not lied directly to her when he said that he had had -deep trouble; but he had given the impression that he was suffering from -wrongs which had broken his spirit and ruined his health. Wrongs there -certainly had been in his life, by whomever committed. - -Two months ago he had left this girl with her mind full of memories of -what he had said to her, and there was something in the sound of the -slight cough following his farewell words which had haunted her ever -since. Her tremendous health and energy, the fire of life burning so -brightly in her, reached out towards this man living on so narrow a -margin of force, with no reserve for any extra strain, with just enough -for each day's use and no more. Four hours before he had come again with -his team of four mules and an Indian youth, having covered forty miles -since his last stage. She was at the door and saw him coming while he -was yet along distance off. Some instinct had told her to watch that -afternoon, for she knew of his intended return and of his dangerous -enterprise. The Indians had trailed south and east, the traders had -disappeared with them, her brother Bantry had gone up and over to -Dingan's Drive, and, save for a few loiterers and last hangers-on, she -was alone with what must soon be a deserted post; its walls, its great -enclosed yard, and its gun-platforms (for it had been fortified) left for -law and order to enter upon, in the persons of the red-coated watchmen of -the law. - -Out of the South, from over the border, bringing the last great smuggled -load of whiskey which was to be handed over at Dingan's Drive, and then -floated on Red Man's River to settlements up North, came the "college -pup," Kelly Lambton, worn out, dazed with fatigue, but smiling too, for -a woman's face was ever a tonic to his blood since he was big enough to -move in life for himself. It needed courage--or recklessness--to run the -border now; for, as Abe Hawley had said, the American marshals were on -the pounce, the red-coated mounted police were coming west from Ottawa, -and word had winged its way along the prairie that these redcoats were -only a few score miles away, and might be at Fort Fair Desire at any -moment. The trail to Dingan's Drive lay past it. Through Barfleur -Coulee, athwart a great open stretch of country, along a wooded belt, and -then, suddenly, over a ridge, Dingan's Drive and Red Man's River would be -reached. - -The Government had a mind to make an example, if necessary, by killing -some smugglers in conflict, and the United States marshals had been -goaded by vanity and anger at one or two escapes "to have something for -their money," as they said. That, in their language, meant, "to let the -red run," and Kelly Lambton had none too much blood to lose. - -He looked very pale and beaten as he held Nance Machell's hands now, and -called her a prairie-flower, as he had done when he left her two months -before. On his arrival but now he had said little, for he saw that she -was glad to see him, and he was dead for sleep, after thirty-six hours of -ceaseless travel and watching and danger. Now, with the most perilous -part of his journey still before him, and worn physically as he was, his -blood was running faster as he looked into the girl's face, and something -in her abundant force and bounding life drew him to her. Such vitality -in a man like Abe Hawley would have angered him almost, as it did a -little time ago, when Abe was there; but possessed by the girl, it roused -in him a hunger to draw from the well of her perfect health, from the -unused vigour of her being, something for himself. The touch of her -hands warmed him, in the fulness of her life, in the strong eloquence of -face and form, he forgot she was not beautiful. The lightness passed -from his words, and his face became eager. - -"Flower, yes, the flower of the life of the West--that's what I mean," -he said. "You are like an army marching. When I look at you, my blood -runs faster. I want to march too. When I hold your hand I feel that -life's worth living--I want to do things." - -She drew her hand away rather awkwardly. She had not now that command of -herself which had ever been easy with the men of the West, except, -perhaps, with Abe Hawley when-- - -But with an attempt, only half-meant, to turn the topic, she said: "You -must be starting if you want to get through to-night. If the redcoats -catch you this side of Barfleur Coulee, or in the Coulee itself, you'll -stand no chance. I heard they was only thirty miles north this -afternoon. Maybe they'll come straight on here to-night, instead of -camping. If they have news of your coming, they might. You can't tell." - -"You're right." He caught her hand again. "I've got to be going now. -But Nance--Nance--Nancy, I want to stay here, here with you; or to take -you with me." - -She drew back. "What do you mean?" she asked. "Take me with you--me-- -where?" - -"East--away down East." - -Her brain throbbed, her pulses beat so hard. She scarcely knew what to -say, did not know what she said. "Why do you do this kind of thing? Why -do you smuggle?" she asked. "You wasn't brought up to this." - -"To get this load of stuff through is life and death to me," he answered. -"I've made six thousand dollars out here. That's enough to start me -again in the East, where I lost everything. But I've got to have six -hundred dollars clear for the travel--railways and things; and I'm having -this last run to get it. Then I've finished with the West, I guess. My -health's better; the lung is closed up, I've only got a little cough now -and again; and I'm off East. I don't want to go alone." He suddenly -caught her in his arms. "I want you--you, to go with me, Nancy--Nance!" - -Her brain swam. To leave the West behind, to go East to a new life -full of pleasant things, as this man's wife! Her great heart rose, and -suddenly the mother in her as well as the woman in her was captured by -his wooing. She had never known what it was to be wooed like this. - -She was about to answer, when there came a sharp knock at the door -leading from the backyard, and Lambton's Indian lad entered. "The -soldier--he come--many. I go over the ridge; I see. They come quick -here," he said. - -Nance gave a startled cry, and Lambton turned to the other room for his -pistols, overcoat, and cap, when there was the sound of horses' hoofs, -the door suddenly opened, and an officer stepped inside. - -"You're wanted for smuggling, Lambton," he said brusquely. "Don't stir!" -In his hand was a revolver. - -"Oh, bosh! Prove it," answered the young man, pale and startled, but -cool in speech and action. "We'll prove it all right. The stuff is -hereabouts." The girl said something to the officer in the Chinook -language. She saw he did not understand. Then she spoke quickly to -Lambton in the same tongue. - -"Keep him here a bit," she said. "His men haven't come yet. Your outfit -is well hid. I'll see if I can get away with it before they find it. -They'll follow, and bring you with them, that's sure. So if I have luck -and get through, we'll meet at Dingan's Drive." - -Lambton's face brightened. He quickly gave her a few directions in -Chinook, and told her what to do at Dingan's if she got there first. -Then she was gone. The officer did not understand what Nance had said, -but he realised that, whatever she intended to do, she had an advantage -over him. With an unnecessary courage he had ridden on alone to make his -capture, and, as it proved, without prudence. He had got his man, but he -had not got the smuggled whiskey and alcohol he had come to seize. There -was no time to be lost. The girl had gone before he realised it. What -had she said to the prisoner? He was foolish enough to ask Lambton, and -Lambton replied coolly: "She said she'd get you some supper, but she -guessed it would have to be cold--What's your name? Are you a colonel, -or a captain, or only a principal private?" - -"I am Captain MacFee, Lambton. And you'll now bring me where your outfit -is. March!" - -The pistol was still in his hand, and he had a determined look in -his eye. Lambton saw it. He was aware of how much power lay in the -threatening face before him, and how eager that power was to make itself -felt, and provide "Examples"; but he took his chances. - -"I'll march all right," he answered, "but I'll march to where you tell -me. You can't have it both ways. You can take me, because you've found -me, and you can take my outfit too when you've found it; but I'm not -doing your work, not if I know it." - -There was a blaze of anger in the eyes of the officer, and it looked for -an instant as though something of the lawlessness of the border was going -to mark the first step of the Law in the Wilderness, but he bethought -himself in time, and said quietly, yet in a voice which Lambton knew he -must heed: - -"Put on your things-quick." - -When this was accomplished, and MacFee had secured the smuggler's -pistols, he said again, "March, Lambton." - -Lambton marched through the moonlit night towards the troop of men who -had come to set up the flag of order in the plains and hills, and as he -went his keen ear heard his own mules galloping away down towards the -Barfleur Coulee. His heart thumped in his breast. This girl, this -prairie-flower, was doing this for him, was risking her life, was -breaking the law for him. If she got through, and handed over the -whiskey to those who were waiting for it, and it got bundled into the -boats going North before the redcoats reached Dingan's Drive, it would -be as fine a performance as the West had ever seen; and he would be six -hundred dollars to the good. He listened to the mules galloping, till -the sounds had died into the distance, but he saw now that his captor -had heard too, and that the pursuit would be desperate. - -A half-hour later it began, with MacFee at the head, and a dozen troopers -pounding behind, weary, hungry, bad-tempered, ready to exact payment for -their hardships and discouragement. - -They had not gone a dozen miles when a shouting horseman rode furiously -on them from behind. They turned with carbines cocked, but it was Abe -Hawley who cursed them, flung his fingers in their faces, and rode on -harder and harder. Abe had got the news from one of Nancy's half-breeds, -and, with the devil raging in his heart, had entered on the chase. His -spirit was up against them all; against the Law represented by the -troopers camped at Fort Fair Desire, against the troopers and their -captain speeding after Nancy Machell--his Nonce, who was risking her -life and freedom for the hated, pale-faced smuggler riding between the -troopers; and his spirit was up against Nance herself. - -Nance had said to him, "Come back in an hour," and he had come back to -find her gone. She had broken her word. She had deceived him. She had -thrown the four years of his waiting to the winds, and a savage lust was -in his heart, which would not be appeased till he had done some evil -thing to someone. - -The girl and the Indian lad were pounding through the night with ears -strained to listen for hoof-beats coming after, with eyes searching -forward into the trail for swollen creeks and direful obstructions. -Through Barfleur Coulee it was a terrible march, for there was no road, -and again and again they were nearly overturned, while wolves hovered in -their path, ready to reap a midnight harvest. But once in the open -again, with the full moonlight on their trail, the girl's spirits rose. -If she could do this thing for the man who had looked into her eyes as no -one had ever done, what a finish to her days in the West! For they were -finished, finished for ever, and she was going--she was going East; not -West with Bantry, nor South with Nick Pringle, nor North with Abe Hawley, -ah, Abe Hawley, he had been a good friend, he had a great heart, he was -the best man of all the western men she had known; but another man had -come from the East, a man who had roused something in her never felt -before, a man who had said she was wonderful; and he needed someone to -take good care of him, to make him love life again. Abe would have been -all right if Lambton had never come, and she had meant to marry Abe in -the end; but it was different now, and Abe must get over it. Yet she had -told Abe to come back in an hour. He was sure to do it; and, when he had -done it, and found her gone on this errand, what would he do? She knew -what he would do. He would hurt someone. He would follow too. But at -Dingan's Drive, if she reached it before the troopers and before Abe, -and did the thing she had set out to do; and, because no whiskey could -be found, Lambton must go free; and they all stood there together, what -would be the end? Abe would be terrible; but she was going East, not -North, and when the time came she would face it and put things right -somehow. - -The night seemed endless to her fixed and anxious eyes and mind, yet dawn -came, and there had fallen no sound of hoof-beats on her ear. The ridge -above Dingan's Drive was reached and covered, but yet there was no sign -of her pursuers. At Red Man's River she delivered her load of contraband -to the traders waiting for it, and saw it loaded into the boats and -disappear beyond the wooded bend above Dingan's. - -Then she collapsed into the arms of her brother Bantry, and was carried, -fainting, into Dingan's Lodge. A half-hour later MacFee and his troopers -and Lambton came. MacFee grimly searched the post and the shore, but he -saw by the looks of all that he had been foiled. He had no proof of -anything, and Lambton must go free. - -"You've fooled us," he said to Nance sourly, yet with a kind of -admiration too. "Through you they got away with it. But I wouldn't -try it again, if I were you." - -"Once is enough," answered the girl laconically, as Lambton, set free, -caught both her hands in his and whispered in her ear. - -MacFee turned to the others. "You'd better drop this kind of thing," he -said. "I mean business." They saw the troopers by the horses, and -nodded. - -"Well, we was about quit of it anyhow," said Bantry. "We've had all we -want out here." - -A loud laugh went up, and it was still ringing when there burst into the -group, out of the trail, Abe Hawley, on foot. - -He looked round the group savagely till his eyes rested on Nance and -Lambton. "I'm last in," he said in a hoarse voice. "My horse broke its -leg cutting across to get here before her--" He waved a hand towards -Nance. "It's best stickin' to old trails, not tryin' new ones." His -eyes were full of hate as he looked at Lambton. "I'm keeping to old -trails. I'm for goin' North, far up, where these two-dollar-a-day and -hash-and-clothes people ain't come yet." He made a contemptuous gesture -toward MacFee and his troopers. "I'm goin' North--" He took a step -forward and fixed his bloodshot eyes on Nance. "I say I'm goin' North. -You comin' with me, Nance?" He took off his cap to her. - -He was haggard, his buckskins were torn, his hair was dishevelled, and -he limped a little; but he was a massive and striking figure, and MacFee -watched him closely, for there was that in his eyes which meant trouble. -"You said, 'Come back in an hour,' Nance, and I come back, as I said I -would," he went on. "You didn't stand to your word. I've come to git -it. I'm goin' North, Nance, and I bin waitin' for four years for you to -go with me. Are you comin'?" - -His voice was quiet, but it had a choking kind of sound, and it struck -strangely in the ears of all. MacFee came nearer. - -"Are you comin' with me, Nance, dear?" - -She reached a hand towards Lambton, and he took it, but she did not -speak. Something in Abe's eyes overwhelmed her--something she had never -seen before, and it seemed to stifle speech in her. Lambton spoke -instead. - -"She's going East with me," he said. "That's settled." - -MacFee started. Then he caught Abe's arm. "Wait!" he said -peremptorily. "Wait one minute." There was something in his voice -which held Abe back for the instant. - -"You say she is going East with you," MacFee said sharply to Lambton. -"What for?" He fastened Lambton with his eyes, and Lambton quailed. -"Have you told her you've got a wife--down East? I've got your history, -Lambton. Have you told her that you've got a wife you married when you -were at college--and as good a girl as ever lived?" - -It had come with terrible suddenness even to Lambton, and he was too -dazed to make any reply. With a cry of shame and anger Nancy started -back. Growling with rage and hate, Abe Hawley sprang toward Lambton, -but the master of the troopers stepped between. - -No one could tell who moved first, or who first made the suggestion, -for the minds of all were the same, and the general purpose was -instantaneous; but in the fraction of a minute Lambton, under menace, -was on his hands and knees crawling to the riverside. Watchful, but not -interfering, the master of the troopers saw him set adrift in a canoe -without a paddle, while he was pelted with mud from the shore. - -The next morning at sunrise Abe Hawley and the girl he had waited for so -long started on the North trail together, MacFee, master of the troopers -and justice of the peace, handing over the marriage lines. - - - - - - -THE STROBE OF THE HOUR - -"They won't come to-night--sure." - -The girl looked again towards the west, where, here and there, bare -poles, or branches of trees, or slips of underbrush marked a road made -across the plains through the snow. The sun was going down golden red, -folding up the sky a wide soft curtain of pink and mauve and deep purple -merging into the fathomless blue, where already the stars were beginning -to quiver. The house stood on the edge of a little forest, which had -boldly asserted itself in the wide flatness. At this point in the west -the prairie merged into an undulating territory, where hill and wood -rolled away from the banks of the Saskatchewan, making another England in -beauty. The forest was a sort of advance-post of that land of beauty. - -Yet there was beauty too on this prairie, though there was nothing to the -east but snow and the forest so far as eye could see. Nobility and peace -and power brooded over the white world. - -As the girl looked, it seemed as though the bosom of the land rose and -fell. She had felt this vibrating life beat beneath the frozen surface. -Now, as she gazed, she smiled sadly to herself, with drooping eyelids -looking out from beneath strong brows. - -"I know you--I know you," she said aloud. "You've got to take your toll. -And when you're lying asleep like that, or pretending to, you reach up- -and kill. And yet you can be kind-ah, but you can be kind and beautiful! -But you must have your toll one way or t'other." She sighed and paused; -then, after a moment, looking along the trail--"I don't expect they'll -come to-night, and mebbe not to-morrow, if--if they stay for THAT." - -Her eyes closed, she shivered a little. Her lips drew tight, and her -face seemed suddenly to get thinner. "But dad wouldn't--no, he couldn't, -not considerin'--" Again she shut her eyes in pain. - -Her face was now turned from the western road by which she had expected -her travellers, and towards the east, where already the snow was taking -on a faint bluish tint, a reflection of the sky deepening nightwards in -that half-circle of the horizon. Distant and a little bleak and -cheerless the half-circle was looking now. - -"No one--not for two weeks," she said, in comment on the eastern trail, -which was so little frequented in winter, and this year had been less -travelled than ever. "It would be nice to have a neighbour," she added, -as she faced the west and the sinking sun again. "I get so lonely--just -minutes I get lonely. But it's them minutes that seem to count more than -all the rest when they come. I expect that's it--we don't live in -months and years, but just in minutes. It doesn't take long for an -earthquake to do its work--it's seconds then. . . . P'r'aps dad won't -even come to-morrow," she added, as she laid her hand on the latch. "It -never seemed so long before, not even when he's been away a week." She -laughed bitterly. "Even bad company's better than no company at all. -Sure. And Mickey has been here always when dad's been away past times. -Mickey was a fool, but he was company; and mebbe he'd have been better -company if he'd been more of a scamp and less a fool. I dunno, but I -really think he would. Bad company doesn't put you off so." - -There was a scratching at the inside of the door. "My, if I didn't -forget Shako," she said, "and he dying for a run!" - -She opened the door quickly, and out jumped a Russian dog of almost full -breed, with big, soft eyes like those of his mistress, and with the air -of the north in every motion--like his mistress also. - -"Come, Shako, a run--a run!" - -An instant after she was flying off on a path towards the woods, her -short skirts flying and showing limbs as graceful and shapely as those of -any woman of that world of social grace which she had never seen; for she -was a prairie girl through and through, born on the plains and fed on its -scanty fare--scanty as to variety, at least. Backwards and forwards they -ran, the girl shouting like a child of ten,--she was twenty-three, her -eyes flashing, her fine white teeth showing, her hands thrown up in sheer -excess of animal life, her hair blowing about her face-brown, strong -hair, wavy and plentiful. - -Fine creature as she was, her finest features were her eyes and her -hands. The eyes might have been found in the most savage places; the -hands, however, only could have come through breeding. She had got them -honestly; for her mother was descended from an old family of the French -province. That was why she had the name of Loisette--and had a touch of -distinction. It was the strain of the patrician in the full blood of the -peasant; but it gave her something which made her what she was--what she -had been since a child, noticeable and besought, sometimes beloved. It -was too strong a nature to compel love often, but it never failed to -compel admiration. Not greatly a creature of words, she had become moody -of late; and even now, alive with light and feeling and animal life, she -suddenly stopped her romp and run, and called the dog to her. - -"Heel, Shako!" she said, and made for the door of the little house, -which looked so snug and home-like. She paused before she came to the -door, to watch the smoke curling up from the chimney straight as a -column, for there was not a breath of air stirring. The sun was almost -gone and the strong bluish light was settling on everything, giving even -the green spruce trees a curious burnished tone. - -Swish! Thud! She faced the woods quickly. It was only a sound that she -had heard how many hundreds of times! It was the snow slipping from some -broad branch of the fir trees to the ground. Yet she started now. -Something was on her mind, agitating her senses, affecting her self- -control. - -"I'll be jumping out of my boots when the fire snaps, or the frost cracks -the ice, next," she said aloud contemptuously. "I dunno what's the -matter with me. I feel as if someone was hiding somewhere ready to pop -out on me. I haven't never felt like that before." - -She had formed the habit of talking to herself, for it had seemed at -first, as she was left alone when her father went trapping or upon -journeys for the Government, that by and by she would start at the sound -of her own voice, if she didn't think aloud. So she was given to -soliloquy, defying the old belief that people who talked to themselves -were going mad. She laughed at that. She said that birds sang to -themselves and didn't go mad, and crickets chirruped, and frogs croaked, -and owls hooted, and she would talk and not go crazy either. So she -talked to herself and to Shako when she was alone. - -How quiet it was inside when her light supper was eaten, bread and beans -and pea-soup--she had got this from her French mother. Now she sat, her -elbows on her knees, her chin on her hands, looking into the fire. Shako -was at her feet upon the great musk-ox rug, which her father had got on -one of his hunting trips in the Athabasca country years ago. It belonged -as she belonged. It breathed of the life of the north-land, for the -timbers of the hut were hewn cedar; the rough chimney, the seats, and the -shelves on which a few books made a fair show beside the bright tins and -the scanty crockery, were of pine; and the horned heads of deer and -wapiti made pegs for coats and caps, and rests for guns and rifles. It -was a place of comfort; it had an air of well-to-do thrift, even as the -girl's dress, though plain, was made of good sound stuff, grey, with a -touch of dark red to match the auburn of her hair. - -A book lay open in her lap, but she had scarcely tried to read it. She -had put it down after a few moments fixed upon it. It had sent her -thoughts off into a world where her life had played a part too big for -books, too deep for the plummet of any save those who had lived through -the storm of life's trials; and life when it is bitter to the young is -bitter with an agony the old never know. At last she spoke to herself. - -"She knows now. Now she knows what it is, how it feels--your heart like -red-hot coals, and something in your head that's like a turnscrew, and -you want to die and can't, for you've got to live and suffer." - -Again she was quiet, and only the dog's heavy breathing, the snap of the -fire, or the crack of a timber in the deadly frost broke the silence. -Inside it was warm and bright and home-like; outside it was twenty -degrees below zero, and like some vast tomb where life itself was -congealed, and only the white stars, low, twinkling, and quizzical, -lived-a life of sharp corrosion, not of fire. - -Suddenly she raised her head and listened. The dog did the same. None -but those whose lives are lived in lonely places can be so acute, so -sensitive to sound. It was a feeling delicate and intense, the whole -nature getting the vibration. You could have heard nothing had you been -there; none but one who was of the wide spaces could have done so. But -the dog and the woman felt, and both strained towards the window. Again -they heard, and started to their feet. It was far, far away, and still -you could not have heard; but now they heard clearly--a cry in the night, -a cry of pain and despair. The girl ran to the window and pulled aside -the bearskin curtain which had completely shut out the light. Then she -stirred the fire, threw a log upon it, snuffed the candles, hastily put -on her moccasins, fur coat, wool cap, and gloves, and went to the door -quickly, the dog at her heels. Opening it, she stepped out into the -night. - -"Qui va la? Who is it? Where?" she called, and strained towards the -west. She thought it might be her father or Mickey the hired man, or -both. - -The answer came from the east, out of the homeless, neighbourless, empty -east--a cry, louder now. There were only stars, and the night was dark, -though not deep dark. She sped along the prairie road as fast as she -could, once or twice stopping to call aloud. In answer to her calls the -voice sounded nearer and nearer. Now suddenly she left the trail and -bore away northward. At last the voice was very near. Presently a -figure appeared ahead, staggering towards her. - -"Qui va la? Who is it?" she asked. - -"Ba'tiste Caron," was the reply in English, in a faint voice. She was -beside him in an instant. - -"What has happened? Why are you off the trail?" she said, and supported -him. - -"My Injun stoled my dogs and run off," he replied. "I run after. Then, -when I am to come to the trail"--he paused to find the English word, and -could not--"encore to this trail I no can. So. Ah, bon Dieu, it has -so awful!" He swayed and would have fallen, but she caught him, bore -him up. She was so strong, and he was as slight as a girl, though tall. - -"When was that?" she asked. - -"Two nights ago," he answered, and swayed. "Wait," she said, and pulled -a flask from her pocket. "Drink this-quick." - -He raised it to his lips, but her hand was still on it, and she only let -him take a little. Then she drew it away, though she had almost to use -force, he was so eager for it. Now she took a biscuit from her pocket. - -"Eat; then some more brandy after," she urged. "Come on; it's not far. -See, there's the light," she added cheerily, raising her head towards the -hut. - -"I saw it just when I have fall down--it safe me. I sit down to die-- -like that! But it safe me, that light--so. Ah, bon Dieu, it was so far, -and I want eat so!" Already he had swallowed the biscuit. - -"When did you eat last?" she asked, as she urged him on. - -"Two nights--except for one leetla piece of bread--O--O--I fin' it in my -pocket. Grace! I have travel so far. Jesu, I think it ees ten thousan' -miles I go. But I mus' go on, I mus' go--O--certainement." - -The light came nearer and nearer. His footsteps quickened, though he -staggered now and then, and went like a horse that has run its race, but -is driven upon its course again, going heavily with mouth open and head -thrown forwards and down. - -"But I mus' to get there, an' you-you will to help me, eh?" - -Again he swayed, but her strong arm held him up. As they ran on, in a -kind of dog-trot, her hand firm upon his arm--he seemed not to notice it ---she became conscious, though it was half dark, of what sort of man she -had saved. He was about her own age, perhaps a year or two older, with -little, if any, hair upon his face, save a slight moustache. His eyes, -deep sunken as they were, she made out were black, and the face, though -drawn and famished, had a handsome look. Presently she gave him another -sip of brandy, and he quickened his steps, speaking to himself the while. - -"I haf to do it--if I lif. It is to go, go, go, till I get." - -Now they came to the hut where the firelight flickered on the window- -pane; the door was flung open, and, as he stumbled on the threshold, she -helped him into the warm room. She almost pushed him over to the fire. - -Divested of his outer coat, muffler, cap, and leggings, he sat on a bench -before the fire, his eyes wandering from the girl to the flames, and his -hands clasping and unclasping between his knees. His eyes dilating with -hunger, he watched her preparations for his supper; and when at last--and -she had been but a moment--it was placed before him, his head swam, and -he turned faint with the stress of his longing. He would have swallowed -a basin of pea-soup at a draught, but she stopped him, holding the basin -till she thought he might venture again. Then came cold beans, and some -meat which she toasted at the fire and laid upon his plate. They had not -spoken since first entering the house, when tears had shone in his eyes, -and he had said: - -"You have safe--ah, you have safe me, and so I will do it yet by help bon -Dieu--yes." - -The meat was done at last, and he sat with a great dish of tea beside -him, and his pipe alight. - -"What time, if please?" he asked. "I t'ink nine hour, but no sure." - -"It is near nine," she said. She hastily tidied up the table after his -meal, and then came and sat in her chair over against the wall of the -rude fireplace. "Nine--dat is good. The moon rise at 'leven; den I go. -I go on," he said, "if you show me de queeck way." - -"You go on--how can you go on?" she asked, almost sharply. - -"Will you not to show me?" he asked. "Show you what?" she asked -abruptly. - -"The queeck way to Askatoon," he said, as though surprised that she -should ask. "They say me if I get here you will tell me queeck way to -Askatoon. Time, he go so fas', an' I have loose a day an' a night, an' -I mus' get Askatoon if I lif--I mus' get dere in time. It is all safe to -de stroke of de hour, mais, after, it is--bon Dieu--it is hell then. Who -shall forgif me--no!" - -"The stroke of the hour--the stroke of the hour!" It beat into her -brain. Were they both thinking of the same thing now? - -"You will show me queeck way. I mus' be Askatoon in two days, or it is -all over," he almost moaned. "Is no man here--I forget dat name, my head -go round like a wheel; but I know dis place, an' de good God He help me -fin' my way to where I call out, bien sur. Dat man's name I have -forget." - -"My father's name is John Alroyd," she answered absently, for there were -hammering at her brain the words, "The stroke of the hour." - -"Ah, now I get--yes. An' your name, it is Loisette Alroy'--ah, I have it -in my mind now--Loisette. I not forget dat name, I not forget you--no." - -"Why do you want to go the 'quick' way to Askatoon?" she asked. - -He puffed a moment at his pipe before he answered her. Presently he -said, holding out his pipe, "You not like smoke, mebbe?" - -She shook her head in negation, making an impatient gesture. - -"I forget ask you," he said. "Dat journee make me forget. When Injun -Jo, he leave me with the dogs, an' I wake up all alone, an' not know my -way--not like Jo, I think I die, it is so bad, so terrible in my head. -Not'ing but snow, not'ing. But dere is de sun; it shine. It say to me, -'Wake up, Ba'tiste; it will be all right bime-bye.' But all time I t'ink -I go mad, for I mus' get Askatoon before--dat." - -She started. Had she not used the same word in thinking of Askatoon. -"That," she had said. - -"Why do you want to go the 'quick' way to Askatoon?" she asked again, -her face pale, her foot beating the floor impatiently. - -"To save him before dat!" he answered, as though she knew of what he was -speaking and thinking. "What is that?" she asked. She knew now, -surely, but she must ask it nevertheless. - -"Dat hanging--of Haman," he answered. He nodded to himself. Then he -took to gazing into the fire. His lips moved as though talking to -himself, and the hand that held the pipe lay forgotten on his knee. -"What have you to do with Haman?" she asked slowly, her eyes burning. - -"I want safe him--I mus' give him free." He tapped his breast. "It is -hereto mak' him free." He still tapped his breast. - -For a moment she stood frozen still, her face thin and drawn and white; -then suddenly the blood rushed back into her face, and a red storm raged -in her eyes. - -She thought of the sister, younger than herself, whom Rube Haman had -married and driven to her grave within a year--the sweet Lucy, with the -name of her father's mother. Lucy had been all English in face and -tongue, a flower of the west, driven to darkness by this horse-dealing -brute, who, before he was arrested and tried for murder, was about to -marry Kate Wimper. Kate Wimper had stolen him from Lucy before Lucy's -first and only child was born, the child that could not survive the warm -mother-life withdrawn, and so had gone down the valley whither the -broken-hearted mother had fled. It was Kate Wimper, who, before that, -had waylaid the one man for whom she herself had ever cared, and drawn -him from her side by such attractions as she herself would keep for an -honest wife, if such she ever chanced to be. An honest wife she would -have been had Kate Wimper not crossed the straight path of her life. The -man she had loved was gone to his end also, reckless and hopeless, after -he had thrown away his chance of a lifetime with Loisette Alroyd. There -had been left behind this girl, to whom tragedy had come too young, who -drank humiliation with a heart as proud as ever straightly set its course -through crooked ways. - -It had hurt her, twisted her nature a little, given a fountain of -bitterness to her soul, which welled up and flooded her life sometimes. -It had given her face no sourness, but it put a shadow into her eyes. - -She had been glad when Haman was condemned for murder, for she believed -he had committed it, and ten times hanging could not compensate for that -dear life gone from their sight--Lucy, the pride of her father's heart. -She was glad when Haman was condemned, because of the woman who had -stolen him from Lucy, because of that other man, her lover, gone out of -her own life. The new hardness in her rejoiced that now the woman, if -she had any heart at all, must have it bowed down by this supreme -humiliation and wrung by the ugly tragedy of the hempen rope. - -And now this man before her, this man with a boy's face, with the dark -luminous eyes, whom she had saved from the frozen plains, he had that in -his breast which would free Haman, so he had said. A fury had its birth -in her at that moment. Something seemed to seize her brain and master -it, something so big that it held all her faculties in perfect control, -and she felt herself in an atmosphere where all life moved round her -mechanically, she herself the only sentient thing, so much greater than -all she saw, or all that she realised by her subconscious self. -Everything in the world seemed small. How calm it was even with the fury -within! - -"Tell me," she said quietly--"tell me how you are able to save Haman?" - -"He not kill Wakely. It is my brudder Fadette dat kill and get away. -Haman he is drunk, and everyt'ing seem to say Haman he did it, an' -everyone know Haman is not friend to Wakely. So the juree say he must be -hanging. But my brudder he go to die with hawful bad cold queeck, an' he -send for the priest an' for me, an' tell all. I go to Governor with the -priest, an' Governor gif me dat writing here." He tapped his breast, -then took out a wallet and showed the paper to her. "It is life of dat -Haman, voici! And so I safe him for my brudder. Dat was a bad boy, -Fadette. He was bad all time since he was a baby, an' I t'ink him pretty -lucky to die on his bed, an' get absolve, and go to purgatore. If he not -have luck like dat he go to hell, an' stay there." - -He sighed, and put the wallet back in his breast carefully, his eyes -half-shut with weariness, his handsome face drawn and thin, his limbs lax -with fatigue. - -"If I get Askatoon before de time for dat, I be happy in my heart, for -dat brudder off mine he get out of purgatore bime-bye, I t'ink." - -His eyes were almost shut, but he drew himself together with a great -effort, and added desperately, "No sleep. If I sleep it is all smash. -Man say me I can get Askatoon by dat time from here, if I go queeck way -across lak'--it is all froze now, dat lak'--an' down dat Foxtail Hills. -Is it so, ma'm'selle?" - -"By the 'quick' way if you can make it in time," she said; "but it is no -way for the stranger to go. There are always bad spots on the ice--it is -not safe. You could not find your way." - -"I mus' get dere in time," he said desperately. "You can't do it-- -alone," she said. "Do you want to risk all and lose?" - -He frowned in self-suppression. "Long way, I no can get dere in time?" -he asked. - -She thought a moment. "No; it can't be done by the long way. But there -is another way--a third trail, the trail the Gover'ment men made a year -ago when they came to survey. It is a good trail. It is blazed in the -woods and staked on the plains. You cannot miss. But--but there is so -little time." She looked at the clock on the wall. "You cannot leave -here much before sunrise, and--" - -"I will leef when de moon rise, at eleven," he interjected. - -"You have had no sleep for two nights, and no food. You can't last it -out," she said calmly. - -The deliberate look on his face deepened to stubbornness. - -"It is my vow to my brudder--he is in purgatore. An' I mus' do it," he -rejoined, with an emphasis there was no mistaking. "You can show me dat -way?" - -She went to a drawer and took out a piece of paper. Then, with a point -of blackened stick, as he watched her and listened, she swiftly drew his -route for him. - -"Yes, I get it in my head," he said. "I go dat way, but I wish--I wish -it was dat queeck way. I have no fear, not'ing. I go w'en dat moon -rise--I go, bien sur." - -"You must sleep, then, while I get some food for you." She pointed to a -couch in a corner. "I will wake you when the moon rises." - -For the first time he seemed to realise her, for a moment to leave the -thing which consumed him, and put his mind upon her. - -"You not happy--you not like me here?" he asked simply; then added -quickly, "I am not bad man like me brudder--no." - -Her eyes rested on him for a moment as though realising him, while some -thought was working in her mind behind. - -"No, you are not a bad man," she said. "Men and women are equal on the -plains. You have no fear--I have no fear." - -He glanced at the rifles on the walls, then back at her. "My mudder, she -was good woman. I am glad she did not lif to know what Fadette do." His -eyes drank her in for a minute, then he said: "I go sleep now, t'ank you ---till moontime." - -In a moment his deep breathing filled the room, the only sound save for -the fire within and the frost outside. - -Time went on. The night deepened. - - ......................... - -Loisette sat beside the fire, but her body was half-turned from it -towards the man on the sofa. She was not agitated outwardly, but within -there was that fire which burns up life and hope and all the things that -come between us and great issues. It had burned up everything in her -except one thought, one powerful motive. She had been deeply wronged, -and justice had been about to give "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a -tooth." But the man lying there had come to sweep away the scaffolding -of justice--he had come for that. - -Perhaps he might arrive at Askatoon before the stroke of the hour, -but still he would be too late, for in her pocket now was the Governor's -reprieve. The man had slept soundly. His wallet was still in his -breast; but the reprieve was with her. - -If he left without discovering his loss, and got well on his way, and -discovered it then, it would be too late. If he returned--she only saw -one step before her, she would wait for that, and deal with it when it -came. She was thinking of Lucy, of her own lover ruined and gone. She -was calm in her madness. - -At the first light of the moon she roused him. She had put food into his -fur-coat pocket, and after he had drunk a bowl of hot pea-soup, while she -told him his course again, she opened the door, and he passed out into -the night. He started forward without a word, but came back again and -caught her hand. - -"Pardon," he said; "I go forget everyt'ing except dat. But I t'ink what -you do for me, it is better than all my life. Bien sur, I will come -again, when I get my mind to myself. Ah, but you are beautibul," he -said, "an' you not happy. Well, I come again--yes, a Dieu." - -He was gone into the night, with the moon silvering the sky, and the -steely frost eating into the sentient life of this northern world. -Inside the house, with the bearskin blind dropped at the window again, -and the fire blazing high, Loisette sat with the Governor's reprieve in -her hand. Looking at it, she wondered why it had been given to Ba'tiste -Caron, and not to a police-officer. Ah yes, it was plain--Ba'tiste was a -woodsman and plainsman, and could go far more safely than a constable, -and faster. Ba'tiste had reason for going fast, and he would travel -night and day--he was travelling night and day indeed. And now Ba'tiste -might get there, but the reprieve would not. He would not be able to -stop the hanging of Haman--the hanging of Rube Haman. - -A change came over her. Her eyes blazed, her breast heaved now. She had -been so quiet, so cold and still. But life seemed moving in her once -again. The woman, Kate Wimper, who had helped to send two people to -their graves, would now drink the dregs of shame, if she was capable of -shame--would be robbed of her happiness, if so be she loved Rube Haman. - -She stood up, as though to put the paper in the fire, but paused suddenly -at one thought--Rube Haman was innocent of murder. - -Even so, he was not innocent of Lucy's misery and death, of the death of -the little one who only opened its eyes to the light for an instant, and -then went into the dark again. But truly she was justified! When Haman -was gone things would go on just the same--and she had been so bitter, -her heart had been pierced as with a knife these past three years. Again -she held out her hand to the fire, but suddenly she gave a little cry and -put her hand to her head. There was Ba'tiste! - -What was Ba'tiste to her? Nothing-nothing at all. She had saved his -life--even if she wronged Ba'tiste, her debt would be paid. No, she -would not think of Ba'tiste. Yet she did not put the paper in the fire, -but in the pocket of her dress. Then she went to her room, leaving the -door open. The bed was opposite the fire, and, as she lay there--she did -not take off her clothes, she knew not why-she could see the flames. She -closed her eyes, but could not sleep, and more than once when she opened -them she thought she saw Ba'tiste sitting there as he had sat hours -before. Why did Ba'tiste haunt her so? What was it he had said in his -broken English as he went away?--that he would come back; that she was -"beautibul." - -All at once as she lay still, her head throbbing, her feet and hands icy -cold, she sat up listening. "Ah-again!" she cried. She sprang from her -bed, rushed to the door, and strained her eyes into the silver night. -She called into the icy void, "Qui va la? Who goes?" - -She leaned forwards, her hand at her ear, but no sound came in reply. -Once more she called, but nothing answered. The night was all light and -frost and silence. - -She had only heard, in her own brain, the iteration of Ba'tiste's -calling. Would he reach Askatoon in time, she wondered, as she shut the -door? Why had she not gone with him and attempted the shorter way the -quick way, he had called it? All at once the truth came back upon her, -stirring her now. It would do no good for Ba'tiste to arrive in time. -He might plead to them all and tell the truth about the reprieve, but it -would not avail--Rube Haman would hang. That did not matter--even though -he was innocent; but Ba'tiste's brother would be so long in purgatory. -And even that would not matter; but she would hurt Ba'tiste--Ba'tiste-- -Ba'tiste. And Ba'tiste he would know that she--and he had called her -"beautibul," that she had-- - -With a cry she suddenly clothed herself for travel. She put some food -and drink in a leather bag and slung them over her shoulder. Then she -dropped on a knee and wrote a note to her father, tears falling from her -eyes. She heaped wood on the fire and moved towards the door. All at -once she turned to the crucifix on the wall which had belonged to her -mother, and, though she had followed her father's Protestant religion, -she kissed the feet of the sacred figure. - -"Oh, Christ, have mercy on me, and bring me safe to my journey's end-in -time," she said breathlessly; then she went softly to the door, leaving -the dog behind. - -It opened, closed, and the night swallowed her. Like a ghost she sped -the quick way to Askatoon. She was six hours behind Ba'tiste, and, going -hard all the time, it was doubtful if she could get there before the -fatal hour. - -On the trail Ba'tiste had taken there were two huts where he could rest, -and he had carried his blanket slung on his shoulder. The way she went -gave no shelter save the trees and caves which had been used to cache -buffalo meat and hides in old days. But beyond this there was danger in -travelling by night, for the springs beneath the ice of the three lakes -she must, cross made it weak and rotten even in the fiercest weather, and -what would no doubt have been death to Ba'tiste would be peril at least -to her. Why had she not gone with him? - -"He had in his face what was in Lucy's," she said to herself, as she sped -on. "She was fine like him, ready to break her heart for those she cared -for. My, if she had seen him first instead of--" - -She stopped short, for the ice gave way to her foot, and she only sprang -back in time to save herself. But she trotted on, mile after mile, the -dog-trot of the Indian, head bent forwards, toeing in, breathing steadily -but sharply. - -The morning came, noon, then a fall of snow and a keen wind, and despair -in her heart; but she had passed the danger-spots, and now, if the storm -did not overwhelm her, she might get to Askatoon in time. In the midst -of the storm she came to one of the caves of which she had known. Here -was wood for a fire, and here she ate, and in weariness unspeakable fell -asleep. When she waked it was near sun-down, the storm had ceased, and, -as on the night before, the sky was stained with colour and drowned in -splendour. - -"I will do it--I will do it, Ba'tiste!" she called, and laughed aloud -into the sunset. She had battled with herself all the way, and she had -conquered. Right was right, and Rube Haman must not be hung for what he -did not do. Her heart hardened whenever she thought of the woman, but -softened again when she thought of Ba'tiste, who had to suffer for the -deed of a brother in "purgatore." Once again the night and its silence -and loneliness followed her, the only living thing near the trail till -long after midnight. After that, as she knew, there were houses here and -there where she might have rested, but she pushed on unceasing. - -At daybreak she fell in with a settler going to Askatoon with his dogs. -Seeing how exhausted she was, he made her ride a few miles upon his -sledge; then she sped on ahead again till she came to the borders of -Askatoon. - -People were already in the streets, and all were tending one way. She -stopped and asked the time. It was within a quarter of an hour of the -time when Haman was to pay another's penalty. She spurred herself on, -and came to the jail blind with fatigue. As she neared the jail she saw -her father and Mickey. In amazement her father hailed her, but she would -not stop. She was admitted to the prison on explaining that she had a -reprieve. Entering a room filled with excited people, she heard a cry. - -It came from Ba'tiste. He had arrived but ten minutes before, and, in -the Sheriff's presence had discovered his loss. He had appealed in vain. - -But now, as he saw the girl, he gave a shout of joy which pierced the -hearts of all. - -"Ah, you haf it! Say you haf it, or it is no use--he mus' hang. Spik- -spik! Ah, my brudder--it is to do him right! Ah, Loisette--bon Dieu, -merci!" - -For answer she placed the reprieve in the hands of the Sheriff. Then she -swayed and fell fainting at the feet of Ba'tiste. - -She had come at the stroke of the hour. - -When she left for her home again the Sheriff kissed her. - -And that was not the only time he kissed her. He did it again six months -later, at the beginning of the harvest, when she and Ba'tiste Caron -started off on the long trail of life together. None but Ba'tiste knew -the truth about the loss of the reprieve, and to him she was "beautibul" -just the same, and greatly to be desired. - - - - - - -BUCKMASTER'S BOY - -"I bin waitin' for him, an' I'll git him of it takes all winter. I'll -git him--plumb." - -The speaker smoothed the barrel of his rifle with mittened hand, which -had, however, a trigger-finger free. With black eyebrows twitching over -sunken grey eyes, he looked doggedly down the frosty valley from the -ledge of high rock where he sat. The face was rough and weather-beaten, -with the deep tan got in the open life of a land of much sun and little -cloud, and he had a beard which, untrimmed and growing wild, made him -look ten years older than he was. - -"I bin waitin' a durn while," the mountain-man added, and got to his feet -slowly, drawing himself out to six and a half feet of burly manhood. The -shoulders were, however, a little stooped, and the head was thrust -forwards with an eager, watchful look--a habit become a physical -characteristic. - -Presently he caught sight of a hawk sailing southward along the peaks of -the white icebound mountains above, on which the sun shone with such -sharp insistence, making sky and mountain of a piece in deep purity and -serene stillness. - -"That hawk's seen him, mebbe," he said, after a moment. "I bet it went -up higher when it got him in its eye. Ef it'd only speak and tell me -where he is--ef he's a day, or two days, or ten days north." - -Suddenly his eyes blazed and his mouth opened in superstitious amazement, -for the hawk stopped almost directly overhead at a great height, and -swept round in a circle many times, waveringly, uncertainly. At last it -resumed its flight southward, sliding down the mountains like a winged -star. - -The mountaineer watched it with a dazed expression for a moment longer, -then both hands clutched the rifle and half swung it to position -involuntarily. - -"It's seen him, and it stopped to say so. It's seen him, I tell you, an' -I'll git him. Ef it's an hour, or a day, or a week, it's all the same. -I'm here watchin', waitin' dead on to him, the poison skunk!" - -The person to whom he had been speaking now rose from the pile of cedar -boughs where he had been sitting, stretched his arms up, then shook -himself into place, as does a dog after sleep. He stood for a minute -looking at the mountaineer with a reflective, yet a furtively sardonic, -look. He was not above five feet nine inches in height, and he was slim -and neat; and though his buckskin coat and breeches were worn and even -frayed in spots, he had an air of some distinction and of concentrated -force. It was a face that men turned to look at twice and shook their -heads in doubt afterwards--a handsome, worn, secretive face, in as -perfect control as the strings of an instrument under the bow of a great -artist. It was the face of a man without purpose in life beyond the -moment--watchful, careful, remorselessly determined, an adventurer's -asset, the dial-plate of a hidden machinery. - -Now he took the handsome meerschaum pipe from his mouth, from which he -had been puffing smoke slowly, and said in a cold, yet quiet voice, "How -long you been waitin', Buck?" - -"A month. He's overdue near that. He always comes down to winter at -Fort o' Comfort, with his string of half-breeds, an' Injuns, an' the -dogs." - -"No chance to get him at the Fort?" - -"It ain't so certain. They'd guess what I was doin' there. It's surer -here. He's got to come down the trail, an' when I spot him by the -Juniper clump"--he jerked an arm towards a spot almost a mile farther up -the valley--"I kin scoot up the underbrush a bit and git him--plumb. I -could do it from here, sure, but I don't want no mistake. Once only, -jest one shot, that's all I want, Sinnet." - -He bit off a small piece of tobacco from a black plug Sinnet offered him, -and chewed it with nervous fierceness, his eyebrows working, as he looked -at the other eagerly. Deadly as his purpose was, and grim and unvarying -as his vigil had been, the loneliness had told on him, and he had grown -hungry for a human face and human companionship. Why Sinnet had come he -had not thought to inquire. Why Sinnet should be going north instead of -south had not occurred to him. He only realised that Sinnet was not the -man he was waiting for with murder in his heart; and all that mattered to -him in life was the coming of his victim down the trail. He had welcomed -Sinnet with a sullen eagerness, and had told him in short, detached -sentences the dark story of a wrong and a waiting revenge, which brought -a slight flush to Sinnet's pale face and awakened a curious light in his -eyes. - -"Is that your shack--that where you shake down?" Sinnet said, pointing -towards a lean-to in the fir trees to the right. - -"That's it. I sleep there. It's straight on to the Juniper clump, the -front door is." He laughed viciously, grimly. "Outside or inside, I'm -on to the Juniper clump. Walk into the parlour?" he added, and drew -open a rough-made door, so covered with green cedar boughs that it seemed -of a piece with the surrounding underbrush and trees. Indeed, the little -but was so constructed that it could not be distinguished from the woods -even a short distance away. - -"Can't have a fire, I suppose?" Sinnet asked. - -"Not daytimes. Smoke 'd give me away if he suspicioned me," answered the -mountaineer. "I don't take no chances. Never can tell." - -"Water?" asked Sinnet, as though interested in the surroundings, while -all the time he was eyeing the mountaineer furtively--as it were, prying -to the inner man, or measuring the strength of the outer man. He lighted -a fresh pipe and seated himself on a rough bench beside the table in the -middle of the room, and leaned on his elbows, watching. - -The mountaineer laughed. It was not a pleasant laugh to hear. "Listen," -he said. "You bin a long time out West. You bin in the mountains a good -while. Listen." - -There was silence. Sinnet listened intently. He heard the faint drip, -drip, drip of water, and looked steadily at the back wall of the room. - -"There--rock?" he said, and jerked his head towards the sound. - -"You got good ears," answered the other, and drew aside a blanket which -hung on the back wall of the room. A wooden trough was disclosed hanging -under a ledge of rock, and water dripped into it softly, slowly. - -"Almost providential, that rock," remarked Sinnet. "You've got your well -at your back door. Food--but you can't go far, and keep your eye on the -Bend too," he nodded towards the door, beyond which lay the frost-touched -valley in the early morning light of autumn. - -"Plenty of black squirrels and pigeons come here on account of the -springs like this one, and I get 'em with a bow and arrow. I didn't call -myself Robin Hood and Daniel Boone not for nothin' when I was knee-high -to a grasshopper." He drew from a rough cupboard some cold game, and put -it on the table, with some scones and a pannikin of water. Then he -brought out a small jug of whiskey and placed it beside his visitor. -They began to eat. - -"How d'ye cook without fire?" asked Sinnet. "Fire's all right at -nights. He'd never camp 'twixt here an' Juniper Bend at night. The next -camp's six miles north from here. He'd only come down the valley -daytimes. I studied it 'all out, and it's a dead sure thing. From -daylight till dusk I'm on to him. I got the trail in my eye." - -He showed his teeth like a wild dog, as his look swept the valley. There -was something almost revolting in his concentrated ferocity. - -Sinnet's eyes half closed as he watched the mountaineer, and the long, -scraggy hands and whipcord neck seemed to interest him greatly. He -looked at his own slim brown hands with a half smile, and it was almost -as cruel as the laugh of the other. Yet it had, too, a knowledge and an -understanding which gave it humanity. - -"You're sure he did it?" Sinnet asked presently, after drinking a very -small portion of liquor, and tossing some water from the pannikin after -it. "You're sure Greevy killed your boy, Buck?" - -"My name's Buckmaster, ain't it--Jim Buckmaster? Don't I know my own -name? It's as sure as that. My boy said it was Greevy when he was -dying. He told Bill Ricketts so, and Bill told me afore he went East. -Bill didn't want to tell, but he said it was fair I should know, for my -boy never did nobody any harm--an' Greevy's livin' on. But I'll git him. -Right's right." - -"Wouldn't it be better for the law to hang him, if you've got the proof, -Buck? A year or so in jail, an' a long time to think over what's going -round his neck on the scaffold--wouldn't that suit you, if you've got the -proof?" - -A rigid, savage look came into Buckmaster's face. - -"I ain't lettin' no judge and jury do my business. I'm for certain sure, -not for p'r'aps! An' I want to do it myself. Clint was only twenty. -Like boys we was together. I was eighteen when I married, an' he come -when she went--jest a year--jest a year. An' ever since then we lived -together, him an' me, an' shot together, an' trapped together, an' went -gold-washin' together on the Cariboo, an' eat out of the same dish, an' -slept under the same blanket, and jawed together nights--ever since he -was five, when old Mother Lablache had got him into pants, an' he was fit -to take the trail." - -The old man stopped a minute, his whipcord neck swelling, his lips -twitching. He brought a fist down on the table with a bang. "The -biggest little rip he was, as full of fun as a squirrel, an' never a -smile-o-jest his eyes dancin', an' more sense than a judge. He laid hold -o' me, that cub did--it was like his mother and himself together; an' the -years flowin' in an' peterin' out, an' him gettin' older, an' always jest -the same. Always on rock-bottom, always bright as a dollar, an' we -livin' at Black Nose Lake, layin' up cash agin' the time we was to go -South, an' set up a house along the railway, an' him to git married. I -was for his gittin' married same as me, when we had enough cash. I use -to think of that when he was ten, and when he was eighteen I spoke to him -about it; but he wouldn't listen--jest laughed at me. You remember how -Clint used to laugh sort of low and teasin' like--you remember that laugh -o' Clint's, don't you?" - -Sinnet's face was towards the valley and Juniper Bend, but he slowly -turned his head and looked at Buckmaster strangely out of his half-shut -eyes. He took the pipe from his mouth slowly. - -"I can hear it now," he answered slowly. "I hear it often, Buck." - -The old man gripped his arm so suddenly that Sinnet was startled,--in so -far as anything could startle anyone who had lived a life of chance and -danger and accident, and his face grew a shade paler; but he did not -move, and Buckmaster's hand tightened convulsively. - -"You liked him, an' he liked you; he first learnt poker off you, Sinnet. -He thought you was a tough, but he didn't mind that no more than I did. -It ain't for us to say what we're goin' to be, not always. Things in -life git stronger than we are. You was a tough, but who's goin' to judge -you! I ain't; for Clint took to you, Sinnet, an' he never went wrong in -his thinkin'. God! he was wife an' child to me--an' he's dead--dead-- -dead." - -The man's grief was a painful thing to see. His hands gripped the table, -while his body shook with sobs, though his eyes gave forth no tears. It -was an inward convulsion, which gave his face the look of unrelieved -tragedy and suffering--Laocoon struggling with the serpents of sorrow and -hatred which were strangling him. - -"Dead an' gone," he repeated, as he swayed to and fro, and the table -quivered in his grasp. Presently, however, as though arrested by a -thought, he peered out of the doorway towards Juniper Bend. "That hawk -seen him--it seen him. He's comin', I know it, an' I'll git him--plumb." -He had the mystery and imagination of the mountain-dweller. - -The rifle lay against the wall behind him, and he turned and touched it -almost caressingly. "I ain't let go like this since he was killed, -Sinnet. It don't do. I got to keep myself stiddy to do the trick when -the minute comes. At first I usen't to sleep at nights, thinkin' of -Clint, an' missin' him, an' I got shaky and no good. So I put a cinch on -myself, an' got to sleepin' again--from the full dusk to dawn, for Greevy -wouldn't take the trail at night. I've kept stiddy." He held out his -hand as though to show that it was firm and steady, but it trembled with -the emotion which had conquered him. He saw it, and shook his head -angrily. - -"It was seein' you, Sinnet. It burst me. I ain't seen no one to speak -to in a month, an' with you sittin' there, it was like Clint an' me -cuttin' and comin' again off the loaf an' the knuckle-bone of ven'son." - -Sinnet ran a long finger slowly across his lips, and seemed meditating -what he should say to the mountaineer. At length he spoke, looking into -Buckmaster's face. "What was the story Ricketts told you? What did your -boy tell Ricketts? I've heard, too, about it, and that's why I asked you -if you had proofs that Greevy killed Clint. Of course, Clint should -know, and if he told Ricketts, that's pretty straight; but I'd like to -know if what I heard tallies with what Ricketts heard from Clint. -P'r'aps it'd ease your mind a bit to tell it. I'll watch the Bend--don't -you trouble about that. You can't do these two things at one time. I'll -watch for Greevy; you give me Clint's story to Ricketts. I guess you -know I'm feelin' for you, an' if I was in your place I'd shoot the man -that killed Clint, if it took ten years. I'd have his heart's blood--all -of it. Whether Greevy was in the right or in the wrong, I'd have him-- -plumb." - -Buckmaster was moved. He gave a fierce exclamation and made a gesture -of cruelty. "Clint right or wrong? There ain't no question of that. -My boy wasn't the kind to be in the wrong. What did he ever do but what -was right? If Clint was in the wrong I'd kill Greevy jest the same, for -Greevy robbed him of all the years that was before him--only a sapling he -was, an' all his growin' to do, all his branches to widen an' his roots -to spread. But that don't enter in it, his bein' in the wrong. It was -a quarrel, and Clint never did Greevy any harm. It was a quarrel over -cards, an' Greevy was drunk, an' followed Clint out into the prairie in -the night and shot him like a coyote. Clint hadn't no chance, an' he -jest lay there on the ground till morning, when Ricketts and Steve Joicey -found him. An' Clint told Ricketts who it was." - -"Why didn't Ricketts tell it right out at once?" asked Sinnet. - -"Greevy was his own cousin--it was in the family, an' he kept thinkin' of -Greevy's gal, Em'ly. Her--what'll it matter to her! She'll get married, -an she'll forgit. I know her, a gal that's got no deep feelin' like -Clint had for me. But because of her Ricketts didn't speak for a year. -Then he couldn't stand it any longer, an' he told me--seein' how I -suffered, an' everybody hidin' their suspicions from me, an' me up here -out o' the way, an' no account. That was the feelin' among 'em--what was -the good of making things worse! They wasn't thinkin' of the boy or of -Jim Buckmaster, his father. They was thinkin' of Greevy's gal--to save -her trouble." - -Sinnet's face was turned towards Juniper Bend, and the eyes were fixed, -as it were, on a still more distant object--a dark, brooding, inscrutable -look. - -"Was that all Ricketts told you, Buck?" The voice was very quiet, but -it had a suggestive note. - -"That's all Clint told Bill before he died. That was enough." - -There was a moment's pause, and then, puffing out long clouds of smoke, -and in a tone of curious detachment, as though he were telling of -something that he saw now in the far distance, or as a spectator of a -battle from a far vantage-point might report to a blind man standing -near, Sinnet said: - -"P'r'aps Ricketts didn't know the whole story; p'r'aps Clint didn't know -it all to tell him; p'r'aps Clint didn't remember it all. P'r'aps he -didn't remember anything except that he and Greevy quarrelled, and that -Greevy and he shot at each other in the prairie. He'd only be thinking -of the thing that mattered most to him--that his life was over, an' that -a man had put a bullet in him, an'--" - -Buckmaster tried to interrupt him, but he waved a hand impatiently, and -continued: "As I say, maybe he didn't remember everything; he had been -drinkin' a bit himself, Clint had. He wasn't used to liquor, and -couldn't stand much. Greevy was drunk, too, and gone off his head with -rage. He always gets drunk when he first comes South to spend the winter -with his girl Em'ly." He paused a moment, then went on a little more -quickly. "Greevy was proud of her--couldn't even bear her being crossed -in any way; and she has a quick temper, and if she quarrelled with -anybody Greevy quarrelled too." - -"I don't want to know anything about her," broke in Buckmaster roughly. -"She isn't in this thing. I'm goin' to git Greevy. I bin waitin' for -him, an' I'll git him." - -"You're going to kill the man that killed your boy, if you can, Buck; but -I'm telling my story in my own way. You told Ricketts's story; I'll tell -what I've heard. And before you kill Greevy you ought to know all there -is that anybody else knows--or suspicions about it." - -"I know enough. Greevy done it, an' I'm here." With no apparent -coherence and relevancy Sinnet continued, but his voice was not so even -as before. "Em'ly was a girl that wasn't twice alike. She was -changeable. First it was one, then it was another, and she didn't seem -to be able to fix her mind. But that didn't prevent her leadin' men on. -She wasn't changeable, though, about her father. She was to him what -your boy was to you. There she was like you, ready to give everything up -for her father." - -"I tell y' I don't want to hear about her," said Buckmaster, getting -to his feet and setting his jaws. "You needn't talk to me about her. -She'll git over it. I'll never git over what Greevy done to me or -to Clint--jest twenty, jest twenty! I got my work to do." - -He took his gun from the wall, slung it into the hollow of his arm, and -turned to look up the valley through the open doorway. - -The morning was sparkling with life--the life and vigour which a touch of -frost gives to the autumn world in a country where the blood tingles to -the dry, sweet sting of the air. Beautiful, and spacious, and buoyant, -and lonely, the valley and the mountains seemed waiting, like a new-born -world, to be peopled by man. It was as though all had been made ready -for him--the birds whistling and singing in the trees, the whisk of the -squirrels leaping from bough to bough, the peremptory sound of the -woodpecker's beak against the bole of a tree, the rustle of the leaves as -a wood-hen ran past--a waiting, virgin world. - -Its beauty and its wonderful dignity had no appeal to Buckmaster. His -eyes and mind were fixed on a deed which would stain the virgin wild with -the ancient crime that sent the first marauder on human life into the -wilderness. - -As Buckmaster's figure darkened the doorway Sinnet seemed to waken as -from a dream, and he got swiftly to his feet. - -"Wait--you wait, Buck. You've got to hear all. You haven't heard my -story yet. Wait, I tell you." His voice was so sharp and insistent, so -changed, that Buckmaster turned from the doorway and came back into the -room. - -"What's the use of my hearin'? You want me not to kill Greevy, because -of that gal. What's she to me?" - -"Nothing to you, Buck, but Clint was everything to her." - -The mountaineer stood like one petrified. - -"What's that--what's that you say? It's a damn lie!" - -"It wasn't cards--the quarrel, not the real quarrel. Greevy found Clint -kissing her. Greevy wanted her to marry Gatineau, the lumber-king. That -was the quarrel." - -A snarl was on the face of Buckmaster. "Then she'll not be sorry when I -git him. It took Clint from her as well as from me." He turned to the -door again. "But, wait, Buck, wait one minute and hear--" He was -interrupted by a low, exultant growl, and he saw Buckmaster's rifle -clutched as a hunter, stooping, clutches his gun to fire on his prey. - -"Quick, the spy-glass!" he flung back at Sinnet. "It's him--but I'll -make sure." - -Sinnet caught the telescope from the nails where it hung, and looked out -towards Juniper Bend. "It's Greevy--and his girl, and the half-breeds," -he said, with a note in his voice that almost seemed agitation, and yet -few had ever seen Sinnet agitated. "Em'ly must have gone up the trail in -the night." - -"It's my turn now," the mountaineer said hoarsely, and, stooping, slid -away quickly into the undergrowth. Sinnet followed, keeping near him, -neither speaking. For a half mile they hastened on, and now and then -Buckmaster drew aside the bushes, and looked up the valley, to keep -Greevy and his bois brulees in his eye. Just so had he and his son and -Sinnet stalked the wapiti and the red deer along these mountains; but -this was a man that Buckmaster was stalking now, with none of the joy of -the sport which had been his since a lad; only the malice of the avenger. -The lust of a mountain feud was on him; he was pursuing the price of -blood. - -At last Buckmaster stopped at a ledge of rock just above the trail. -Greevy would pass below, within three hundred yards of his rifle. He -turned to Sinnet with cold and savage eyes. "You go back," he said. -"It's my business. I don't want you to see. You don't want to see, -then you won't know, and you won't need to lie. You said that the man -that killed Clint ought to die. He's going to die, but it's none o' your -business. I want to be alone. In a minute he'll be where I kin git him ---plumb. You go, Sinnet-right off. It's my business." - -There was a strange, desperate look in Sinnet's face; it was as hard as -stone, but his eyes had a light of battle in them. - -"It's my business right enough, Buck," he said, "and you're not going to -kill Greevy. That girl of his has lost her lover, your boy. It's broke -her heart almost, and there's no use making her an orphan too. She can't -stand it. She's had enough. You leave her father alone--you hear me, -let up!" He stepped between Buckmaster and the ledge of rock from which -the mountaineer was to take aim. - -There was a terrible look in Buckmaster's face. He raised his single- -barrelled rifle, as though he would shoot Sinnet; but, at the moment, he -remembered that a shot would warn Greevy, and that he might not have time -to reload. He laid his rifle against a tree swiftly. - -"Git away from here," he said, with a strange rattle in his throat. -"Git away quick; he'll be down past here in a minute." - -Sinnet pulled himself together as he saw Buckmaster snatch at a great -clasp-knife in his belt. He jumped and caught Buckmaster's wrist in a -grip like a vice. - -"Greevy didn't kill him, Buck," he said. But the mountaineer was gone -mad, and did not grasp the meaning of the words. He twined his left arm -round the neck of Sinnet, and the struggle began, he fighting to free -Sinnet's hand from his wrist, to break Sinnet's neck. He did not realise -what he was doing. He only knew that this man stood between him and the -murderer of his boy, and all the ancient forces of barbarism were alive -in him. Little by little they drew to the edge of the rock, from which -there was a sheer drop of two hundred feet. Sinnet fought like a panther -for safety, but no sane man's strength could withstand the demoniacal -energy that bent and crushed him. Sinnet felt his strength giving. Then -he said in a hoarse whisper, "Greevy didn't kill him. I killed him, -and--" - -At that moment he was borne to the ground with a hand on his throat, and -an instant after the knife went home. - -Buckmaster got to his feet and looked at his victim for an instant, dazed -and wild; then he sprang for his gun. As he did so the words that Sinnet -had said as they struggled rang in his ears, "Greevy didn't kill him; I -killed him!" - -He gave a low cry and turned back towards Sinnet, who lay in a pool of -blood. - -Sinnet was speaking. He went and stooped over him. "Em'ly threw me over -for Clint," the voice said huskily, "and I followed to have it out with -Clint. So did Greevy, but Greevy was drunk. I saw them meet. I was -hid. I saw that Clint would kill Greevy, and I fired. I was off my -head--I'd never cared for any woman before, and Greevy was her father. -Clint was off his head too. He had called me names that day--a cardsharp, -and a liar, and a thief, and a skunk, he called me, and I hated him just -then. Greevy fired twice wide. He didn't know but what he killed Clint, -but he didn't. I did. So I tried to stop you, Buck--" - -Life was going fast, and speech failed him; but he opened his eyes again -and whispered, "I didn't want to die, Buck. I am only thirty-five, and -it's too soon; but it had to be. Don't look that way, Buck. You got the -man that killed him--plumb. But Em'ly didn't play fair with me--made a -fool of me, the only time in my life I ever cared for a woman. You leave -Greevy alone, Buck, and tell Em'ly for me I wouldn't let you kill her -father." - -"You--Sinnet--you, you done it! Why, he'd have fought for you. You-- -done it--to him--to Clint!" Now that the blood-feud had been satisfied, -a great change came over the mountaineer. He had done his work, and the -thirst for vengeance was gone. Greevy he had hated, but this man had -been with him in many a winter's hunt. His brain could hardly grasp the -tragedy--it had all been too sudden. - -Suddenly he stooped down. "Sinnet," he said, "ef there was a woman in -it, that makes all the difference. Sinnet, of--" - -But Sinnet was gone upon a long trail that led into an illimitable -wilderness. With a moan the old man ran to the ledge of rock. Greevy -and his girl were below. - -"When there's a woman in it--!" he said, in a voice of helplessness and -misery, and watched Em'ly till she disappeared from view. Then he -turned, and, lifting up in his arms the man he had killed, carried him -into the deeper woods. - - - - -ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: - -Even bad company's better than no company at all -Future of those who will not see, because to see is to suffer -I like when I like, and I like a lot when I like -It ain't for us to say what we're goin' to be, not always -Things in life git stronger than we are -We don't live in months and years, but just in minutes - - - - - - -NORTHERN LIGHTS - -By Gilbert Parker - -Volume 2. - - -TO-MORROW -QU'APPELLE -THE STAKE AND THE PLUMB-LINE - - - - -TO-MORROW - -"My, nothing's the matter with the world to-day! It's so good it almost -hurts." - -She raised her head from the white petticoat she was ironing, and gazed -out of the doorway and down the valley with a warm light in her eyes and -a glowing face. The snow-tipped mountains far above and away, the fir- -covered, cedar-ranged foothills, and, lower down, the wonderful maple and -ash woods, with their hundred autumn tints, all merging to one soft, red -tone, the roar of the stream tumbling down the ravine from the heights, -the air that braced the nerves--it all seemed to be part of her, the -passion of life corresponding to the passion of living in her. - -After watching the scene dreamily for a moment, she turned and laid the -iron she had been using upon the hot stove near. Taking up another, she -touched it with a moistened finger to test the heat, and, leaning above -the table again, passed it over the linen for a few moments, smiling at -something that was in her mind. Presently she held the petticoat up, -turned it round, then hung it in front of her, eyeing it with critical -pleasure. - -"To-morrow!" she said, nodding at it. "You won't be seen, I suppose, -but I'll know you're nice enough for a queen--and that's enough to know." - -She blushed a little, as though someone had heard her words and was -looking at her, then she carefully laid the petticoat over the back of a -chair. "No queen's got one whiter, if I do say it," she continued, -tossing her head. - -In that, at any rate, she was right, for the water of the mountain -springs was pure, the air was clear, and the sun was clarifying; and -little ornamented or frilled as it was, the petticoat was exquisitely -soft and delicate. It would have appealed to more eyes than a woman's. - -"To-morrow!" She nodded at it again and turned again to the bright world -outside. With arms raised and hands resting against the timbers of the -doorway, she stood dreaming. A flock of pigeons passed with a whir not -far away, and skirted the woods making down the valley. She watched -their flight abstractedly, yet with a subconscious sense of pleasure. -Life--they were Life, eager, buoyant, belonging to this wild region, -where still the heart could feel so much at home, where the great world -was missed so little. - -Suddenly, as she gazed, a shot rang out down the valley, and two of the -pigeons came tumbling to the ground, a stray feather floating after. -With a startled exclamation she took a step forward. Her brain became -confused and disturbed. She had looked out on Eden, and it had been -ravaged before her eyes. She had been thinking of to-morrow, and this -vast prospect of beauty and serenity had been part of the pageant in -which it moved. Not the valley alone had been marauded, but that "To- -morrow," and all it meant to her. - -Instantly the valley had become clouded over for her, its glory and its -grace despoiled. She turned back to the room where the white petticoat -lay upon the chair, but stopped with a little cry of alarm. - -A man was standing in the centre of the room. He had entered stealthily -by the back door, and had waited for her to turn round. He was haggard -and travel stained, and there was a feverish light in his eyes. His -fingers trembled as they adjusted his belt, which seemed too large for -him. Mechanically he buckled it tighter. - -"You're Jenny Long, ain't you?" he asked. "I beg pardon for sneakin' -in like this, but they're after me, some ranchers and a constable--one -o' the Riders of the Plains. I've been tryin' to make this house all -day. You're Jenny Long, ain't you?" - -She had plenty of courage, and, after the first instant of shock, she had -herself in hand. She had quickly observed his condition, had marked the -candour of the eye and the decision and character of the face, and doubt -of him found no place in her mind. She had the keen observation of the -dweller in lonely places, where every traveller has the potentialities of -a foe, while the door of hospitality is opened to him after the custom of -the wilds. Year in, year out, since she was a little girl and came to -live here with her Uncle Sanger when her father died--her mother had gone -before she could speak--travellers had halted at this door, going North -or coming South, had had bite and sup, and bed, may be, and had passed -on, most of them never to be seen again. More than that, too, there had -been moments of peril, such as when, alone, she had faced two wood- -thieves with a revolver, as they were taking her mountain-pony with them, -and herself had made them "hands-up," and had marched them into a -prospector's camp five miles away. - -She had no doubt about the man before her. Whatever he had done, it was -nothing dirty or mean--of that she was sure. - -"Yes, I'm Jenny Long," she answered. "What have you done? What are they -after you for?" - -"Oh! to-morrow," he answered, "to-morrow I got to git to Bindon. -It's life or death. I come from prospecting two hundred miles up North. -I done it in two days and a half. My horse dropped dead--I'm near dead -myself. I tried to borrow another horse up at Clancey's, and at -Scotton's Drive, but they didn't know me, and they bounced me. -So I borrowed a horse off Weigall's paddock, to make for here--to you. -I didn't mean to keep that horse. Hell, I'm no horse-stealer! But I -couldn't explain to them, except that I had to git to Bindon to save a -man's life. If people laugh in your face, it's no use explainin'. -I took a roan from Weigall's, and they got after me. 'Bout six miles -up they shot at me an' hurt me." - -She saw that one arm hung limp at his side and that his wrist was wound -with a red bandana. - -She started forward. "Are you hurt bad? Can I bind it up or wash it for -you? I've got plenty of hot water here, and it's bad letting a wound get -stale." - -He shook his head. "I washed the hole clean in the creek below. I -doubled on them. I had to go down past your place here, and then work -back to be rid of them. But there's no telling when they'll drop on to -the game, and come back for me. My only chance was to git to you. Even -if I had a horse, I couldn't make Bindon in time. It's two days round -the gorge by trail. A horse is no use now--I lost too much time since -last night. I can't git to Bindon to-morrow in time, if I ride the -trail." - -"The river?" she asked abruptly. - -"It's the only way. It cuts off fifty mile. That's why I come to you." - -She frowned a little, her face became troubled, and her glance fell on -his arm nervously. "What've I got to do with it?" she asked almost -sharply. - -"Even if this was all right,"--he touched the wounded arm--" I couldn't -take the rapids in a canoe. I don't know them, an' it would be sure -death. That's not the worst, for there's a man at Bindon would lose his -life--p'r'aps twenty men--I dunno; but one man sure. To-morrow, it's go -or stay with him. He was good--Lord, but he was good!--to my little gal -years back. She'd only been married to me a year when he saved her, -riskin' his own life. No one else had the pluck. My little gal, only -twenty she was, an' pretty as a picture, an' me fifty miles away when the -fire broke out in the hotel where she was. He'd have gone down to hell -for a friend, an' he saved my little gal. I had her for five years after -that. That's why I got to git to Bindon to-morrow. If I don't, I don't -want to see to-morrow. I got to go down the river to-night." - -She knew what he was going to ask her. She knew he was thinking what all -the North knew, that she was the first person to take the Dog Nose Rapids -in a canoe, down the great river scarce a stone's-throw from her door; -and that she had done it in safety many times. Not in all the West and -North were there a half-dozen people who could take a canoe to Bindon, -and they were not here. She knew that he meant to ask her to paddle him -down the swift stream with its murderous rocks, to Bindon. She glanced -at the white petticoat on the chair, and her lips tightened. To-morrow- -tomorrow was as much to her here as it would be to this man before her, -or the man he would save at Bindon. "What do you want?" she asked, -hardening her heart. "Can't you see? I want you to hide me here till -tonight. There's a full moon, an' it would be as plain goin' as by day. -They told me about you up North, and I said to myself, 'If I git to Jenny -Long, an' tell her about my friend at Bindon, an' my little gal, she'll -take me down to Bindon in time.' My little gal would have paid her own -debt if she'd ever had the chance. She didn't--she's lying up on Mazy -Mountain. But one woman'll do a lot for the sake of another woman. Say, -you'll do it, won't you? If I don't git there by to-morrow noon, it's no -good." - -She would not answer. He was asking more than he knew. Why should she -be sacrificed? Was it her duty to pay the "little gal's debt," to save -the man at Bindon? To-morrow was to be the great day in her own life. -The one man in all the world was coming to marry her to-morrow. After -four years' waiting, after a bitter quarrel in which both had been to -blame, he was coming from the mining town of Selby to marry her to- -morrow. - -"What will happen? Why will your friend lose his life if you don't get -to Bindon?" - -"By noon to-morrow, by twelve o'clock noon; that's the plot; that's what -they've schemed. Three days ago, I heard. I got a man free from trouble -North--he was no good, but I thought he ought to have another chance, and -I got him free. He told me of what was to be done at Bindon. There'd -been a strike in the mine, an' my friend had took it in hand with -knuckle-dusters on. He isn't the kind to fell a tree with a jack-knife. -Then three of the strikers that had been turned away--they was the -ringleaders--they laid a plan that'd make the devil sick. They've put a -machine in the mine, an' timed it, an' it'll go off when my friend comes -out of the mine at noon to-morrow." - -Her face was pale now, and her eyes had a look of pain and horror. Her -man--him that she was to marry--was the head of a mine also at Selby, -forty miles beyond Bindon, and the horrible plot came home to her with -piercing significance. - -"Without a second's warning," he urged, "to go like that, the man that -was so good to my little gal, an' me with a chance to save him, an' -others too, p'r'aps. You won't let it be. Say, I'm pinnin' my faith to -you. I'm--" - -Suddenly he swayed. She caught him, held him, and lowered him gently in -a chair. Presently he opened his eyes. "It's want o' food, I suppose," -he said. "If you've got a bit of bread and meat--I must keep up." - -She went to a cupboard, but suddenly turned towards him again. Her ears -had caught a sound outside in the underbush. He had heard also, and he -half staggered to his feet. - -"Quick-in here!" she said, and, opening a door, pushed him inside. "Lie -down on my bed, and I'll bring you vittles as quick as I can," she added. -Then she shut the door, turned to the ironing-board, and took up the -iron, as the figure of a man darkened the doorway. - -"Hello, Jinny, fixin' up for to-morrow?" the man said, stepping inside, -with a rifle under his arm and some pigeons in his hand. - -She nodded and gave him an impatient, scrutinising glance. His face had -a fatuous kind of smile. - -"Been celebrating the pigeons?" she asked drily, jerking her head -towards the two birds, which she had seen drop from her Eden skies a -short time before. - -"I only had one swig of whiskey, honest Injun!" he answered. "I s'pose -I might have waited till to-morrow, but I was dead-beat. I got a bear -over by the Tenmile Reach, and I was tired. I ain't so young as I used -to be, and, anyhow, what's the good! What's ahead of me? You're going -to git married to-morrow after all these years we bin together, and -you're going down to Selby from the mountains, where I won't see you, not -once in a blue moon. Only that old trollop, Mother Massy, to look after -me." - -"Come down to Selby and live there. You'll be welcome by Jake and me." - -He stood his gun in the corner and, swinging the pigeons in his hand, -said: "Me live out of the mountains? Don't you know better than that? -I couldn't breathe; and I wouldn't want to breathe. I've got my shack -here, I got my fur business, and they're still fond of whiskey up North!" -He chuckled to himself, as he thought of the illicit still farther up the -mountain behind them. "I make enough to live on, and I've put a few -dollars by, though I won't have so many after to-morrow, after I've given -you a little pile, Jinny." - -"P'r'aps there won't be any to-morrow, as you expect," she said slowly. - -The old man started. "What, you and Jake ain't quarrelled again? You -ain't broke it off at the last moment, same as before? You ain't had a -letter from Jake?" He looked at the white petticoat on the chairback, -and shook his head in bewilderment. - -"I've had no letter," she answered. "I've had no letter from Selby for a -month. It was all settled then, and there was no good writing, when he -was coming to-morrow with the minister and the licence. Who do you -think'd be postman from Selby here? It must have cost him ten dollars to -send the last letter." - -"Then what's the matter? I don't understand," the old man urged -querulously. He did not want her to marry and leave him, but he wanted -no more troubles; he did not relish being asked awkward questions by -every mountaineer he met, as to why Jenny Long didn't marry Jake Lawson. - -"There's only one way that I can be married tomorrow," she said at last, -"and that's by you taking a man down the Dog Nose Rapids to Bindon to- -night." - -He dropped the pigeons on the floor, dumbfounded. "What in--" - -He stopped short, in sheer incapacity, to go further. Jenny had not -always been easy to understand, but she was wholly incomprehensible now. - -She picked up the pigeons and was about to speak, but she glanced at the -bedroom door, where her exhausted visitor had stretched himself on her -bed, and beckoned her uncle to another room. - -"There's a plate of vittles ready for you in there," she said. "I'll -tell you as you eat." - -He followed her into the little living-room adorned by the trophies of -his earlier achievements with gun and rifle, and sat down at the table, -where some food lay covered by a clean white cloth. - -"No one'll ever look after me as you've done, Jinny," he said, as he -lifted the cloth and saw the palatable dish ready for him. Then he -remembered again about to-morrow and the Dog Nose Rapids. - -"What's it all about, Jinny? What's that about my canoeing a man down to -Bindon?" - -"Eat, uncle," she said more softly than she had yet spoken, for his words -about her care of him had brought a moisture to her eyes. "I'll be back -in a minute and tell you all about it." - -"Well, it's about took away my appetite," he said. "I feel a kind of -sinking." He took from his pocket a bottle, poured some of its contents -into a tin cup, and drank it off. - -"No, I suppose you couldn't take a man down to Bindon," she said, as she -saw his hand trembling on the cup. Then she turned and entered the other -room again. Going to the cupboard, she hastily heaped a plate with food, -and, taking a dipper of water from a pail near by, she entered her -bedroom hastily and placed what she had brought on a small table, as her -visitor rose slowly from the bed. - -He was about to speak, but she made a protesting gesture. - -"I can't tell you anything yet," she said. "Who was it come?" he asked. - -"My uncle--I'm going to tell him." - -"The men after me may git here any minute," he urged anxiously. - -"They'd not be coming into my room," she answered, flushing slightly. - -"Can't you hide me down by the river till we start?" he asked, his eyes -eagerly searching her face. He was assuming that she would take him down -the river: but she gave no sign. - -"I've got to see if he'll take you first," she answered. - -"He--your uncle, Tom Sanger? He drinks, I've heard. He'd never git to -Bindon." - -She did not reply directly to his words. "I'll come back and tell you. -There's a place you could hide by the river where no one could ever find -you," she said, and left the room. - -As she stepped out, she saw the old man standing in the doorway of the -other room. His face was petrified with amazement. - -"Who you got in that room, Jinny? What man you got in that room? I -heard a man's voice. Is it because o' him that you bin talkin' about no -weddin' to-morrow? Is it one o' the others come back, puttin' you off -Jake again?" - -Her eyes flashed fire at his first words, and her breast heaved with -anger, but suddenly she became composed again and motioned him to a -chair. - -"You eat, and I'll tell you all about it, Uncle Tom," she said, and, -seating herself at the table also, she told him the story of the man who -must go to Bindon. - -When she had finished, the old man blinked at her for a minute without -speaking, then he said slowly: "I heard something 'bout trouble down at -Bindon yisterday from a Hudson's Bay man goin' North, but I didn't take -it in. You've got a lot o' sense, Jinny, an' if you think he's tellin' -the truth, why, it goes; but it's as big a mixup as a lariat in a steer's -horns. You've got to hide him sure, whoever he is, for I wouldn't hand -an Eskimo over, if I'd taken him in my home once; we're mountain people. -A man ought to be hung for horse-stealin', but this was different. He -was doing it to save a man's life, an' that man at Bindon was good to his -little gal, an' she's dead." - -He moved his head from side to side with the air of a sentimental -philosopher. He had all the vanity of a man who had been a success in a -small, shrewd, culpable way--had he not evaded the law for thirty years -with his whiskey-still? - -"I know how he felt," he continued. "When Betsy died--we was only four -years married--I could have crawled into a knot-hole an' died there. You -got to save him, Jinny, but"--he came suddenly to his feet--"he ain't -safe here. They might come any minute, if they've got back on his trail. -I'll take him up the gorge. You know where." - -"You sit still, Uncle Tom," she rejoined. "Leave him where he is a -minute. There's things must be settled first. They ain't going to look -for him in my bedroom, be they?" - -The old man chuckled. "I'd like to see 'em at it. You got a temper, -Jinny; and you got a pistol too, eh?" He chuckled again. "As good a -shot as any in the mountains. I can see you darin' 'em to come on. But -what if Jake come, and he found a man in your bedroom"--he wiped the -tears of laughter from his eyes--"why, Jinny--!" - -He stopped short, for there was anger in her face. "I don't want to hear -any more of that. I do what I want to do," she snapped out. - -"Well, well, you always done what you wanted; but we got to git him up -the hills, till it's sure they're out o' the mountains and gone back. -It'll be days, mebbe." - -"Uncle Tom, you've took too much to drink," she answered. "You don't -remember he's got to be at Bindon by to-morrow noon. He's got to save -his friend by then." - -"Pshaw! Who's going to take him down the river to-night? You're goin' -to be married to-morrow. If you like, you can give him the canoe. It'll -never come back, nor him neither!" - -"You've been down with me," she responded suggestively. "And you went -down once by yourself." - -He shook his head. "I ain't been so well this summer. My sight ain't -what it was. I can't stand the racket as I once could. 'Pears to me I'm -gettin' old. No, I couldn't take them rapids, Jinny, not for one frozen -minute." - -She looked at him with trouble in her eyes, and her face lost some of its -colour. She was fighting back the inevitable, even as its shadow fell -upon her. "You wouldn't want a man to die, if you could save him, Uncle -Tom--blown up, sent to Kingdom Come without any warning at all; and -perhaps he's got them that love him--and the world so beautiful." - -"Well, it ain't nice dyin' in the summer, when it's all sun, and there's -plenty everywhere; but there's no one to go down the river with him. -What's his name?" - -Her struggle was over. She had urged him, but in very truth she was -urging herself all the time, bringing herself to the axe of sacrifice. - -"His name's Dingley. I'm going down the river with him--down to Bindon." - -The old man's mouth opened in blank amazement. His eyes blinked -helplessly. - -"What you talkin' about, Jinny! Jake's comin' up with the minister, an' -you're goin' to be married at noon to-morrow." - -"I'm takin' him"--she jerked her head towards the room where Dingley was ---"down Dog Nose Rapids to-night. He's risked his life for his friend, -thinkin' of her that's dead an' gone, and a man's life is a man's life. -If it was Jake's life in danger, what'd I think of a woman that could -save him, and didn't?" - -"Onct you broke off with Jake Lawson--the day before you was to be -married; an' it's took years to make up an' agree again to be spliced. -If Jake comes here to-morrow, and you ain't here, what do you think he'll -do? The neighbours are comin' for fifty miles round, two is comin' up a -hundred miles, an' you can't--Jinny, you can't do it. I bin sick of -answerin' questions all these years 'bout you and Jake, an' I ain't goin' -through it again. I've told more lies than there's straws in a tick." - -She flamed out. "Then take him down the river yourself--a man to do a -man's work. Are you afeard to take the risk?" - -He held out his hands slowly and looked at them. They shook a little. -"Yes, Jinny," he said sadly, "I'm afeard. I ain't what I was. I made a -mistake, Jinny. I've took too much whiskey. I'm older than I ought to -be. I oughtn't never to have had a whiskey-still, an' I wouldn't have -drunk so much. I got money--money for you, Jinny, for you an' Jake, but -I've lost what I'll never git back. I'm afeard to go down the river with -him. I'd go smash in the Dog Nose Rapids. I got no nerve. I can't hunt -the grizzly any more, nor the puma, Jinny. I got to keep to common -shootin', now and henceforth, amen! No, I'd go smash in Dog Nose -Rapids." - -She caught his hands impulsively. "Don't you fret, Uncle Tom. You've -bin a good uncle to me, and you've bin a good friend, and you ain't the -first that's found whiskey too much for him. You ain't got an enemy in -the mountains. Why, I've got two or three--" - -"Shucks! Women--only women whose beaux left 'em to follow after you. -That's nothing, an' they'll be your friends fast enough after you're -married tomorrow." - -"I ain't going to be married to-morrow. I'm going down to Bindon -to-night. If Jake's mad, then it's all over, and there'll be more -trouble among the women up here." - -By this time they had entered the other room. The old man saw the white -petticoat on the chair. "No woman in the mountains ever had a petticoat -like that, Jinny. It'd make a dress, it's that pretty an' neat. Golly, -I'd like to see it on you, with the blue skirt over, and just hitched up -a little." - -"Oh, shut up--shut up!" she said in sudden anger, and caught up the -petticoat as though she would put it away; but presently she laid it down -again and smoothed it with quick, nervous fingers. "Can't you talk sense -and leave my clothes alone? If Jake comes, and I'm not here, and he -wants to make a fuss, and spoil everything, and won't wait, you give him -this petticoat. You put it in his arms. I bet you'll have the laugh on -him. He's got a temper." - -"So've you, Jinny, dear, so've you," said the old man, laughing. "You're -goin' to have your own way, same as ever--same as ever." - - - - -II - -A moon of exquisite whiteness silvering the world, making shadows on the -water as though it were sunlight and the daytime, giving a spectral look -to the endless array of poplar trees on the banks, glittering on the foam -of the rapids. The spangling stars made the arch of the sky like some -gorgeous chancel in a cathedral as vast as life and time. Like the day -which was ended, in which the mountain-girl had found a taste of Eden, -it seemed too sacred for mortal strife. Now and again there came the -note of a night-bird, the croak of a frog from the shore; but the serene -stillness and beauty of the primeval North was over all. - -For two hours after sunset it had all been silent and brooding, and then -two figures appeared on the bank of the great river. A canoe was softly -and hastily pushed out from its hidden shelter under the overhanging -bank, and was noiselessly paddled out to midstream, dropping down the -current meanwhile. - -It was Jenny Long and the man who must get to Bindon. They had waited -till nine o'clock, when the moon was high and full, to venture forth. -Then Dingley had dropped from her bedroom window, had joined her under -the trees, and they had sped away, while the man's hunters, who had come -suddenly, and before Jenny could get him away into the woods, were -carousing inside. These had tracked their man back to Tom Sanger's -house, and at first they were incredulous that Jenny and her uncle had -not seen him. They had prepared to search the house, and one had laid -his finger on the latch of her bedroom door; but she had flared out with -such anger that, mindful of the supper she had already begun to prepare -for them, they had desisted, and the whiskey-jug which the old man -brought out distracted their attention. - -One of their number, known as the Man from Clancey's, had, however, been -outside when Dingley had dropped from the window, and had seen him from a -distance. He had not given the alarm, but had followed, to make the -capture by himself. But Jenny had heard the stir of life behind them, -and had made a sharp detour, so that they had reached the shore and were -out in mid-stream before their tracker got to the river. Then he called -to them to return, but Jenny only bent a little lower and paddled on, -guiding the canoe towards the safe channel through the first small rapids -leading to the great Dog Nose Rapids. - -A rifle-shot rang out, and a bullet "pinged" over the water and -splintered the side of the canoe where Dingley sat. He looked calmly -back, and saw the rifle raised again, but did not stir, in spite of -Jenny's warning to lie down. - -"He'll not fire on you so long as he can draw a bead on me," he said -quietly. - -Again a shot rang out, and the bullet sang past his head. - -"If he hits me, you go straight on to Bindon," he continued. "Never mind -about me. Go to the Snowdrop Mine. Get there by twelve o'clock, and -warn them. Don't stop a second for me--" - -Suddenly three shots rang out in succession--Tom Sanger's house had -emptied itself on the bank of the river--and Dingley gave a sharp -exclamation. - -"They've hit me, but it's the same arm as before," he growled. "They got -no right to fire at me. It's not the law. Don't stop," he added -quickly, as he saw her half turn round. - -Now there were loud voices on the shore. Old Tom Sanger was threatening -to shoot the first man that fired again, and he would have kept his word. - -"Who you firin' at?" he shouted. "That's my niece, Jinny Long, an' you -let that boat alone. This ain't the land o' lynch law. Dingley ain't -escaped from gaol. You got no right to fire at him." - -"No one ever went down Dog Nose Rapids at night," said the Man from -Clancey's, whose shot had got Dingley's arm. "There ain't a chance of -them doing it. No one's ever done it." - -The two were in the roaring rapids now, and the canoe was jumping through -the foam like a racehorse. The keen eyes on the bank watched the canoe -till it was lost in the half-gloom below the first rapids, and then they -went slowly back to Tom Sanger's house. - -"So there'll be no wedding to-morrow," said the Man from Clancey's. - -"Funerals, more likely," drawled another. - -"Jinny Long's in that canoe, an' she ginerally does what she wants to," -said Tom Sanger sagely. - -"Well, we done our best, and now I hope they'll get to Bindon," said -another. - -Sanger passed the jug to him freely. Then they sat down and talked of -the people who had been drowned in Dog Nose Rapids and of the last -wedding in the mountains. - - - - -III - -It was as the Man from Clancey's had said, no one had ever gone down Dog -Nose Rapids in the nighttime, and probably no one but Jenny Long would -have ventured it. Dingley had had no idea what a perilous task had been -set his rescuer. It was only when the angry roar of the great rapids -floated up-stream to them, increasing in volume till they could see the -terror of tumbling waters just below, and the canoe shot forward like a -snake through the swift, smooth current which would sweep them into the -vast caldron, that he realised the terrible hazard of the enterprise. - -The moon was directly overhead when they drew upon the race of rocks and -fighting water and foam. On either side only the shadowed shore, -forsaken by the races which had hunted and roamed and ravaged here--not -a light, nor any sign of life, or the friendliness of human presence to -make their isolation less complete, their danger, as it were, shared by -fellow-mortals. Bright as the moon was, it was not bright enough for -perfect pilotage. Never in the history of white men had these rapids -been ridden at nighttime. As they sped down the flume of the deep, -irresistible current, and were launched into the trouble of rocks and -water, Jenny realised how great their peril was, and how different the -track of the waters looked at nighttime from daytime. Outlines seemed -merged, rocks did not look the same, whirlpools had a different vortex, -islands of stone had a new configuration. As they sped on, lurching, -jumping, piercing a broken wall of wave and spray like a torpedo, -shooting an almost sheer fall, she came to rely on a sense of intuition -rather than memory, for night had transformed the waters. - -Not a sound escaped either. The man kept his eyes fixed on the woman; -the woman scanned the dreadful pathway with eyes deep-set and burning, -resolute, vigilant, and yet defiant too, as though she had been trapped -into this track of danger, and was fighting without great hope, but with -the temerity and nonchalance of despair. Her arms were bare to the -shoulder almost, and her face was again and again drenched; but second -succeeded second, minute followed minute in a struggle which might well -turn a man's hair grey, and now, at last-how many hours was it since they -had been cast into this den of roaring waters!--at last, suddenly, over a -large fall, and here smooth waters again, smooth and untroubled, and -strong and deep. Then, and only then, did a word escape either; but the -man had passed through torture and unavailing regret, for he realised -that he had had no right to bring this girl into such a fight. It was -not her friend who was in danger at Bindon. Her life had been risked -without due warrant. "I didn't know, or I wouldn't have asked it," he -said in a low voice. "Lord, but you are a wonder--to take that hurdle -for no one that belonged to you, and to do it as you've done it. This -country will rise to you." He looked back on the raging rapids far -behind, and he shuddered. "It was a close call, and no mistake. We must -have been within a foot of down-you-go fifty times. But it's all right -now, if we can last it out and git there." Again he glanced back, then -turned to the girl. "It makes me pretty sick to look at it," he -continued. "I bin through a lot, but that's as sharp practice as I -want." - -"Come here and let me bind up your arm," she answered. "They hit you-- -the sneaks! Are you bleeding much?" - -He came near her carefully, as she got the big canoe out of the current -into quieter water. She whipped the scarf from about her neck, and with -his knife ripped up the seam of his sleeve. Her face was alive with the -joy of conflict and elated with triumph. Her eyes were shining. She -bathed the wound--the bullet had passed clean through the fleshy part of -the arm--and then carefully tied the scarf round it over her -handkerchief. - -"I guess it's as good as a man could do it," she said at last. - -"As good as any doctor," he rejoined. - -"I wasn't talking of your arm," she said. - -"'Course not. Excuse me. You was talkin' of them rapids, and I've got -to say there ain't a man that could have done it and come through like -you. I guess the man that marries you'll get more than his share of -luck." - -"I want none of that," she said sharply, and picked up her paddle again, -her eyes flashing anger. - -He took a pistol from his pocket and offered it to her. "I didn't mean -any harm by what I said. Take this if you think I won't know how to -behave myself," he urged. - -She flung up her head a little. "I knew what I was doing before I -started," she said. "Put it away. How far is it, and can we do it in -time?" - -"If you can hold out, we can do it; but it means going all night and all -morning; and it ain't dawn yet, by a long shot." - -Dawn came at last, and the mist of early morning, and the imperious and -dispelling sun; and with mouthfuls of food as they drifted on, the two -fixed their eyes on the horizon beyond which lay Bindon. And now it -seemed to the girl as though this race to save a life or many lives was -the one thing in existence. To-morrow was to-day, and the white -petticoat was lying in the little house in the mountains, and her wedding -was an interminable distance off, so had this adventure drawn her into -its risks and toils and haggard exhaustion. - -Eight, nine, ten, eleven o'clock came, and then they saw signs of -settlement. Houses appeared here and there upon the banks, and now and -then a horseman watched them from the shore, but they could not pause. -Bindon--Bindon--Bindon--the Snowdrop Mine at Bindon, and a death-dealing -machine timed to do its deadly work, were before the eyes of the two -voyageurs. - -Half-past eleven, and the town of Bindon was just beyond them. A quarter -to twelve, and they had run their canoe into the bank beyond which were -the smokestacks and chimneys of the mine. Bindon was peacefully pursuing -its way, though here and there were little groups of strikers who had not -resumed work. - -Dingley and the girl scrambled up the bank. Trembling with fatigue, they -hastened on. The man drew ahead of her, for she had paddled for fifteen -hours, practically without ceasing, and the ground seemed to rise up at -her. But she would not let him stop. - -He hurried on, reached the mine, and entered, shouting the name of his -friend. It was seven minutes to twelve. - -A moment later, a half-dozen men came rushing from that portion of the -mine where Dingley had been told the machine was placed, and at their -head was Lawson, the man he had come to save. - -The girl hastened on to meet them, but she grew faint and leaned against -a tree, scarce conscious. She was roused by voices. - -"No, it wasn't me, it wasn't me that done it; it was a girl. Here she -is--Jenny Long! You got to thank her, Jake." - -Jake! Jake! The girl awakened to full understanding now. Jake--what -Jake? She looked, then stumbled forward with a cry. - -"Jake--it was my Jake!" she faltered. The mine-boss caught her in his -arms. "You, Jenny! It's you that's saved me!" - -Suddenly there was a rumble as of thunder, and a cloud of dust and stone -rose from the Snowdrop Mine. The mine-boss tightened his arm round the -girl's waist. "That's what I missed, through him and you, Jenny," he -said. - -"What was you doing here, and not at Selby, Jake?" she asked. - -"They sent for me-to stop the trouble here." - -"But what about our wedding to-day?" she asked with a frown. - -"A man went from here with a letter to you three days ago," he said, -"asking you to come down here and be married. I suppose he got drunk, -or had an accident, and didn't reach you. It had to be. I was needed -here--couldn't tell what would happen." - -"It has happened out all right," said Dingley, "and this'll be the end of -it. You got them miners solid now. The strikers'll eat humble pie after -to-day." - -"We'll be married to-day, just the same," the mine-boss said, as he gave -some brandy to the girl. - -But the girl shook her head. She was thinking of a white petticoat in a -little house in the mountains. "I'm not going to be married to-day," she -said decisively. - -"Well, to-morrow," said the mine-boss. - -But the girl shook her head again. "To-day is tomorrow," she answered. -"You can wait, Jake. I'm going back home to be married." - - - - - - -QU'APPELLE - -(Who calls?) - - -"But I'm white; I'm not an Indian. My father was a white man. I've been -brought up as a white girl. I've had a white girl's schooling." - -Her eyes flashed as she sprang to her feet and walked up and down the -room for a moment, then stood still, facing her mother,--a dark-faced, -pock-marked woman, with heavy, somnolent eyes, and waited for her to -speak. The reply came slowly and sullenly-- - -"I am a Blackfoot woman. I lived on the Muskwat River among the braves -for thirty years. I have killed buffalo. I have seen battles. Men, -too, I have killed when they came to steal our horses and crept in on our -lodges in the night-the Crees! I am a Blackfoot. You are the daughter -of a Blackfoot woman. No medicine can cure that. Sit down. You have no -sense. You are not white. They will not have you. Sit down." - -The girl's handsome face flushed; she threw up her hands in an agony of -protest. A dreadful anger was in her panting breast, but she could not -speak. She seemed to choke with excess of feeling. For an instant she -stood still, trembling with agitation, then she sat down suddenly on a -great couch covered with soft deerskins and buffalo robes. There was -deep in her the habit of obedience to this sombre but striking woman. -She had been ruled firmly, almost oppressively, and she had not yet -revolted. Seated on the couch, she gazed out of the window at the flying -snow, her brain too much on fire for thought, passion beating like a -pulse in all her lithe and graceful young body, which had known the -storms of life and time for only twenty years. - -The wind shrieked and the snow swept past in clouds of blinding drift, -completely hiding from sight the town below them, whose civilisation had -built itself many habitations and was making roads and streets on the -green-brown plain, where herds of buffalo had stamped and streamed and -thundered not long ago. The town was a mile and a half away, and these -two were alone in a great circle of storm, one of them battling against a -tempest which might yet overtake her, against which she had set her face -ever since she could remember, though it had only come to violence since -her father died two years before--a careless, strong, wilful white man, -who had lived the Indian life for many years, but had been swallowed at -last by the great wave of civilisation streaming westward and northward, -wiping out the game and the Indian, and overwhelming the rough, fighting, -hunting, pioneer life. Joel Renton had made money, by good luck chiefly, -having held land here and there which he had got for nothing, and had -then almost forgotten about it, and, when reminded of it, still held on -to it with that defiant stubbornness which often possesses improvident -and careless natures. He had never had any real business instinct, and -to swagger a little over the land he held and to treat offers of purchase -with contempt was the loud assertion of a capacity he did not possess. -So it was that stubborn vanity, beneath which was his angry protest -against the prejudice felt by the new people of the West for the white -pioneer who married an Indian, and lived the Indian life,--so it was that -this gave him competence and a comfortable home after the old trader had -been driven out by the railway and the shopkeeper. With the first land -he sold he sent his daughter away to school in a town farther east and -south, where she had been brought in touch with a life that at once -cramped and attracted her; where, too, she had felt the first chill -of racial ostracism, and had proudly fought it to the end, her weapons -being talent, industry, and a hot, defiant ambition. - -There had been three years of bitter, almost half-sullen, struggle, -lightened by one sweet friendship with a girl whose face she had since -drawn in a hundred different poses on stray pieces of paper, on the walls -of the big, well-lighted attic to which she retreated for hours every -day, when she was not abroad on the prairies, riding the Indian pony that -her uncle the Piegan Chief, Ice Breaker, had given her years before. -Three years of struggle, and then her father had died, and the refuge for -her vexed, defiant heart was gone. While he lived she could affirm the -rights of a white man's daughter, the rights of the daughter of a pioneer -who had helped to make the West; and her pride in him had given a glow to -her cheek and a spring to her step which drew every eye. In the chief -street of Portage la Drome men would stop their trafficking and women -nudge each other when she passed, and wherever she went she stirred -interest, excited admiration, or aroused prejudice--but the prejudice did -not matter so long as her father, Joel Renton, lived. Whatever his -faults, and they were many--sometimes he drank too much, and swore a -great deal, and bullied and stormed--she blinked at them all, for he was -of the conquering race, a white man who had slept in white sheets and -eaten off white tablecloths, and used a knife and fork, since he was -born; and the women of his people had had soft petticoats and fine -stockings, and silk gowns for festal days, and feathered hats of velvet, -and shoes of polished leather, always and always, back through many -generations. She had held her head high, for she was of his women, of -the women of his people, with all their rights and all their claims. She -had held it high till that stormy day--just such a day as this, with the -surf of snow breaking against the house--when they carried him in out of -the wild turmoil and snow, laying him on the couch where she now sat, and -her head fell on his lifeless breast, and she cried out to him in vain to -come back to her. - -Before the world her head was still held high, but in the attic-room, -and out on the prairies far away, where only the coyote or the prairie- -hen saw, her head drooped, and her eyes grew heavy with pain and sombre -protest. Once in an agony of loneliness, and cruelly hurt by a -conspicuous slight put upon her at the Portage by the wife of the Reeve -of the town, who had daughters twain of pure white blood got from behind -the bar of a saloon in Winnipeg, she had thrown open her window at night -with the frost below zero, and stood in her thin nightdress, craving the -death which she hoped the cold would give her soon. It had not availed, -however, and once again she had ridden out in a blizzard to die, but had -come upon a man lost in the snow, and her own misery had passed from her, -and her heart, full of the blood of plainsmen, had done for another what -it would not do for itself. The Indian in her had, with strange, sure -instinct, found its way to Portage la Drome, the man with both hands and -one foot frozen, on her pony, she walking at his side, only conscious -that she had saved one, not two, lives that day. - -Here was another such day, here again was the storm in her heart which -had driven her into the plains that other time, and here again was that -tempest of white death outside. - -"You have no sense. You are not white. They will not have you. Sit -down--" - -The words had fallen on her ears with a cold, deadly smother. There came -a chill upon her which stilled the wild pulses in her, which suddenly -robbed the eyes of their brightness and gave a drawn look to the face. - -"You are not white. They will not have you, Pauline." The Indian mother -repeated the words after a moment, her eyes grown still more gloomy; for -in her, too, there was a dark tide of passion moving. In all the -outlived years this girl had ever turned to the white father rather than -to her, and she had been left more and more alone. Her man had been kind -to her, and she had been a faithful wife, but she had resented the -natural instinct of her half-breed child, almost white herself and with -the feelings and ways of the whites, to turn always to her father, as -though to a superior guide, to a higher influence and authority. Was -not she herself the descendant of Blackfoot and Piegan chiefs through -generations of rulers and warriors? Was there not Piegan and Blackfoot -blood in the girl's veins? Must only the white man's blood be reckoned -when they made up their daily account and balanced the books of their -lives, credit and debtor,--misunderstanding and kind act, neglect and -tenderness, reproof and praise, gentleness and impulse, anger and -caress,--to be set down in the everlasting record? Why must the Indian -always give way--Indian habits, Indian desires, the Indian way of doing -things, the Indian point of view, Indian food, Indian medicine? Was it -all bad, and only that which belonged to white life good? - -"Look at your face in the glass, Pauline," she added at last. "You are -good-looking, but it isn't the good looks of the whites. The lodge of a -chieftainess is the place for you. There you would have praise and -honour; among the whites you are only a half-breed. What is the good? -Let us go back to the life out there beyond the Muskwat River--up beyond. -There is hunting still, a little, and the world is quiet, and nothing -troubles. Only the wild dog barks at night, or the wolf sniffs at the -door and all day there is singing. Somewhere out beyond the Muskwat the -feasts go on, and the old men build the great fires, and tell tales, and -call the wind out of the north, and make the thunder speak; and the young -men ride to the hunt or go out to battle, and build lodges for the -daughters of the tribe; and each man has his woman, and each woman has in -her breast the honour of the tribe, and the little ones fill the lodge -with laughter. Like a pocket of deerskin is every house, warm and small -and full of good things. Hai-yai, what is this life to that! There you -will be head and chief of all, for there is money enough for a thousand -horses; and your father was a white man, and these are the days when the -white man rules. Like clouds before the sun are the races of men, and -one race rises and another falls. Here you are not first, but last; and -the child of the white father and mother, though they be as the dirt that -flies from a horse's heels, it is before you. Your mother is a -Blackfoot." - -As the woman spoke slowly and with many pauses, the girl's mood changed, -and there came into her eyes a strange, dark look deeper than anger. She -listened with a sudden patience which stilled the agitation in her breast -and gave a little touch of rigidity to her figure. Her eyes withdrew -from the wild storm without and gravely settled on her mother's face, -and with the Indian woman's last words understanding pierced, but did not -dispel, the sombre and ominous look in her eyes. There was silence for -a moment, and then she spoke almost as evenly as her mother had done. - -"I will tell you everything. You are my mother, and I love you; but you -will not see the truth. When my father took you from the lodges and -brought you here, it was the end of the Indian life. It was for you to -go on with him, but you would not go. I was young, but I saw, and I said -that in all things I would go with him. I did not know that it would be -hard, but at school, at the very first, I began to understand. There was -only one, a French girl--I loved her--a girl who said to me, 'You are as -white as I am, as anyone, and your heart is the same, and you are -beautiful.' Yes, Manette said I was beautiful." - -She paused a moment, a misty, far-away look came into her eyes, her -fingers clasped and unclasped, and she added: - -"And her brother, Julien,--he was older,--when he came to visit Manette, -he spoke to me as though I was all white, and was good to me. I have -never forgotten, never. It was five years ago, but I remember him. He -was tall and strong, and as good as Manette--as good as Manette. I loved -Manette, but she suffered for me, for I was not like the others, and my -ways were different--then. I had lived up there on the Warais among the -lodges, and I had not seen things--only from my father, and he did so -much in an Indian way. So I was sick at heart, and sometimes I wanted to -die; and once--But there was Manette, and she would laugh and sing, and -we would play together, and I would speak French and she would speak -English, and I learned from her to forget the Indian ways. What were -they to me? I had loved them when I was of them, but I came on to a -better life. The Indian life is to the white life as the parfleche pouch -to--to this." She laid her hand upon a purse of delicate silver mesh -hanging at her waist. "When your eyes are opened you must go on, you -cannot stop. There is no going back. When you have read of all there is -in the white man's world, when you have seen, then there is no returning. -You may end it all, if you wish, in the snow, in the river, but there is -no returning. The lodge of a chief--ah, if my father had heard you say -that--!" - -The Indian woman shifted heavily in her chair, then shrank away from the -look fixed on her. Once or twice she made as if she would speak, but -sank down in the great chair, helpless and dismayed. - -"The lodge of a chief!" the girl continued in a low, bitter voice. -"What is the lodge of a chief? A smoky fire, a pot, a bed of skins, aih- -yi! If the lodges of the Indians were millions, and I could be head of -all, and rule the land, yet would I rather be a white girl in the hut of -her white man, struggling for daily bread among the people who sweep the -buffalo out, but open up the land with the plough, and make a thousand -live where one lived before. It is peace you want, my mother, peace and -solitude, in which the soul goes to sleep. Your days of hope are over, -and you want to drowse by the fire. I want to see the white men's cities -grow, and the armies coming over the hill with the ploughs and the -reapers and the mowers, and the wheels and the belts and engines of the -great factories, and the white woman's life spreading everywhere; for I -am a white man's daughter. I can't be both Indian and white. I will not -be like the sun when the shadow cuts across it and the land grows dark. -I will not be half-breed. I will be white or I will be Indian; and I -will be white, white only. My heart is white, my tongue is white, I -think, I feel, as white people think and feel. What they wish, I wish; -as they live, I live; as white women dress, I dress." - -She involuntarily drew up the dark red skirt she wore, showing a white -petticoat and a pair of fine stockings on an ankle as shapely as she had -ever seen among all the white women she knew. She drew herself up with -pride, and her body had a grace and ease which the white woman's -convention had not cramped. - -Yet, with all her protests, no one would have thought her English. -She might have been Spanish, or Italian, or Roumanian, or Slav, though -nothing of her Indian blood showed in purely Indian characteristics, and -something sparkled in her, gave a radiance to her face and figure which -the storm and struggle in her did not smother. The white women of -Portage la Drome were too blind, too prejudiced, to see all that she -really was, and admiring white men could do little, for Pauline would -have nothing to do with them till the women met her absolutely as an -equal; and from the other halfbreeds, who intermarried with each other -and were content to take a lower place than the pure whites, she held -aloof, save when any of them was ill or in trouble. Then she recognised -the claim of race, and came to their doors with pity and soft impulses to -help them. French and Scotch and English half-breeds, as they were, they -understood how she was making a fight for all who were half-Indian, half- -white, and watched her with a furtive devotion, acknowledging her -superior place, and proud of it. - -"I will not stay here," said the Indian mother with sullen stubbornness. -"I will go back beyond the Warais. My life is my own life, and I will do -what I like with it." - -The girl started, but became composed again on the instant. "Is your -life all your own, mother?" she asked. "I did not come into the world -of my own will. If I had I would have come all white or all Indian. I -am your daughter, and I am here, good or bad--is your life all your own?" - -"You can marry and stay here, when I go. You are twenty. I had my man, -your father, when I was seventeen. You can marry. There are men. You -have money. They will marry you--and forget the rest." - -With a cry of rage and misery the girl sprang to her feet and started -forwards, but stopped suddenly at sound of a hasty knocking and a voice -asking admittance. An instant later, a huge, bearded, broad-shouldered -man stepped inside, shaking himself free of the snow, laughing half- -sheepishly as he did so, and laying his fur-cap and gloves with -exaggerated care on the wide window-sill. - -"John Alloway," said the Indian woman in a voice of welcome, and with a -brightening eye, for it would seem as though he came in answer to her -words of a few moments before. With a mother's instinct she had divined -at once the reason for the visit, though no warning thought crossed the -mind of the girl, who placed a chair for their visitor with a heartiness -which was real--was not this the white man she had saved from death in -the snow a year ago? Her heart was soft towards the life she had kept in -the world. She smiled at him, all the anger gone from her eyes, and -there was almost a touch of tender anxiety in her voice as she said "What -brought you out in this blizzard? It wasn't safe. It doesn't seem -possible you got here from the Portage." - -The huge ranchman and auctioneer laughed cheerily. "Once lost, twice get -there," he exclaimed, with a quizzical toss of the head, thinking he had -said a good thing. "It's a year ago to the very day that I was lost out -back"--he jerked a thumb over his shoulder--"and you picked me up and -brought me in; and what was I to do but come out on the anniversary and -say thank you? I'd fixed up all year to come to you, and I wasn't to be -stopped, 'cause it was like the day we first met, old Coldmaker hitting -the world with his whips of frost, and shaking his ragged blankets of -snow over the wild west." - -"Just such a day," said the Indian woman after a pause. Pauline remained -silent, placing a little bottle of cordial before their visitor, with -which he presently regaled himself, raising his glass with an air. - -"Many happy returns to us both!" he said, and threw the liquor down his -throat, smacked his lips, and drew his hand down his great moustache and -beard like some vast animal washing its face with its paw. Smiling -and yet not at ease, he looked at the two women and nodded his head -encouragingly, but whether the encouragement was for himself or for -them he could not have told. - -His last words, however, had altered the situation. The girl had caught -at a suggestion in them which startled her. This rough white plainsman -was come to make love to her, and to say--what? He was at once awkward -and confident, afraid of her, of her refinement, grace, beauty, and -education, and yet confident in the advantage of his position, a white -man bending to a half-breed girl. He was not conscious of the -condescension and majesty of his demeanour, but it was there, and -his untutored words and ways must make it all too apparent to the girl. -The revelation of the moment made her at once triumphant and humiliated. -This white man had come to make love to her, that was apparent; but that -he, ungrammatical, crude, and rough, should think he had but to put out -his hand, and she in whom every subtle emotion and influence had delicate -response, whose words and ways were as far removed from his as day from -night, would fly to him, brought the flush of indignation to her cheek. -She responded to his toast with a pleasant nod, however, and said: - -"But if you will keep coming in such wild storms, there will not be many -anniversaries." Laughing, she poured out another glass of liquor for -him. - -"Well, now, p'r'aps you're right, and so the only thing to do is not to -keep coming, but to stay--stay right where you are." - -The Indian woman could not see her daughter's face, which was turned to -the fire, but she herself smiled at John Alloway, and nodded her head -approvingly. Here was the cure for her own trouble and loneliness. -Pauline and she, who lived in different worlds, and yet were tied to each -other by circumstances they could not control, would each work out her -own destiny after her own nature, since John Alloway had come a-wooing. -She would go back on the Warais, and Pauline would remain at the Portage, -a white woman with her white man. She would go back to the smoky fires -in the huddled lodges; to the venison stew and the snake dance; to the -feasts of the Medicine Men, and the long sleeps in the summer days, and -the winter's tales, and be at rest among her own people; and Pauline -would have revenge of the wife of the prancing Reeve, and perhaps the -people would forget who her mother was. - -With these thoughts flying through her sluggish mind, she rose and moved -heavily from the room, with a parting look of encouragement at Alloway, -as though to say, a man that is bold is surest. - -With her back to the man, Pauline watched her mother leave the room, saw -the look she gave Alloway. When the door was closed she turned and -looked Alloway in the eyes. - -"How old are you?" she asked suddenly. - -He stirred in his seat nervously. "Why, fifty, about," he answered with -confusion. - -"Then you'll be wise not to go looking for anniversaries in blizzards, -when they're few at the best," she said with a gentle and dangerous -smile. - -"Fifty-why, I'm as young as most men of thirty," he responded with an -uncertain laugh. "I'd have come here to-day if it had been snowing -pitchforks and chain-lightning. I made up my mind I would. You saved my -life, that's dead sure; and I'd be down among the: moles if it wasn't for -you and that Piegan pony of yours. Piegan ponies are wonders in a storm- -seem to know their way by instinct. You, too--why, I bin on the plains -all my life, and was no better than a baby that day; but you--why, you -had Piegan in you, why, yes--" - -He stopped short for a moment, checked by the look in her face, then went -blindly on: "And you've got Blackfoot in you, too; and you just felt your -way through the tornado and over the blind prairie like a, bird reaching -for the hills. It was as easy to you as picking out a moverick in a -bunch of steers to me. But I never could make out what you was doing on -the prairie that terrible day. I've thought of it a hundred times. What -was you doing, if it ain't cheek to ask?" - -"I was trying to lose a life," she answered quietly, her eyes dwelling -on his face, yet not seeing him; for it all came back on her, the agony -which had driven her out into the tempest to be lost evermore. - -He laughed. "Well, now, that's good," he said; "that's what they call -speaking sarcastic. You was out to save, and not to lose, a life; that -was proved to the satisfaction of the court." He paused and chuckled to -himself, thinking he had been witty, and continued: "And I was that -court, and my judgment was that the debt of that life you saved had to be -paid to you within one calendar year, with interest at the usual per cent -for mortgages on good security. That was my judgment, and there's no -appeal from it. I am the great Justinian in this case." - -"Did you ever save anybody's life?" she asked, putting the bottle of -cordial away, as he filled his glass for the third time. - -"Twice certain, and once dividin' the honours," he answered, pleased at -the question. - -"And did you expect to get any pay, with or without interest?" she -added. - -"Me? I never thought of it again. But yes--by gol, I did! One case was -funny, as funny can be. It was Ricky Wharton over on the Muskwat River. -I saved his life right enough, and he came to me a year after and said, -You saved my life, now what are you going to do with it? I'm stony -broke. I owe a hundred dollars, and I wouldn't be owing it if you hadn't -saved my life. When you saved it I was five hunderd to the good, and -I'd have left that much behind me. Now I'm on the rocks, because you -insisted on saving my life; and you just got to take care of me.' -I 'insisted!' Well, that knocked me silly, and I took him on--blame me, -if I didn't keep Ricky a whole year, till he went north looking for gold. -Get pay--why, I paid! Saving life has its responsibilities, little gal." - -"You can't save life without running some risk yourself, not as a rule, -can you?" she said, shrinking from his familiarity. - -"Not as a rule," he replied. "You took on a bit of risk with me, you and -your Piegan pony." - -"Oh, I was young," she responded, leaning over the table, and drawing -faces on a piece of paper before her. "I could take more risks, I was -only nineteen!" - -"I don't catch on," he rejoined. "If it's sixteen or--" - -"Or fifty," she interposed. - -"What difference does it make? If you're done for, it's the same at -nineteen as fifty, and vicey-versey." - -"No, it's not the same," she answered. "You leave so much more that you -want to keep, when you go at fifty." - -"Well, I dunno. I never thought of that." - -"There's all that has belonged to you. You've been married, and have -children, haven't you?" - -He started, frowned, then straightened himself. "I got one girl--she's -east with her grandmother," he said jerkily. - -"That's what I said; there's more to leave behind at fifty," she replied, -a red spot on each cheek. She was not looking at him, but at the face of -a man on the paper before her--a young man with abundant hair, a strong -chin, and big, eloquent eyes; and all around his face she had drawn the -face of a girl many times, and beneath the faces of both she was writing -Manette and Julien. - -The water was getting too deep for John Alloway. - -He floundered towards the shore. "I'm no good at words," he said-- -"no good at argyment; but I've got a gift for stories--round the fire of -a night, with a pipe and a tin basin of tea; so I'm not going to try and -match you. You've had a good education down at Winnipeg. Took every -prize, they say, and led the school, though there was plenty of fuss -because they let you do it, and let you stay there, being half-Indian. -You never heard what was going on outside, I s'pose. It didn't matter, -for you won out. Blamed foolishness, trying to draw the line between red -and white that way. Of course, it's the women always, always the women, -striking out for all-white or nothing. Down there at Portage they've -treated you mean, mean as dirt. The Reeve's wife--well, we'll fix that -up all right. I guess John Alloway ain't to be bluffed. He knows too -much and they all know he knows enough. When John Alloway, 32 Main -Street, with a ranch on the Katanay, says, 'We're coming--Mr. and Mrs. -John Alloway is coming,' they'll get out their cards visite, I guess." - -Pauline's head bent lower, and she seemed laboriously etching lines into -the faces before her--Manette and Julien, Julien and Manette; and there -came into her eyes the youth and light and gaiety of the days when Julien -came of an afternoon and the riverside rang with laughter; the dearest, -lightest days she had ever spent. - -The man of fifty went on, seeing nothing but a girl over whom he was -presently going to throw the lasso of his affection, and take her home -with him, yielding and glad, a white man, and his half-breed girl--but -such a half-breed! - -"I seen enough of the way some of them women treated you," he continued, -"and I sez to myself, Her turn next. There's a way out, I sez, and John -Alloway pays his debts. When the anniversary comes round I'll put things -right, I sez to myself. She saved my life, and she shall have the rest -of it, if she'll take it, and will give a receipt in full, and open a new -account in the name of John and Pauline Alloway. Catch it? See-- -Pauline?" - -Slowly she got to her feet. There was a look in her eyes such as had -been in her mother's a little while before, but a hundred times -intensified: a look that belonged to the flood and flow of generations of -Indian life, yet controlled in her by the order and understanding of -centuries of white men's lives, the pervasive, dominating power of race. - -For an instant she kept her eyes towards the window. The storm had -suddenly ceased, and a glimmer of sunset light was breaking over the -distant wastes of snow. - -"You want to pay a debt you think you owe," she said, in a strange, -lustreless voice, turning to him at last. "Well, you have paid it. You -have given me a book to read which I will keep always. And I give you a -receipt in full for your debt." - -"I don't know about any book," he answered dazedly. "I want to marry you -right away." - -"I am sorry, but it is not necessary," she replied suggestively. -Her face was very pale now. - -"But I want to. It ain't a debt. That was only a way of putting it. -I want to make you my wife. I got some position, and I can make the West -sit up, and look at you and be glad." - -Suddenly her anger flared out, low and vivid and fierce, but her words -were slow and measured. "There is no reason why I should marry you--not -one. You offer me marriage as a prince might give a penny to a beggar. -If my mother were not an Indian woman, you would not have taken it all -as a matter of course. But my father was a white man, and I am a white -man's daughter, and I would rather marry an Indian, who would think me -the best thing there was in the light of the sun, than marry you. Had I -been pure white you would not have been so sure, you would have asked, -not offered. I am not obliged to you. You ought to go to no woman as -you came to me. See, the storm has stopped. You will be quite safe -going back now. The snow will be deep, perhaps, but it is not far." - -She went to the window, got his cap and gloves, and handed them to him. -He took them, dumbfounded and overcome. - -"Say, I ain't done it right, mebbe, but I meant well, and I'd be good to -you and proud of you, and I'd love you better than anything I ever saw," -he said shamefacedly, but eagerly and honestly too. - -"Ah, you should have said those last words first," she answered. - -"I say them now." - -"They come too late; but they would have been too late in any case," she -added. "Still, I am glad you said them." - -She opened the door for him. - -"I made a mistake," he urged humbly. "I understand better now. I never -had any schoolin'." - -"Oh, it isn't that," she answered gently. "Goodbye." - -Suddenly he turned. "You're right--it couldn't ever be," he said. -"You're--you're great. And I owe you my life still." - -He stepped out into the biting air. - -For a moment Pauline stood motionless in the middle of the room, her gaze -fixed upon the door which had just closed; then, with a wild gesture of -misery and despair, she threw herself upon the couch in a passionate -outburst of weeping. Sobs shook her from head to foot, and her hands, -clenched above her head, twitched convulsively. - -Presently the door opened and her mother looked in eagerly. At what she -saw her face darkened and hardened for an instant, but then the girl's -utter abandonment of grief and agony convinced and conquered her. -Some glimmer of the true understanding of the problem which Pauline -represented got into her heart, and drove the sullen selfishness from -her face and eyes and mind. She came over heavily and, sinking upon her -knees, swept an arm around the girl's shoulder. She realised what had -happened, and probably this was the first time in her life that she had -ever come by instinct to a revelation of her daughter's mind, or of the -faithful meaning of incidents of their lives. - -"You said no to John Alloway," she murmured. Defiance and protest spoke -in the swift gesture of the girl's hands. "You think because he was -white that I'd drop into his arms! No--no--no!" - -"You did right, little one." - -The sobs suddenly stopped, and the girl seemed to listen with all her -body. There was something in her Indian mother's voice she had never -heard before--at least, not since she was a little child, and swung in a -deer-skin hammock in a tamarac tree by Renton's Lodge, where the chiefs -met, and the West paused to rest on its onward march. Something of the -accents of the voice that crooned to her then was in the woman's tones -now. - -"He offered it like a lump of sugar to a bird--I know. He didn't know -that you have great blood--yes, but it is true. My man's grandfather, -he was of the blood of the kings of England. My man had the proof. And -for a thousand years my people have been chiefs. There is no blood in -all the West like yours. My heart was heavy, and dark thoughts came to -me, because my man is gone, and the life is not my life, and I am only an -Indian woman from the Warais, and my heart goes out there always now. -But some great Medicine has been poured into my heart. As I stood at the -door and saw you lying there, I called to the Sun. 'O great Spirit,' I -said, 'help me to understand; for this girl is bone of my bone and flesh -of my flesh, and Evil has come between us!' And the Sun Spirit poured -the Medicine into my spirit, and there is no cloud between us now. It -has passed away, and I see. Little white one, the white life is the only -life, and I will live it with you till a white man comes and gives you a -white man's home. But not John Alloway--shall the crow nest with the -oriole?" - -As the woman spoke with slow, measured voice, full of the cadences of a -heart revealing itself, the girl's breath at first seemed to stop, so -still she lay; then, as the true understanding of the words came to her, -she panted with excitement, her breast heaved, and the blood flushed her -face. When the slow voice ceased, and the room became still, she lay -quiet for a moment, letting the new thing find secure lodgment in her -thought; then, suddenly, she raised herself and threw her arms round her -mother in a passion of affection. - -"Lalika! O mother Lalika!" she said tenderly, and kissed her again and -again. Not since she was a little girl, long before they left the -Warais, had she called her mother by her Indian name, which her father -had humorously taught her to do in those far-off happy days by the -beautiful, singing river and the exquisite woods, when, with a bow -and arrow, she had ranged a young Diana who slew only with love. - -"Lalika, mother Lalika, it is like the old, old times," she added softly. -"Ah, it does not matter now, for you understand!" - -"I do not understand altogether," murmured the Indian woman gently. -"I am not white, and there is a different way of thinking; but I will -hold your hand, and we will live the white life together." - -Cheek to cheek they saw the darkness come, and, afterwards, the silver -moon steal up over a frozen world, in which the air bit like steel and -braced the heart like wine. Then, at last, before it was nine o'clock, -after her custom, the Indian woman went to bed, leaving her daughter -brooding peacefully by the fire. - -For a long time Pauline sat with hands clasped in her lap, her gaze on -the tossing flames, in her heart and mind a new feeling of strength and -purpose. The way before her was not clear, she saw no further than this -day, and all that it had brought; yet she was as one that has crossed a -direful flood and finds herself on a strange shore in an unknown country, -with the twilight about her, yet with so much of danger passed that there -was only the thought of the moment's safety round her, the camp-fire to -be lit, and the bed to be made under the friendly trees and stars. - -For a half-hour she sat so, and then, suddenly, she raised her head -listening, leaning towards the window, through which the moonlight -streamed. She heard her name called without, distinct and strange-- -"Pauline! Pauline!" - -Starting up, she ran to the door and opened it. All was silent and -cruelly cold. Nothing but the wide plain of snow and the steely air. -But as she stood intently listening, the red glow from the fire behind -her, again came the cry--"Pauline!" not far away. Her heart beat hard, -and she raised her head and called--why was it she should call out in a -language not her own? "Qu'appelle? Qu'appelle?" - -And once again on the still night air came the trembling appeal-- -"Pauline!" - -"Qu'appelle? Qu'appelle?" she cried, then, with a gasping murmur of -understanding and recognition she ran forwards in the frozen night -towards the sound of the voice. The same intuitive sense which had made -her call out in French, without thought or reason, had revealed to her -who it was that called; or was it that even in the one word uttered there -was the note of a voice always remembered since those days with Manette -at Winnipeg? - -Not far away from the house, on the way to Portage la Drome, but a little -distance from the road, was a crevasse, and towards this she sped, for -once before an accident had happened there. Again the voice called as -she sped--"Pauline!" and she cried out that she was coming. Presently -she stood above the declivity, and peered over. Almost immediately below -her, a few feet down, was a man lying in the snow. He had strayed from -the obliterated road, and had fallen down the crevasse, twisting his foot -cruelly. Unable to walk he had crawled several hundred yards in the -snow, but his strength had given out, and then he had called to the -house, on whose dark windows flickered the flames of the fire, the name -of the girl he had come so far to see. With a cry of joy and pain at -once she recognised him now. It was as her heart had said--it was -Julien, Manette's brother. In a moment she was beside him, her arm -around his shoulder. - -"Pauline!" he said feebly, and fainted in her arms. An instant later -she was speeding to the house, and, rousing her mother and two of the -stablemen, she snatched a flask of brandy from a cupboard and hastened -back. - -An hour later Julien Labrosse lay in the great sitting-room beside the -fire, his foot and ankle bandaged, and at ease, his face alight with all -that had brought him there. And once again the Indian mother with a sure -instinct knew why he had come, and saw that now her girl would have a -white woman's home, and, for her man, one of the race like her father's -race, white and conquering. - -"I'm sorry to give trouble," Julien said, laughing--he had a trick -of laughing lightly; "but I'll be able to get back to the Portage -to-morrow." - -To this the Indian mother said, however: "To please yourself is a great -thing, but to please others is better; and so you will stay here till you -can walk back to the Portage, M'sieu' Julien." - -"Well, I've never been so comfortable," he said--"never so--happy. If -you don't mind the trouble!" The Indian woman nodded pleasantly, and -found an excuse to leave the room. But before she went she contrived -to place near his elbow one of the scraps of paper on which Pauline had -drawn his face, with that of Manette. It brought a light of hope and -happiness into his eyes, and he thrust the paper under the fur robes of -the couch. - -"What are you doing with your life?" Pauline asked him, as his eyes -sought hers a few moments later. - -"Oh, I have a big piece of work before me," he answered eagerly, "a great -chance--to build a bridge over the St. Lawrence, and I'm only thirty! -I've got my start. Then, I've made over the old Seigneury my father left -me, and I'm going to live in it. It will be a fine place, when I've done -with it--comfortable and big, with old oak timbers and walls, and deep -fireplaces, and carvings done in the time of Louis Quinze, and dark red -velvet curtains for the drawingroom, and skins and furs. Yes, I must -have skins and furs like these here." He smoothed the skins with his -hand. - -"Manette, she will live with you?" Pauline asked. "Oh no, her husband -wouldn't like that. You see, Manette is to be married. She told me to -tell you all about it." - -He told her all there was to tell of Manette's courtship, and added that -the wedding would take place in the spring. - -"Manette wanted it when the leaves first flourish and the birds come -back," he said gaily; "and so she's not going to live with me at the -Seigneury, you see. No, there it is, as fine a house, good enough for -a prince, and I shall be there alone, unless--" - -His eyes met hers, and he caught the light that was in them, before the -eyelids drooped over them and she turned her head to the fire. "But the -spring is two months off yet," he added. - -"The spring?" she asked, puzzled, yet half afraid to speak. - -"Yes, I'm going into my new house when Manette goes into her new house-- -in the spring. And I won't go alone if--" - -He caught her eyes again, but she rose hurriedly and said: "You must -sleep now. Good-night." She held out her hand. - -"Well, I'll tell you the rest to-morrow-to-morrow night when it's quiet -like this, and the stars shine," he answered. "I'm going to have a home -of my own like this--ah, bien sur, Pauline." - -That night the old Indian mother prayed to the Sun. "O great Spirit," -she said, "I give thanks for the Medicine poured into my heart. Be good -to my white child when she goes with her man to the white man's home -far away. O great Spirit, when I return to the lodges of my people, be -kind to me, for I shall be lonely; I shall not have my child; I shall not -hear my white man's voice. Give me good Medicine, O Sun and great -Father, till my dream tells me that my man comes from over the hills for -me once more." - - - - - - -THE STAKE AND THE PLUMB-LINE - -She went against all good judgment in marrying him; she cut herself off -from her own people, from the life in which she had been an alluring and -beautiful figure. Washington had never had two such seasons as those in -which she moved; for the diplomatic circle who had had "the run of the -world" knew her value, and were not content without her. She might have -made a brilliant match with one ambassador thirty years older than -herself--she was but twenty-two; and there were at least six attaches -and secretaries of legation who entered upon a tournament for her heart -and hand; but she was not for them. All her fine faculties of tact and -fairness, of harmless strategy, and her gifts of wit and unexpected -humour were needed to keep her cavaliers constant and hopeful to the -last; but she never faltered, and she did not fail. The faces of old men -brightened when they saw her, and one or two ancient figures who, for -years, had been seldom seen at social functions now came when they knew -she was to be present. There were, of course, a few women who said she -would coquette with any male from nine to ninety; but no man ever said -so; and there was none, from first to last, but smiled with pleasure at -even the mention of her name, so had her vivacity, intelligence, and fine -sympathy conquered them. She was a social artist by instinct. In their -hearts they all recognised how fair and impartial she was; and she drew -out of every man the best that was in him. The few women who did not -like her said that she chattered; but the truth was she made other people -talk by swift suggestion or delicate interrogation. - -After the blow fell, Freddy Hartzman put the matter succinctly, and told -the truth faithfully, when he said, "The first time I met her, I told her -all I'd ever done that could be told, and all I wanted to do; including a -resolve to carry her off to some desert place and set up a Kingdom of -Two. I don't know how she did it. I was like a tap, and poured myself -out; and when it was all over, I thought she was the best talker I'd ever -heard. But yet she'd done nothing except look at me and listen, and put -in a question here and there, that was like a baby asking to see your -watch. Oh, she was a lily-flower, was Sally Seabrook, and I've never -been sorry I told her all my little story! It did me good. Poor -darling--it makes me sick sometimes when I think of it. Yet she'll win -out all right--a hundred to one she'll win out. She was a star." - -Freddy Hartzman was in an embassy of repute; he knew the chancelleries -and salons of many nations, and was looked upon as one of the ablest and -shrewdest men in the diplomatic service. He had written one of the best -books on international law in existence, he talked English like a native, -he had published a volume of delightful verse, and had omitted to publish -several others, including a tiny volume which Sally Seabrook's charms had -inspired him to write. His view of her was shared by most men who knew -the world, and especially by the elderly men who had a real knowledge of -human nature, among whom was a certain important member of the United -States executive called John Appleton. When the end of all things at -Washington came for Sally, these two men united to bear her up, that her -feet should not stumble upon the stony path of the hard journey she had -undertaken. - -Appleton was not a man of much speech, but his words had weight; for he -was not only a minister; he came of an old family which had ruled the -social destinies of a state, and had alternately controlled and disturbed -its politics. On the day of the sensation, in the fiery cloud of which -Sally disappeared, Appleton delivered himself of his mind in the matter -at a reception given by the President. - -"She will come back--and we will all take her back, be glad to have her -back," he said. "She has the grip of a lever which can lift the eternal -hills with the right pressure. Leave her alone--leave her alone. This -is a democratic country, and she'll prove democracy a success before -she's done." - -The world knew that John Appleton had offered her marriage, and he had -never hidden the fact. What they did not know was that she had told him -what she meant to do before she did it. He had spoken to her plainly, -bluntly, then with a voice that was blurred and a little broken, urging -her against the course towards which she was set; but it had not availed; -and, realising that he had come upon a powerful will underneath the sunny -and so human surface, he had ceased to protest, to bear down upon her -mind with his own iron force. When he realised that all his reasoning -was wasted, that all worldly argument was vain, he made one last attempt, -a forlorn hope, as though to put upon record what he believed to be the -truth. - -"There is no position you cannot occupy," he said. "You have the perfect -gift in private life, and you have a public gift. You have a genius for -ruling. Say, my dear, don't wreck it all. I know you are not for me, -but there are better men in the country than I am. Hartzman will be a -great man one day--he wants you. Young Tilden wants you; he has -millions, and he will never disgrace them or you, the power which they -can command, and the power which you have. And there are others. Your -people have told you they will turn you off; the world will say things-- -will rend you. There is nothing so popular for the moment as the fall of -a favourite. But that's nothing--it's nothing at all compared with the -danger to yourself. I didn't sleep last night thinking of it. Yet I'm -glad you wrote me; it gave me time to think, and I can tell you the truth -as I see it. Haven't you thought that he will drag you down, down, down, -wear out your soul, break and sicken your life, destroy your beauty--you -are beautiful, my dear, beyond what the world sees, even. Give it up-- -ah, give it up, and don't break our hearts! There are too many people -loving you for you to sacrifice them--and yourself, too. . . . You've -had such a good time!" - -"It's been like a dream," she interrupted, in a faraway voice, "like a -dream, these two years." - -"And it's been such a good dream," he urged; "and you will only go to a -bad one, from which you will never wake. The thing has fastened on him; -he will never give it up. And penniless, too--his father has cast him -off. My girl, it's impossible. Listen to me. There's no one on earth -that would do more for you than I would--no one." - -"Dear, dear friend!" she cried with a sudden impulse, and caught his -hand in hers and kissed it before he could draw it back. "You are so -true, and you think you are right. But, but"--her eyes took on a deep, -steady, far-away look--"but I will save him; and we shall not be -penniless in the end. Meanwhile I have seven hundred dollars a year of -my own. No one can touch that. Nothing can change me now--and I have -promised." - -When he saw her fixed determination, he made no further protest, but -asked that he might help her, be with her the next day, when she was to -take a step which the wise world would say must lead to sorrow and a -miserable end. - -The step she took was to marry Jim Templeton, the drunken, cast-off son -of a millionaire senator from Kentucky, who controlled railways, and -owned a bank, and had so resented his son's inebriate habits that for -five years he had never permitted Jim's name to be mentioned in his -presence. Jim had had twenty thousand dollars left him by his mother, -and a small income of three hundred dollars from an investment which had -been made for him when a little boy. And this had carried him on; for, -drunken as he was, he had sense enough to eke out the money, limiting -himself to three thousand dollars a year. He had four thousand dollars -left, and his tiny income of three hundred, when he went to Sally -Seabrook, after having been sober for a month, and begged her to marry -him. - -Before dissipation had made him look ten years older than he was, there -had been no handsomer man in all America. Even yet he had a remarkable -face; long, delicate, with dark brown eyes, as fair a forehead as man -could wish, and black, waving hair, streaked with grey-grey, though he -was but twenty-nine years of age. - -When Sally was fifteen and he twenty-two, he had fallen in love with her -and she with him; and nothing had broken the early romance. He had -captured her young imagination, and had fastened his image on her heart. -Her people, seeing the drift of things, had sent her to a school on the -Hudson, and the two did not meet for some time. Then came a stolen -interview, and a fastening of the rivets of attraction--for Jim had gifts -of a wonderful kind. He knew his Horace and Anacreon and Heine and -Lamartine and Dante in the originals, and a hundred others; he was a -speaker of power and grace; and he had a clear, strong head for business. -He was also a lawyer, and was junior attorney to his father's great -business. It was because he had the real business gift, not because -he had a brilliant and scholarly mind, that his father had taken him -into his concerns, and was the more unforgiving when he gave way to -temptation. Otherwise, he would have pensioned Jim off, and dismissed -him from his mind as a useless, insignificant person; for Horace, -Anacreon, and philosophy and history were to him the recreations of the -feeble-minded. He had set his heart on Jim, and what Jim could do and -would do by and by in the vast financial concerns he controlled, when he -was ready to slip out and down; but Jim had disappointed him beyond -calculation. - -In the early days of their association Jim had left his post and taken to -drink at critical moments in their operations. At first, high words had -been spoken; then there came the strife of two dissimilar natures, and -both were headstrong, and each proud and unrelenting in his own way. -Then, at last, had come the separation, irrevocable and painful; and Jim -had flung out into the world, a drunkard, who, sober for a fortnight or a -month, or three months, would afterward go off on a spree, in which he -quoted Sappho and Horace in taverns, and sang bacchanalian songs with a -voice meant for the stage--a heritage from an ancestor who had sung upon -the English stage a hundred years before. Even in his cups, even after -his darling vice had submerged him, Jim Templeton was a man marked out -from his fellows, distinguished and very handsome. Society, however, had -ceased to recognise him for a long time, and he did not seek it. For two -or three years he practised law now and then. He took cases, preferably -criminal cases, for which very often he got no pay; but that, too, ceased -at last. Now, in his quiet, sober intervals he read omnivorously, and -worked out problems in physics for which he had a taste, until the old -appetite surged over him again. Then his spirits rose, and he was the -old brilliant talker, the joyous galliard until, in due time, he became -silently and lethargically drunk. - -In one of his sober intervals he had met Sally Seabrook in the street. -It was the first time in four years, for he had avoided her, and though -she had written to him once or twice, he had never answered her--shame -was in his heart. Yet all the time the old song was in Sally's ears. -Jim Templeton had touched her in some distant and intimate corner of her -nature where none other had reached; and in all her gay life, when men -had told their tale of admiration in their own way, her mind had gone -back to Jim, and what he had said under the magnolia trees; and his voice -had drowned all others. She was not blind to what he had become, but a -deep belief possessed her that she, of all the world, could save him. -She knew how futile it would look to the world, how wild a dream it -looked even to her own heart, how perilous it was; but, play upon the -surface of things as she had done so much and so often in her brief -career, she was seized of convictions having origin, as it might seem, -in something beyond herself. - -So when she and Jim met in the street, the old true thing rushed upon -them both, and for a moment they stood still and looked at each other. -As they might look who say farewell forever, so did each dwell upon the -other's face. That was the beginning of the new epoch. A few days more, -and Jim came to her and said that she alone could save him; and she meant -him to say it, had led him to the saying, for the same conviction was -burned deep in her own soul. She knew the awful risk she was taking, -that the step must mean social ostracism, and that her own people would -be no kinder to her than society; but she gasped a prayer, smiled at Jim -as though all were well, laid her plans, made him promise her one thing -on his knees, and took the plunge. - -Her people did as she expected. She was threatened with banishment from -heart and home--with disinheritance; but she pursued her course; and the -only person who stood with her and Jim at the altar was John Appleton, -who would not be denied, and who had such a half-hour with Jim before -the ceremony as neither of them forgot in the years that the locust ate -thereafter. And, standing at the altar, Jim's eyes were still wet, with -new resolves in his heart and a being at his side meant for the best man -in the world. As he knelt beside her, awaiting the benediction, a sudden -sense of the enormity of this act came upon him, and for her sake he -would have drawn back then, had it not been too late. He realised that -it was a crime to put this young, beautiful life in peril; that his own -life was a poor, contemptible thing, and that he had been possessed of -the egotism of the selfish and the young. - -But the thing was done, and a new life was begun. Before they were -launched upon it, however, before society had fully grasped the -sensation, or they had left upon their journey to northern Canada, where -Sally intended they should work out their problem and make their home, -far and free from all old associations, a curious thing happened. Jim's -father sent an urgent message to Sally to come to him. When she came, -he told her she was mad, and asked her why she had thrown her life away. - -"Why have you done it?" he said. "You--you knew all about him; you -might have married the best man in the country. You could rule a -kingdom; you have beauty and power, and make people do what you want: -and you've got a sot." - -"He is your son," she answered quietly. - -She looked so beautiful and so fine as she stood there, fearless and -challenging before him, that he was moved. But he would not show it. - -"He was my son--when he was a man," he retorted grimly. - -"He is the son of the woman you once loved," she answered. - -The old man turned his head away. - -"What would she have said to what you did to Jim?" He drew himself -around sharply. Her dagger had gone home, but he would not let her know -it. - -"Leave her out of the question--she was a saint," he said roughly. - -"She cannot be left out; nor can you. He got his temperament naturally; -he inherited his weakness from your grandfather, from her father. Do you -think you are in no way responsible?" - -He was silent for a moment, but then said stubbornly: "Why--why have you -done it? What's between him and me can't be helped; we are father and -son; but you--you had no call, no responsibility." - -"I love Jim. I always loved him, ever since I can remember, as you did. -I see my way ahead. I will not desert him. No one cares what happens to -him, no one but me. Your love wouldn't stand the test; mine will." - -"Your folks have disinherited you,--you have almost nothing, and I will -not change my mind. What do you see ahead of you?" - -"Jim--only Jim--and God." - -Her eyes were shining, her hands were clasped together at her side in the -tenseness of her feeling, her indomitable spirit spoke in her face. - -Suddenly the old man brought his fist down on the table with a bang. -"It's a crime--oh, it's a crime, to risk your life so! You ought to have -been locked up. I'd have done it." - -"Listen to me," she rejoined quietly. "I know the risk. But do you -think that I could have lived my life out, feeling that I might have -saved Jim, and didn't try? You talk of beauty and power and ruling--you -say what others have said to me. Which is the greater thing, to get what -pleases one, or to work for something which is more to one than all else -in the world? To save one life, one intellect, one great man--oh, he has -the making of a great man in him!--to save a soul, would not life be well -lost, would not love be well spent in doing it?" - -"Love's labour lost," said the old man slowly, cynically, but not without -emotion. - -"I have ambition," she continued. "No girl was ever more ambitious, but -my ambition is to make the most and best of myself. Place?--Jim and I -will hold it yet. Power?--it shall be as it must be; but Jim and I will -work for it to fulfil ourselves. For me--ah, if I can save him--and I -mean to do so--do you think that I would not then have my heaven on -earth? You want money--money--money, power, and to rule; and these are -to you the best things in the world. I make my choice differently, -though I would have these other things if I could; and I hope I shall. -But Jim first--Jim first, your son, Jim--my husband, Jim." - -The old man got to his feet slowly. She had him at bay. "But you are -great," he said, "great! It is an awful stake--awful. Yet if you win, -you'll have what money can't buy. And listen to me. We'll make the -stake bigger. It will give it point, too, in another way. If you keep -Jim sober for four years from the day of your marriage, on the last day -of that four years I'll put in your hands for you and him, or for your -child--if you have one--five millions of dollars. I am a man of my word. -While Jim drinks I won't take him back; he's disinherited. I'll give him -nothing now or hereafter. Save him for four years,--if he can do that he -will do all, and there's five millions as sure as the sun's in heaven. -Amen and amen." - -He opened the door. There was a strange soft light in her eyes as she -came to go. - -"Aren't you going to kiss me?" she said, looking at him whimsically. - -He was disconcerted. She did not wait, but reached up and kissed him on -the cheek. "Good-by," she said with a smile. "We'll win the stake. -Good-by." - -An instant, and she was gone. He shut the door, then turned and looked -in a mirror on the wall. Abstractedly he touched the cheek she had -kissed. Suddenly a change passed over his face. He dropped in a chair, -and his fist struck the table as he said: "By God, she may do it, she may -do it! But it's life and death--it's life and death." - -Society had its sensation, and then the veil dropped. For a long time -none looked behind it except Jim's father. He had too much at stake not -to have his telescope upon them. A detective followed them to keep Jim's -record. But this they did not know. - - - - -II - -From the day they left Washington Jim put his life and his fate in his -wife's hands. He meant to follow her judgment, and, self-willed and -strong in intellect as he was, he said that she should have a fair chance -of fulfilling her purpose. There had been many pour parlers as to what -Jim should do. There was farming. She set that aside, because it meant -capital, and it also meant monotony and loneliness; and capital was -limited, and monotony and loneliness were bad for Jim, deadening an -active brain which must not be deprived of stimulants--stimulants of a -different sort, however, from those which had heretofore mastered it. -There was the law. But Jim would have to become a citizen of Canada, -change his flag, and where they meant to go--to the outskirts--there -would be few opportunities for the law; and with not enough to do there -would be danger. Railway construction? That seemed good in many ways, -but Jim had not the professional knowledge necessary; his railway -experience with his father had only been financial. Above all else he -must have responsibility, discipline, and strict order in his life. - -"Something that will be good for my natural vanity, and knock the -nonsense out of me," Jim agreed, as they drew farther and farther away -from Washington and the past, and nearer and nearer to the Far North and -their future. Never did two more honest souls put their hands in each -other's, and set forth upon the thorniest path to a goal which was their -hearts' desire. Since they had become one, there had come into Sally's -face that illumination which belongs only to souls possessed of an idea -greater than themselves, outside themselves--saints, patriots; faces -which have been washed in the salt tears dropped for others' sorrows, -and lighted by the fire of self-sacrifice. Sally Seabrook, the high- -spirited, the radiant, the sweetly wilful, the provoking, to concentrate -herself upon this narrow theme--to reconquer the lost paradise of one -vexed mortal soul! - -What did Jim's life mean?--It was only one in the millions coming and -going, and every man must work out his own salvation. Why should she -cramp her soul to this one issue, when the same soul could spend itself -upon the greater motives and in the larger circle? A wide world of -influence had opened up before her; position, power, adulation, could all -have been hers, as John Appleton and Jim's father had said. She might -have moved in well-trodden ways, through gardens of pleasure, lived a -life where all would be made easy, where she would be shielded at every -turn, and her beauty would be flattered by luxury into a constant glow. -She was not so primitive, so unintellectual, as not to have thought of -this, else her decision would have had less importance; she would have -been no more than an infatuated emotional woman with a touch of second -class drama in her nature. She had thought of it all, and she had made -her choice. The easier course was the course for meaner souls, and she -had not one vein of thin blood nor a small idea in her whole nature. She -had a heart and mind for great issues. She believed that Jim had a great -brain, and would and could accomplish great things. She knew that he had -in him the strain of hereditary instinct--his mother's father had ended -a brief life in a drunken duel on the Mississippi, and Jim's boyhood had -never had discipline or direction, or any strenuous order. He might -never acquire order, and the power that order and habit and the daily -iteration of necessary thoughts and acts bring; but the prospect did not -appal her. She had taken the risk with her eyes wide open; had set her -own life and happiness in the hazard. But Jim must be saved, must be -what his talents, his genius, entitled him to be. And the long game must -have the long thought. - -So, as they drew into the great Saskatchewan Valley, her hand in his, -and hope in his eyes, and such a look of confidence and pride in her as -brought back his old strong beauty of face, and smoothed the careworn -lines of self-indulgence, she gave him his course: as a private he must -join the North-West Mounted Police, the red-coated riders of the plains, -and work his way up through every stage of responsibility, beginning at -the foot of the ladder of humbleness and self-control. She believed that -he would agree with her proposal; but her hands clasped his a little more -firmly and solicitously--there was a faint, womanly fear at her heart-- -as she asked him if he would do it. The life meant more than occasional -separation; it meant that there would be periods when she would not be -with him; and there was great danger in that; but she knew that the risks -must be taken, and he must not be wholly reliant on her presence for his -moral strength. - -His face fell for a moment when she made the suggestion, but it cleared -presently, and he said with a dry laugh: "Well, I guess they must make me -a sergeant pretty quick. I'm a colonel in the Kentucky Carbineers!" - -She laughed, too; then a moment afterwards, womanlike, wondered if she -was right, and was a little frightened. But that was only because she -was not self-opinionated, and was anxious, more anxious than any woman -in all the North. - -It happened as Jim said; he was made a sergeant at once--Sally managed -that; for, when it came to the point, and she saw the conditions in which -the privates lived, and realised that Jim must be one of them and clean -out the stables, and groom his horse and the officers' horses, and fetch -and carry, her heart failed her, and she thought that she was making her -remedy needlessly heroical. So she went to see the Commissioner, who was -on a tour of scrutiny on their arrival at the post, and, as better men -than he had done in more knowing circles, he fell under her spell. If -she had asked for a lieutenancy, he would probably have corrupted some -member of Parliament into securing it for Jim. - -But Jim was made a sergeant, and the Commissioner and the captain of the -troop kept their eyes on him. So did other members of the troop who did -not quite know their man, and attempted, figuratively, to pinch him here -and there. They found that his actions were greater than his words, and -both were in perfect harmony in the end, though his words often seemed -pointless to their minds, until they understood that they had conveyed -truths through a medium more like a heliograph than a telephone. By and -by they begin to understand his heliographing, and, when they did that, -they began to swear by him, not at him. - -In time it was found that the troop never had a better disciplinarian -than Jim. He knew when to shut his eyes, and when to keep them open. To -non-essentials he kept his eyes shut; to essentials he kept them very -wide open. There were some men of good birth from England and elsewhere -among them, and these mostly understood him first. But they all -understood Sally from the beginning, and after a little they were glad -enough to be permitted to come, on occasion, to the five-roomed little -house near the barracks, and hear her talk, then answer her questions, -and, as men had done at Washington, open out their hearts to her. They -noticed, however, that while she made them barley-water, and all kinds -of soft drinks from citric acid, sarsaparilla and the like, and had one -special drink of her own invention, which she called cream-nectar, no -spirits were to be had. They also noticed that Jim never drank a drop of -liquor, and by and by, one way or another, they got a glimmer of the real -truth, before it became known who he really was or anything of his story. -And the interest in the two, and in Jim's reformation, spread through the -country, while Jim gained reputation as the smartest man in the force. - -They were on the outskirts of civilisation; as Jim used to say, "One -step ahead of the procession." Jim's duty was to guard the columns of -settlement and progress, and to see that every man got his own rights and -not more than his rights; that justice should be the plumb-line of march -and settlement. His principle was embodied in certain words which he -quoted once to Sally from the prophet Amos: "And the Lord said unto me, -Amos, what seest thou? And I said, A plumbline." - -On the day that Jim became a lieutenant his family increased by one. -It was a girl, and they called her Nancy, after Jim's mother. It was -the anniversary of their marriage, and, so far, Jim had won, with what -fightings and strugglings and wrestlings of the spirit only Sally and -himself knew. And she knew as well as he, and always saw the storm -coming before it broke--a restlessness, then a moodiness, then a hungry, -eager, helpless look, and afterwards an agony of longing, a feverish -desire to break away and get the thrilling thing which would still the -demon within him. - -There had been moments when his doom seemed certain--he knew and she knew -that if he once got drunk again he would fall never to rise. On one -occasion, after a hard, long, hungry ride, he was half-mad with desire, -but even as he seized the flask that was offered to him by his only -enemy, the captain of B Troop, at the next station eastward, there came -a sudden call to duty, two hundred Indians having gone upon the war-path. -It saved him; it broke the spell. He had to mount and away, with the -antidote and stimulant of responsibility driving him on. - -Another occasion was equally perilous to his safety. They had been idle -for days in a hot week in summer, waiting for orders to return from the -rail-head where they had gone to quell a riot, and where drink and -hilarity were common. Suddenly--more suddenly than it had ever come, the -demon of his thirst had Jim by the throat. Sergeant Sewell, of the grey- -stubble head, who loved him more than his sour heart had loved anybody in -all his life, was holding himself ready for the physical assault he must -make upon his superior officer, if he raised a glass to his lips, when -salvation came once again. An accident had occurred far down on the -railway line, and the operator of the telegraph-office had that very day -been stricken down with pleurisy and pneumonia. In despair the manager -had sent to Jim, eagerly hoping that he might help them, for the Riders -of the Plains were a sort of court of appeal for every trouble in the Far -North. - -Instantly Jim was in the saddle with his troop. Out of curiosity he -had learned telegraphy when a boy, as he had learned many things, and, -arrived at the scene of the accident, he sent messages and received them- --by sound, not on paper as did the official operator, to the amazement -and pride of the troop. Then, between caring for the injured in the -accident, against the coming of the relief train, and nursing the sick -operator through the dark moments of his dangerous illness, he passed a -crisis of his own disease triumphantly; but not the last crisis. - -So the first and so the second and third years passed in safety. - - - - -III - -"PLEASE, I want to go, too, Jim." - -Jim swung round and caught the child up in his arms. "Say, how dare you -call your father Jim--eh, tell me that?" - -"It's what mummy calls you--it's pretty." - -"I don't call her 'mummy' because you do, and you mustn't call me Jim -because she does--do you hear?" The whimsical face lowered a little, -then the rare and beautiful dark blue eyes raised slowly, shaded by the -long lashes, and the voice said demurely, "Yes--Jim." - -"Nancy--Nancy," said a voice from the corner in reproof, mingled with -suppressed laughter. "Nancy, you musn't be saucy. You must say 'father' -to--" - -"Yes, mummy. I'll say father to--Jim." - -"You imp--you imp of delight," said Jim, as he strained the dainty little -lass to his breast, while she appeared interested in a wave of his black -hair, which she curled around her finger. - -Sally came forwards with the little parcel of sandwiches she had been -preparing, and put them in the saddle-bags lying on a chair at the door, -in readiness for the journey Jim was about to make. Her eyes were -glistening, and her face had a heightened colour. The three years which -had passed since she married had touched her not at all to her -disadvantage, rather to her profit. She looked not an hour older; -motherhood had only added to her charm, lending it a delightful gravity. -The prairie life had given a shining quality to her handsomeness, an air -of depth and firmness, an exquisite health and clearness to the colour -in her cheeks. Her step was as light as Nancy's, elastic and buoyant-- -a gliding motion which gave a sinuous grace to the movements of her body. -There had also come into her eyes a vigilance such as deaf people -possess, a sensitive observation imparting a deeper intelligence to the -face. - -Here was the only change by which you could guess the story of her life. -Her eyes were like the ears of an anxious mother who can never sleep till -every child is abed; whose sense is quick to hear the faintest footstep -without or within; and who, as years go on, and her children grow older -and older, must still lie awake hearkening for the late footstep on the -stair. In Sally's eyes was the story of the past three years: of love -and temptation and struggle, of watchfulness and yearning and anxiety, of -determination and an inviolable hope. Her eyes had a deeper look than -that in Jim's. Now, as she gazed at him, the maternal spirit rose up -from the great well of protectiveness in her and engulfed both husband -and child. There was always something of the maternal in her eyes when -she looked at Jim. He did not see it--he saw only the wonderful blue, -and the humour which had helped him over such difficult places these past -three years. In steadying and strengthening Jim's will, in developing -him from his Southern indolence into Northern industry and sense of -responsibility, John Appleton's warnings had rung in Sally's ears, and -Freddy Hartzman's forceful and high-minded personality had passed before -her eyes with an appeal powerful and stimulating; but always she came to -the same upland of serene faith and white-hearted resolve; and Jim became -dearer and dearer. - -The baby had done much to brace her faith in the future and comfort her -anxious present. The child had intelligence of a rare order. She would -lie by the half-hour on the floor, turning over the leaves of a book -without pictures, and, before she could speak, would read from the pages -in a language all her own. She made a fairy world for herself, peopled -by characters to whom she gave names, to whom she assigned curious -attributes and qualities. They were as real to her as though flesh and -blood, and she was never lonely, and never cried; and she had buried -herself in her father's heart. She had drawn to her the roughest men in -the troop, and for old Sewell, the grim sergeant, she had a specially -warm place. - -"You can love me if you like," she had said to him at the very start, -with the egotism of childhood; but made haste to add, "because I love -you, Gri-Gri." She called him Gri-Gri from the first, but they knew only -long afterwards that "gri-gri" meant "grey-grey," to signify that she -called him after his grizzled hairs. - -What she had been in the life-history of Sally and Jim they both knew. -Jim regarded her with an almost superstitious feeling. Sally was his -strength, his support, his inspiration, his bulwark of defence; Nancy was -the charm he wore about his neck--his mascot, he called her. Once, when -she was ill, he had suffered as he had never done before in his life. He -could not sleep nor eat, and went about his duties like one in a dream. -When his struggles against his enemy were fiercest, he kept saying over -her name to himself, as though she could help him. Yet always it was -Sally's hand he held in the darkest hours, in his brutal moments; for in -this fight between appetite and will there are moments when only the -animal seems to exist, and the soul disappears in the glare and gloom of -the primal emotions. Nancy he called his "lucky sixpence," but he called -Sally his "guinea-girl." - -From first to last his whimsicality never deserted him. In his worst -hours, some innate optimism and humour held him steady in his fight. -It was not depression that possessed him at the worst, but the violence -of an appetite most like a raging pain which men may endure with a smile -upon their lips. He carried in his face the story of a conflict, the -aftermath of bitter experience; and through all there pulsed the glow of -experience. He had grown handsomer, and the graceful decision of his -figure, the deliberate certainty of every action, heightened the force of -a singular personality. As in the eyes of Sally, in his eyes was a long -reflective look which told of things overcome, and yet of dangers -present. His lips smiled often, but the eyes said: "I have lived, I have -seen, I have suffered, and I must suffer more. I have loved, I have been -loved under the shadow of the sword. Happiness I have had, and golden -hours, but not peace--never peace. My soul has need of peace." - -In the greater, deeper experience of their lives, the more material side -of existence had grown less and less to them. Their home was a model of -simple comfort and some luxury, though Jim had insisted that Sally's -income should not be spent, except upon the child, and should be saved -for the child, their home being kept on his pay and on the tiny income -left by his mother. With the help of an Indian girl, and a half-breed -for outdoor work and fires and gardening, Sally had cared for the house -herself. Ingenious and tasteful, with a gift for cooking and an educated -hand, she had made her little home as pretty as their few possessions -would permit. Refinement covered all, and three or four-score books were -like so many friends to comfort her when Jim was away; like kind and -genial neighbours when he was at home. From Browning she had written -down in her long sliding handwriting, and hung up beneath Jim's looking- -glass, the heartening and inspiring words: - - "One who never turned his back, but marched breast forward, - Never doubted clouds would break, - Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph, - Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, - Sleep to wake." - -They had lived above the sordid, and there was something in the nature of -Jim's life to help them to it. He belonged to a small handful of men who -had control over an empire, with an individual responsibility and -influence not contained in the scope of their commissions. It was a -matter of moral force and character, and of uniform, symbolical only of -the great power behind; of the long arm of the State; of the insistence -of the law, which did not rely upon force alone, but on the certainty of -its administration. In such conditions the smallest brain was bound to -expand, to take on qualities of judgment and temperateness which would -never be developed in ordinary circumstances. In the case of Jim -Templeton, who needed no stimulant to his intellect, but rather a -steadying quality, a sense of proportion, the daily routine, the command -of men, the diverse nature of his duties, half civil, half military, the -personal appeals made on all sides by the people of the country for -advice, for help, for settlement of disputes, for information which his -well-instructed mind could give--all these modified the romantic -brilliance of his intellect, made it and himself more human. - -It had not come to him all at once. His intellect at first stood in his -way. His love of paradox, his deep observation, his insight, all made -him inherently satirical, though not cruelly so; but satire had become -pure whimsicality at last; and he came to see that, on the whole, the -world was imperfect, but also, on the whole, was moving towards -perfection rather than imperfection. He grew to realise that what seemed -so often weakness in men was tendency and idiosyncrasy rather than evil. -And in the end he thought better of himself as he came to think better -of all others. For he had thought less of all the world because he had -thought so little of himself. He had overestimated his own faults, had -made them into crimes in his own eyes, and, observing things in others of -similar import, had become almost a cynic in intellect, while in heart he -had remained, a boy. - -In all that he had changed a great deal. His heart was still the heart -of a boy, but his intellect had sobered, softened, ripened--even in this -secluded and seemingly unimportant life; as Sally had said and hoped it -would. Sally's conviction had been right. But the triumph was not yet -achieved. She knew it. On occasion the tones of his voice told her, the -look that came into his eyes proclaimed it to her, his feverishness and -restlessness made it certain. How many a night had she thrown her arm -over his shoulder, and sought his hand and held it while in the dark -silence, wide-eyed, dry-lipped, and with a throat like fire he had held -himself back from falling. There was liquor in the house--the fight -would not have been a fight without it. She had determined that he -should see his enemy and meet him in the plains and face him down; and he -was never many feet away from his possible disaster. Yet for long over -three years all had gone well. There was another year. Would he last -out the course? - -At first the thought of the great stake for which she was playing in -terms of currency, with the head of Jim's father on every note, was much -with her. The amazing nature of the offer of five millions of dollars -stimulated her imagination, roused her; gold coins are counters in the -game of success, signs and tokens. Money alone could not have lured her; -but rather what it represented--power, width of action, freedom to help -when the heart prompted, machinery for carrying out large plans, ability -to surround with advantage those whom we love. So, at first, while yet -the memories of Washington were much with her, the appeal of the millions -was strong. The gallant nature of the contest and the great stake braced -her; she felt the blood quicken in her pulse. - -But, all through, the other thing really mastered her: the fixed idea -that Jim must be saved. As it deepened, the other life that she had -lived became like the sports in which we shared when children, full of -vivacious memory, shining with impulse and the stir of life, but not to -be repeated--days and deeds outgrown. So the light of one idea shone in -her face. Yet she was intensely human too; and if her eyes had not been -set on the greater glory, the other thought might have vulgarised her -mind, made her end and goal sordid--the descent of a nature rather than -its ascension. - -When Nancy came, the lesser idea, the stake, took on a new importance, -for now it seemed to her that it was her duty to secure for the child its -rightful heritage. Then Jim, too, appeared in a new light, as one who -could never fulfil himself unless working through the natural channels of -his birth, inheritance, and upbringing. Jim, drunken and unreliable, -with broken will and fighting to find himself--the waste places were for -him, until he was the master of his will and emotions. Once however, -secure in ability to control himself, with cleansed brain and purpose -defined, the widest field would still be too narrow for his talents--and -the five, yes, the fifty millions of his father must be his. - -She had never repented having married Jim; but twice in those three years -she had broken down and wept as though her heart would break. There were -times when Jim's nerves were shaken in his struggle against the unseen -foe, and he had spoken to her querulously, almost sharply. Yet in her -tears there was no reproach for him, rather for herself--the fear that -she might lose her influence over him, that she could not keep him close -to her heart, that he might drift away from her in the commonplaces and -monotony of work and domestic life. Everything so depended on her being -to him not only the one woman for whom he cared, but the woman without -whom he could care for nothing else. - -"Oh, my God, give me his love," she had prayed. "Let me keep it yet a -little while. For his sake, not for my own, let me have the power to -hold his love. Make my mind always quiet, and let me blow neither hot -nor cold. Help me to keep my temper sweet and cheerful, so that he will -find the room empty where I am not, and his footsteps will quicken when -he comes to the door. Not for my sake, dear God, but for his, or my -heart will break--it will break unless Thou dost help me to hold him. -O Lord, keep me from tears; make my face happy that I may be goodly to -his eyes, and forgive the selfishness of a poor woman who has little, -and would keep her little and cherish it, for Christ's sake." - -Twice had she poured out her heart so, in the agony of her fear that she -should lose favour in Jim's sight--she did not know how alluring she was, -in spite of the constant proofs offered her. She had had her will with -all who came her way, from governor to Indian brave. Once, in a journey -they had made far north, soon after they came, she had stayed at a -Hudson's Bay Company's post for some days, while there came news of -restlessness among the Indians, because of lack of food, and Jim had -gone farther north to steady the tribes, leaving her with the factor -and his wife and a halfbreed servant. - -While she and the factor's wife were alone in the yard of the post one -day, an Indian--chief, Arrowhead, in warpaint and feathers, entered -suddenly, brandishing a long knife. He had been drinking, and there -was danger in his black eyes. With a sudden inspiration she came forward -quickly, nodded and smiled to him, and then pointed to a grindstone -standing in the corner of the yard. As she did so, she saw Indians -crowding into the gate armed with knives, guns, bows, and arrows. She -beckoned to Arrowhead, and he followed her to the grindstone. She poured -some water on the wheel and began to turn it, nodding at the now -impassive Indian to begin. Presently he nodded also, and put his knife -on the stone. She kept turning steadily, singing to herself the while, -as with anxiety she saw the Indians drawing closer and closer in from the -gate. Faster and faster she turned, and at last the Indian lifted his -knife from the stone. She reached out her hand with simulated interest, -felt the edge with her thumb, the Indian looking darkly at her the while. -Presently, after feeling the edge himself, he bent over the stone again, -and she went on turning the wheel still singing softly. At last he -stopped again and felt the edge. With a smile which showed her fine -white teeth, she said, "Is that for me?" making a significant sign across -her throat at the same time. - -The old Indian looked at her grimly, then slowly shook his head in -negation. - -"I go hunt Yellow Hawk to-night," he said. "I go fight; I like marry you -when I come back. How!" he said and turned away towards the gate. - -Some of his braves held back, the blackness of death in their looks. -He saw. "My knife is sharp," he said. "The woman is brave. She shall -live--go and fight Yellow Hawk, or starve and die." - -Divining their misery, their hunger, and the savage thought that had come -to them, Sally had whispered to the factor's wife to bring food, and the -woman now came running out with two baskets full, and returned for more. -Sally ran forward among the Indians and put the food into their hands. -With grunts of satisfaction they seized what she gave, and thrust it into -their mouths, squatting on the ground. Arrowhead looked on stern and -immobile, but when at last she and the factor's wife sat down before the -braves with confidence and an air of friendliness, he sat down also; -yet, famished as he was, he would not touch the food. At last Sally, -realising his proud defiance of hunger, offered him a little lump of -pemmican and a biscuit, and with a grunt he took it from her hands and -ate it. Then, at his command a fire was lit, the pipe of peace was -brought out, and Sally and the factor's wife touched their lips to it, -and passed it on. - -So was a new treaty of peace and loyalty made with Arrowhead and his -tribe by a woman without fear, whose life had seemed not worth a minute's -purchase; and, as the sun went down, Arrowhead and his men went forth to -make war upon Yellow Hawk beside the Nettigon River. In this wise had -her influence spread in the land. - - ....................... - -Standing now with the child in his arms and his wife looking at him with -a shining moisture of the eyes, Jim laughed outright. There came upon -him a sudden sense of power, of aggressive force--the will to do. Sally -understood, and came and laughingly grasped his arm. - -"Oh, Jim," she said playfully, "you are getting muscles like steel. You -hadn't these when you were colonel of the Kentucky Carbineers!" - -"I guess I need them now," he said, smiling, and with the child still in -his arms drew her to a window looking northward. As far as the eye could -see, nothing but snow, like a blanket spread over the land. Here and -there in the wide expanse a tree silhouetted against the sky, a tracery -of eccentric beauty, and off in the far distance a solitary horseman -riding towards the postriding hard. - -"It was root, hog, or die with me, Sally," he continued, "and I rooted. -. . . I wonder--that fellow on the horse--I have a feeling about him. -See, he's been riding hard and long-you can tell by the way the horse -drops his legs. He sags a bit himself. . . . But isn't it beautiful, -all that out there--the real quintessence of life." - -The air was full of delicate particles of frost on which the sun -sparkled, and though there was neither bird nor insect, nor animal, -nor stir of leaf, nor swaying branch or waving grass, life palpitated -in the air, energy sang its song in the footstep that crunched the frosty -ground, that broke the crusted snow; it was in the delicate wind that -stirred the flag by the barracks away to the left; hope smiled in the -wide prospect over which the thrilling, bracing air trembled. Sally had -chosen right. - -"You had a big thought when you brought me here, guinea-girl," he added -presently. "We are going to win out here"--he set the child down--"you -and I and this lucky sixpence." He took up his short fur coat. "Yes, -we'll win, honey." Then, with a brooding look in his face, he added: - - "'The end comes as came the beginning, - And shadows fail into the past; - And the goal, is it not worth the winning, - If it brings us but home at the last? - - "'While far through the pain of waste places - We tread, 'tis a blossoming rod - That drives us to grace from disgraces, - From the fens to the gardens of God!'" - -He paused reflectively. "It's strange that this life up here makes you -feel that you must live a bigger life still, that this is only the wide -porch to the great labour-house--it makes you want to do things. Well, -we've got to win the stake first," he added with a laugh. - -"The stake is a big one, Jim--bigger than you think." - -"You and her and me--me that was in the gutter." - -"What is the gutter, dadsie?" asked Nancy. - -"The gutter--the gutter is where the dish-water goes, midget," he -answered with a dry laugh. - -"Oh, I don't think you'd like to be in the gutter," Nancy said solemnly. - -"You have to get used to it first, miss," answered Jim. Suddenly Sally -laid both hands on Jim's shoulders and looked him in the eyes. "You must -win the stake Jim. Think--now!" - -She laid a hand on the head of the child. He did not know that he was -playing for a certain five millions, perhaps fifty millions, of dollars. -She had never told him of his father's offer. He was fighting only for -salvation, for those he loved, for freedom. As they stood there, the -conviction had come upon her that they had come to the last battle-field, -that this journey which Jim now must take would decide all, would give -them perfect peace or lifelong pain. The shadow of battle was over them, -but he had no foreboding, no premonition; he had never been so full of -spirits and life. - -To her adjuration Jim replied by burying his face in her golden hair, and -he whispered: "Say, I've done near four years, my girl. I think I'm all -right now--I think. This last six months, it's been easy--pretty fairly -easy." - -"Four months more, only four months more--God be good to us!" she said -with a little gasp. - -If he held out for four months more, the first great stage in their life ---journey would be passed, the stake won. - -"I saw a woman get an awful fall once," Jim said suddenly. "Her bones -were broken in twelve places, and there wasn't a spot on her body without -injury. They set and fixed up every broken bone except one. It was -split down. They didn't dare perform the operation; she couldn't stand -it. There was a limit to pain, and she had reached the boundary. Two -years went by, and she got better every way, but inside her leg those -broken pieces of bone were rubbing against each other. She tried to -avoid the inevitable operation, but nature said, 'You must do it, or -die in the end.' She yielded. Then came the long preparations for the -operation. Her heart shrank, her mind got tortured. She'd suffered too -much. She pulled herself together, and said, 'I must conquer this -shrinking body of mine, by my will. How shall I do it?' Something -within her said, 'Think and do for others. Forget yourself.' And so, -as they got her ready for her torture, she visited hospitals, agonised -cripple as she was, and smiled and talked to the sick and broken, telling -them of her own miseries endured and dangers faced, of the boundary of -human suffering almost passed; and so she got her courage for her own -trial. And she came out all right in the end. Well, that's the way I've -felt sometimes. But I'm ready for my operation now whenever it comes, -and it's coming, - -I know. Let it come when it must." He smiled. There came a knock at -the door, and presently Sewell entered. "The Commissioner wishes you to -come over, sir," he said. - -"I was just coming, Sewell. Is all ready for the start?" - -"Everything's ready, sir, but there's to be a change of orders. -Something's happened--a bad job up in the Cree country, I think." - -A few minutes later Jim was in the Commissioner's office. The murder of -a Hudson's Bay Company's man had been committed in the Cree country. The -stranger whom Jim and Sally had seen riding across the plains had brought -the news for thirty miles, word of the murder having been carried from -point to point. The Commissioner was uncertain what to do, as the Crees -were restless through want of food and the absence of game, and a force -sent to capture Arrowhead, the chief who had committed the murder, might -precipitate trouble. Jim solved the problem by offering to go alone and -bring the chief into the post. It was two hundred miles to the Cree -encampment, and the journey had its double dangers. - -Another officer was sent on the expedition for which Jim had been -preparing, and he made ready to go upon his lonely duty. His wife did -not know till three days after he had gone what the nature of his mission -was. - - - - -IV - -Jim made his journey in good weather with his faithful dogs alone, and -came into the camp of the Crees armed with only a revolver. If he had -gone with ten men, there would have been an instant melee, in which -he would have lost his life. This is what the chief had expected, had -prepared for; but Jim was more formidable alone, with power far behind -him which could come with force and destroy the tribe, if resistance was -offered, than with fifty men. His tongue had a gift of terse and -picturesque speech, powerful with a people who had the gift of -imagination. With five hundred men ready to turn him loose in the plains -without dogs or food, he carried himself with a watchful coolness and -complacent determination which got home to their minds with great force. - -For hours the struggle for the murderer went on, a struggle of mind over -inferior mind and matter. Arrowhead was a chief whose will had never -been crossed by his own people, and to master that will by a superior -will, to hold back the destructive force which, to the ignorant minds -of the braves, was only a natural force of defence, meant a task needing -more than authority behind it. For the very fear of that authority put -in motion was an incentive to present resistance to stave off the day of -trouble. The faces that surrounded Jim were thin with hunger, and the -murder that had been committed by the chief had, as its origin, the -foolish replies of the Hudson's Bay Company's man to their demand for -supplies. Arrowhead had killed him with his own hand. - -But Jim Templeton was of a different calibre. Although he had not been -told it, he realised that, indirectly, hunger was the cause of the crime -and might easily become the cause of another; for their tempers were -sharper even than their appetites. Upon this he played; upon this he -made an exhortation to the chief. He assumed that Arrowhead had become -violent, because of his people's straits, that Arrowhead's heart yearned -for his people and would make sacrifice for them. Now, if Arrowhead came -quietly, he would see that supplies of food were sent at once, and that -arrangements were made to meet the misery of their situation. Therefore, -if Arrowhead came freely, he would have so much in his favour before his -judges; if he would not come quietly, then he must be brought by force; -and if they raised a hand to prevent it, then destruction would fall upon -all--all save the women and children. The law must be obeyed. They -might try to resist the law through him, but, if violence was shown, -he would first kill Arrowhead, and then destruction would descend like a -wind out of the north, darkness would swallow them, and their bones would -cover the plains. - -As he ended his words a young brave sprang forwards with hatchet raised. -Jim's revolver slipped down into his palm from his sleeve, and a bullet -caught the brave in the lifted arm. The hatchet dropped to the ground. - -Then Jim's eyes blazed, and he turned a look of anger on the chief, his -face pale and hard, as he said: "The stream rises above the banks; come -with me, chief, or all will drown. I am master, and I speak. Ye are -hungry because ye are idle. Ye call the world yours, yet ye will not -stoop to gather from the earth the fruits of the earth. Ye sit idle in -the summer, and women and children die round you when winter comes. -Because the game is gone, ye say. Must the world stand still because a -handful of Crees need a hunting-ground? Must the makers of cities and -the wonders of the earth, who fill the land with plenty--must they stand -far off, because the Crees and their chief would wander over millions of -acres, for each man a million, when by a hundred, ay, by ten, each white -man would live in plenty, and make the land rejoice. See. Here is the -truth. When the Great Spirit draws the game away so that the hunting is -poor, ye sit down and fill your hearts with murder, and in the blackness -of your thoughts kill my brother. Idle and shiftless and evil ye are, -while the earth cries out to give you of its plenty, a great harvest from -a little seed, if ye will but dig and plant, and plough and sow and reap, -and lend your backs to toil. Now hear and heed. The end is come. - -"For this once ye shall be fed--by the blood of my heart, ye shall be fed! -And another year ye shall labour, and get the fruits of your labour, and -not stand waiting, as it were, till a fish shall pass the spear, or a -stag water at your door, that ye may slay and eat. The end is come, ye -idle men. O chief, harken! One of your braves would have slain me, even -as you slew my brother--he one, and you a thousand. Speak to your people -as I have spoken, and then come and answer for the deed done by your -hand. And this I say that right shall be done between men and men. -Speak." - -Jim had made his great effort, and not without avail. Arrowhead rose -slowly, the cloud gone out of his face, and spoke to his people, bidding -them wait in peace until food came, and appointing his son chief in his -stead until his return. - -"The white man speaks truth, and I will go," he said. "I shall return," -he continued, "if it be written so upon the leaves of the Tree of Life; -and if it be not so written, I shall fade like a mist, and the tepees -will know me not again. The days of my youth are spent, and my step no -longer springs from the ground. I shuffle among the grass and the fallen -leaves, and my eyes scarce know the stag from the doe. The white man is -master--if he wills it we shall die, if he wills it we shall live. And -this was ever so. It is in the tale of our people. One tribe ruled, and -the others were their slaves. If it is written on the leaves of the Tree -of Life that the white man rule us for ever, then it shall be so. I have -spoken. Now, behold I go." - -Jim had conquered, and together they sped away with the dogs through the -sweet-smelling spruce woods where every branch carried a cloth of white, -and the only sound heard was the swish of a blanket of snow as it fell to -the ground from the wide webs of green, or a twig snapped under the load -it bore. Peace brooded in the silent and comforting forest, and Jim and -Arrowhead, the Indian ever ahead, swung along, mile after mile, on their -snow-shoes, emerging at last upon the wide white prairie. - -A hundred miles of sun and fair weather, sleeping at night in the open in -a trench dug in the snow, no fear in the thoughts of Jim, nor evil in the -heart of the heathen man. There had been moments of watchfulness, of -uncertainty, on Jim's part, the first few hours of the first night after -they left the Cree reservation; but the conviction speedily came to Jim -that all was well; for the chief slept soundly from the moment he lay -down in his blankets between the dogs. Then Jim went to sleep as in his -own bed, and, waking, found Arrowhead lighting a fire from a little load -of sticks from the sledges. And between murderer and captor there sprang -up the companionship of the open road which brings all men to a certain -land of faith and understanding, unless they are perverted and vile. -There was no vileness in Arrowhead. There were no handcuffs on his -hands, no sign of captivity; they two ate out of the same dish, drank -from the same basin, broke from the same bread. The crime of Arrowhead, -the gallows waiting for him, seemed very far away. They were only two -silent travellers, sharing the same hardship, helping to give material -comfort to each other--in the inevitable democracy of those far places, -where small things are not great nor great things small; where into men's -hearts comes the knowledge of the things that matter; where, from the -wide, starry sky, from the august loneliness, and the soul of the life -which has brooded there for untold generations, God teaches the values of -this world and the next. - -One hundred miles of sun and fair weather, and then fifty miles of -bitter, aching cold, with nights of peril from the increasing chill, -so that Jim dared not sleep lest he should never wake again, but die -benumbed and exhausted. Yet Arrowhead slept through all. Day after day -so, and then ten miles of storm such as come only to the vast barrens of -the northlands; and woe to the traveller upon whom the icy wind and the -blinding snow descended! Woe came upon Jim Templeton and Arrowhead, the -heathen. - -In the awful struggle between man and nature that followed, the captive -became the leader. The craft of the plains, the inherent instinct, the -feeling which was more than eyesight became the only hope. One whole day -to cover ten miles--an endless path of agony, in which Jim went down -again and again, but came up blinded by snow and drift, and cut as with -lashes by the angry wind. At the end of the ten miles was a Hudson's Bay -Company's post and safety; and through ten hours had the two struggled -towards it, going off at tangents, circling on their own tracks; but the -Indian, by an instinct as sure as the needle to the pole, getting the -direction to the post again, in the moments of direst peril and -uncertainty. To Jim the world became a sea of maddening forces which -buffeted him; a whirlpool of fire in which his brain was tortured, his -mind was shrivelled up; a vast army rending itself, each man against the -other. It was a purgatory of music, broken by discords; and then at -last--how sweet it all was, after the eternity of misery--"Church bells -and voices low," and Sally singing to him, Nancy's voice calling! Then, -nothing but sleep--sleep, a sinking down millions of miles in an ether of -drowsiness which thrilled him; and after--no more. - -None who has suffered up to the limit of what the human body and soul -may bear can remember the history of those distracted moments when the -struggle became one between the forces in nature and the forces in man, -between agonised body and smothered mind, yet with the divine -intelligence of the created being directing, even though subconsciously, -the fight. - -How Arrowhead found the post in the mad storm he could never have told. -Yet he found it, with Jim unconscious on the sledge and with limbs -frozen, all the dogs gone but two, the leathers over the Indian's -shoulders as he fell against the gate of the post with a shrill cry that -roused the factor and his people within, together with Sergeant Sewell, -who had been sent out from headquarters to await Jim's arrival there. It -was Sewell's hand which first felt Jim's heart and pulse, and found that -there was still life left, even before it could be done by the doctor -from headquarters, who had come to visit a sick man at the post. - -For hours they worked with snow upon the frozen limbs to bring back life -and consciousness. Consciousness came at last with half delirium, half -understanding; as emerging from the passing sleep of anaesthetics, the -eye sees things and dimly registers them, before the brain has set them -in any relation to life or comprehension. - -But Jim was roused at last, and the doctor presently held to his lips a -glass of brandy. Then from infinite distance Jim's understanding -returned; the mind emerged, but not wholly, from the chaos in which it -was travelling. His eyes stood out in eagerness. - -"Brandy! brandy!" he said hungrily. - -With an oath Sewell snatched the glass from the doctor's hand, put it on -the table, then stooped to Jim's ear and said hoarsely: "Remember--Nancy. -For God's sake, sir, don't drink." - -Jim's head fell back, the fierce light went out of his eyes, the face -became greyer and sharper. "Sally--Nancy--Nancy," he whispered, and his -fingers clutched vaguely at the quilt. - -"He must have brandy or he will die. The system is pumped out. He must -be revived," said the doctor. He reached again for the glass of spirits. - -Jim understood now. He was on the borderland between life and death; his -feet were at the brink. "No--not--brandy, no!" he moaned. "Sally- -Sally, kiss me," he said faintly, from the middle world in which he was. - -"Quick, the broth!" said Sewell to the factor, who had been preparing -it. "Quick, while there's a chance." He stooped and called into Jim's -ear: "For the love of God, wake up, sir. They're coming--they're both -coming--Nancy's coming. They'll soon be here." What matter that he -lied, a life was at stake. - -Jim's eyes opened again. The doctor was standing with the brandy in -his hand. Half madly Jim reached out. "I must live until they come," -he cried; "the brandy--give it me! Give it--ah, no, no, I must not!" -he added, gasping, his lips trembling, his hands shaking. - -Sewell held the broth to his lips. He drank a little, yet his face -became greyer and greyer; a bluish tinge spread about his mouth. - -"Have you nothing else, sir?" asked Sewell in despair. The doctor put -down the brandy, went quickly to his medicine-case, dropped into a glass -some liquid from a phial, came over again, and poured a little between -the lips; then a little more, as Jim's eyes opened again; and at last -every drop in the glass trickled down the sinewy throat. - -Presently as they watched him the doctor said: "It will not do. He must -have brandy. It has life-food in it." - -Jim understood the words. He knew that if he drank the brandy the -chances against his future were terrible. He had made his vow, and he -must keep it. Yet the thirst was on him; his enemy had him by the throat -again, was dragging him down. Though his body was so cold, his throat -was on fire. But in the extremity of his strength his mind fought on-- -fought on, growing weaker every moment. He was having his last fight. -They watched him with an aching anxiety, and there was anger in the -doctor's face. He had no patience with these forces arrayed against him. - -At last the doctor whispered to Sewell: "It's no use; he must have the -brandy, or he can't live an hour." - -Sewell weakened; the tears fell down his rough, hard cheeks. "It'll ruin -him-it's ruin or death." - -"Trust a little more in God, and in the man's strength. Let us give him -the chance. Force it down his throat--he's not responsible," said the -physician, to whom saving life was more than all else. - -Suddenly there appeared at the bedside Arrowhead, gaunt and weak, his -face swollen, the skin of it broken by the whips of storm. - -"He is my brother," he said, and, stooping, laid both hands, which he had -held before the fire for a long time, on Jim's heart. "Take his feet, -his hands, his, legs, and his head in your hands," he said to them all. -"Life is in us; we will give him life." - -He knelt down and kept both hands on Jim's heart, while the others, even -the doctor, awed by his act, did as they were bidden. "Shut your eyes. -Let your life go into him. Think of him, and him alone. Now!" said -Arrowhead in a strange voice. - -He murmured, and continued murmuring, his body drawing closer and closer -to Jim's body, while in the deep silence, broken only by the chanting of -his low monotonous voice, the others pressed Jim's hands and head and -feet and legs--six men under the command of a heathen murderer. - -The minutes passed. The colour came back to Jim's face, the skin of his -hands filled up, they ceased twitching, his pulse got stronger, his eyes -opened with a new light in them. - -"I'm living, anyhow," he said at last with a faint smile. "I'm hungry-- -broth, please." - -The fight was won, and Arrowhead, the pagan murderer, drew over to the -fire and crouched down beside it, his back to the bed, impassive and -still. They brought him a bowl of broth and bread, which he drank -slowly, and placed the empty bowl between his knees. He sat there -through the night, though they tried to make him lie down. - -As the light came in at the windows, Sewell touched him on the shoulder, -and said: "He is sleeping now." - -"I hear my brother breathe," answered Arrowhead. "He will live." - -All night he had listened, and had heard Jim's breath as only a man who -has lived in waste places can hear. "He will live. What I take with one -hand I give with the other." - -He had taken the life of the factor; he had given Jim his life. And when -he was tried three months later for murder, some one else said this for -him, and the hearts of all, judge and jury, were so moved they knew not -what to do. - -But Arrowhead was never sentenced, for, at the end of the first day's -trial, he lay down to sleep and never waked again. He was found the next -morning still and cold, and there was clasped in his hands a little doll -which Nancy had given him on one of her many visits to the prison during -her father's long illness. They found a piece of paper in his belt with -these words in the Cree language: "With my hands on his heart at the post -I gave him the life that was in me, saving but a little until now. -Arrowhead, the chief, goes to find life again by the well at the root -of the tree. How!" - - - - -V - -On the evening of the day that Arrowhead made his journey to "the well -at the root of the tree" a stranger knocked at the door of Captain -Templeton's cottage; then, without awaiting admittance, entered. - -Jim was sitting with Nancy on his knee, her head against his shoulder, -Sally at his side, her face alight with some inner joy. Before the knock -came to the door Jim had just said, "Why do your eyes shine so, Sally? -What's in your mind?" She had been about to answer, to say to him what -had been swelling her heart with pride, though she had not meant to tell -him what he had forgotten--not till midnight. But the figure that -entered the room, a big man with deep-set eyes, a man of power who had -carried everything before him in the battle of life, answered for her. - -"You have won the stake, Jim," he said in a hoarse voice. "You and she -have won the stake, and I've brought it--brought it." - -Before they could speak he placed in Sally's hands bonds for five million -dollars. - -"Jim--Jim, my son!" he burst out. Then, suddenly, he sank into a chair -and, putting his head in his hands, sobbed aloud. - -"My God, but I'm proud of you--speak to me, Jim. You've broken me up." -He was ashamed of his tears, but he could not wipe them away. - -"Father, dear old man!" said Jim, and put his hands on the broad -shoulders. - -Sally knelt down beside him, took both the great hands from the tear- -stained face, and laid them against her cheek. But presently she put -Nancy on his knees. - -"I don't like you to cry," the child said softly; "but to-day I cried -too, 'cause my Indian man is dead." - -The old man could not speak, but he put his cheek down to hers. After a -minute, "Oh, but she's worth ten times that!" he said as Sally came -close to him with the bundle he had thrust into her hands. - -"What is it?" said Jim. - -"It's five million dollars--for Nancy," she said. "Five-million--what?" - -"The stake, Jim," said Sally. "If you did not drink for four years-- -never touched a drop--we were to have five million dollars." - -"You never told him, then--you never told him that?" asked the old man. - -"I wanted him to win without it," she said. "If he won, he would be the -stronger; if he lost, it would not be so hard for him to bear." - -The old man drew her down and kissed her cheek. He chuckled, though the -tears were still in his eyes. "You are a wonder--the tenth wonder of the -world!" he declared. - -Jim stood staring at the bundle in Nancy's hands. "Five millions--five -million dollars!"--he kept saying to himself. - -"I said Nancy's worth ten times that, Jim." The old man caught his hand -and pressed it. "But it was a damned near thing, I tell you," he added. -"They tried to break me and my railways and my bank. I had to fight the -combination, and there was one day when I hadn't that five million -dollars there, nor five. Jim, they tried to break the old man. And if -they'd broken me, they'd have made me out a scoundrel to her--to this -wife of yours who risked everything for both of us, for both of us, Jim; -for she'd given up the world to save you, and she was playing like a soul -in Hell for Heaven. If they'd broken me, I'd never have lifted my head -again. When things were at their worst I played to save that five -millions,--her stake and mine,--I played for that. I fought for it as a -man fights his way out of a burning house. And I won--I won. And it was -by fighting for that five millions I saved fifty--fifty millions, son. -They didn't break the old man, Jim. They didn't break him--not much." - -"There are giants in the world still," said Jim, his own eyes full. -He knew now his father and himself, and he knew the meaning of all the -bitter and misspent life of the old days. He and his father were on a -level of understanding at last. - -"Are you a giant?" asked Nancy, peering up into her grandfather's eyes. - -The old man laughed, then sighed. "Perhaps I was once, more or less, my -dear--" saying to her what he meant for the other two. "Perhaps I was; -but I've finished. I'm through. I've had my last fight." - -He looked at his son. "I pass the game on to you, Jim. You can do it. -I knew you could do it as the reports came in this year. I've had a -detective up here for four years. I had to do it. It was the devil in -me. - -"You've got to carry on the game, Jim; I'm done. I'll stay home and -potter about. I want to go back to Kentucky, and build up the old place, -and take care of it a bit-your mother always loved it. I'd like to have -it as it was when she was there long ago. But I'll be ready to help you -when I'm wanted, understand." - -"You want me to run things--your colossal schemes? You think--?" - -"I don't think. I'm old enough to know." - - - - -ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: - -I don't think. I'm old enough to know -Knew when to shut his eyes, and when to keep them open -Nothing so popular for the moment as the fall of a favourite -That he will find the room empty where I am not -The temerity and nonchalance of despair - - - - - - -NORTHERN LIGHTS - -By Gilbert Parker - -Volume 3. - - -WHEN THE SWALLOWS HOMEWARD FLY -GEORGE'S WIFE -MARCILE - - - - -WHEN THE SWALLOWS HOMEWARD FLY - -The arrogant sun had stalked away into the evening, trailing behind him -banners of gold and crimson, and a swift twilight was streaming over the -land. As the sun passed, the eyes of two men on a high hill followed it, -and the look of one was like a light in a window to a lost traveller. -It had in it the sense of home and the tale of a journey done. Such a -journey this man had made as few have ever attempted, and fewer -accomplished. To the farthermost regions of snow and ice, where the -shoulder of a continent juts out into the northwestern Arctic seas, he -had travelled on foot and alone, save for his dogs, and for Indian -guides, who now and then shepherded him from point to point. The vast -ice-hummocks had been his housing, pemmican, the raw flesh of fish, and -even the fat and oil of seals had been his food. Ever and ever through -long months the everlasting white glitter of the snow and ice, ever and -ever the cold stars, the cloudless sky, the moon at full, or swung like a -white sickle in the sky to warn him that his life must be mown like -grass. At night to sleep in a bag of fur and wool, by day the steely -wind, or the air shaking with a filmy powder of frost; while the -illimitably distant sun made the tiny flakes sparkle like silver--a -poudre day, when the face and hands are most like to be frozen, and all -so still and white and passionless, yet aching with energy. Hundreds -upon hundreds of miles that endless trail went winding to the farthest -North-west. No human being had ever trod its lengths before, though -Indians or a stray Hudson's Bay Company man had made journeys over part -of it during the years that have passed since Prince Rupert sent his -adventurers to dot that northern land with posts and forts, and trace -fine arteries of civilisation through the wastes. - -Where this man had gone none other had been of white men from the Western -lands, though from across the wide Pacific, from the Eastern world, -adventurers and exiles had once visited what is now known as the Yukon -Valley. So this man, browsing in the library of his grandfather, an -Eastern scholar, had come to know; and for love of adventure, and because -of the tale of a valley of gold and treasure to be had, and because he -had been ruined by bad investments, he had made a journey like none ever -essayed before. And on his way up to those regions, where the veil -before the face of God is very thin and fine, and men's hearts glow -within them, where there was no oasis save the unguessed deposit of a -great human dream that his soul could feel, the face of a girl had -haunted him. Her voice--so sweet a voice that it rang like muffled -silver in his ears, till, in the everlasting theatre of the Pole, the -stars seemed to repeat it through millions of echoing hills, growing -softer and softer as the frost hushed it to his ears-had said to him late -and early, "You must come back with the swallows." Then she had sung a -song which had been like a fire in his heart, not alone because of the -words of it, but because of the soul in her voice, and it had lain like a -coverlet on his heart to keep it warm: - - "Adieu! The sun goes awearily down, - The mist creeps up o'er the sleepy town, - The white sail bends to the shuddering mere, - And the reapers have reaped and the night is here. - - Adieu! And the years are a broken song, - The right grows weak in the strife with wrong, - The lilies of love have a crimson stain, - And the old days never will come again. - - Adieu! Where the mountains afar are dim - 'Neath the tremulous tread of the seraphim, - Shall not our querulous hearts prevail, - That have prayed for the peace of the Holy Grail. - - Adieu! Sometime shall the veil between - The things that are and that might have been - Be folded back for our eyes to see, - And the meaning of all shall be clear to me." - -It had been but an acquaintance of five days while he fitted out for his -expedition, but in this brief time it had sunk deep into his mind that -life was now a thing to cherish, and that he must indeed come back; -though he had left England caring little if, in the peril and danger of -his quest, he ever returned. He had been indifferent to his fate till he -came to the Valley of the Saskatchewan, to the town lying at the foot of -the maple hill beside the great northern stream, and saw the girl whose -life was knit with the far north, whose mother's heart was buried in the -great wastes where Sir John Franklin's expedition was lost; for her -husband had been one of the ill-fated if not unhappy band of lovers of -that civilisation for which they had risked all and lost all save -immortality. Hither the two had come after he had been cast away on the -icy plains, and as the settlement had crept north, had gone north with -it, always on the outer edge of house and field, ever stepping northward. -Here, with small income but high hearts and quiet souls, they had lived -and laboured. And when this newcomer from the old land set his face -northward to an unknown destination, the two women had prayed as the -mother did in the old days when the daughter was but a babe at her knee, -and it was not yet certain that Franklin and his men had been cast away -for ever. Something in him, his great height, his strength of body, -his clear, meditative eyes, his brave laugh, reminded her of him--her -husband--who, like Sir Humphrey Gilbert, had said that it mattered little -where men did their duty, since God was always near to take or leave as -it was His will. When Bickersteth went, it was as though one they had -known all their lives had passed; and the woman knew also that a new -thought had been sown in her daughter's mind, a new door opened in her -heart. - -And he had returned. He was now looking down into the valley where the -village lay. Far, far over, two days' march away, he could see the -cluster of houses, and the glow of the sun on the tin spire of the little -Mission Church where he had heard the girl and her mother sing, till the -hearts of all were swept by feeling and ravished by the desire for "the -peace of the Holy Grail." The village was, in truth, but a day's march -away from him, but he was not alone, and the journey could not be -hastened. Beside him, his eyes also upon the sunset and the village, -was a man in a costume half-trapper, half-Indian, with bushy grey beard -and massive frame, and a distant, sorrowful look, like that of one whose -soul was tuned to past suffering. As he sat, his head sunk on his -breast, his elbow resting on a stump of pine--the token of a progressive -civilisation--his chin upon his hand, he looked like the figure of Moses -made immortal by Michael Angelo. But his strength was not like that of -the man beside him, who was thirty years younger. When he walked, it was -as one who had no destination, who had no haven towards which to travel, -who journeyed as one to whom the world is a wilderness, and one tent or -one hut is the same as another, and none is home. - -Like two ships meeting hull to hull on the wide seas, where a few miles -of water will hide them from each other, whose ports are thousands of -miles apart, whose courses are not the same, they two had met, the elder -man, sick and worn, and near to death, in the poor hospitality of an -Indian's tepee. John Bickersteth had nursed the old man back to -strength, and had brought him southward with him--a silent companion, who -spoke in monosyllables, who had no conversation at all of the past, and -little of the present; but who was a woodsman and an Arctic traveller of -the most expert kind; who knew by instinct where the best places for -shelter and for sleeping might be found; who never complained, and was -wonderful with the dogs. Close as their association was, Bickersteth had -felt concerning the other that his real self was in some other sphere or -place towards which his mind was always turning, as though to bring it -back. - -Again and again had Bickersteth tried to get the old man to speak about -the past, but he had been met by a dumb sort of look, a straining to -understand. Once or twice the old man had taken his hands in both of his -own, and gazed with painful eagerness into his face, as though trying to -remember or to comprehend something that eluded him. Upon these -occasions the old man's eyes dropped tears in an apathetic quiet, which -tortured Bickersteth beyond bearing. Just such a look he had seen in the -eyes of a favourite dog when he had performed an operation on it to save -its life--a reproachful, non-comprehending, loving gaze. - -Bickersteth understood a little of the Chinook language, which is -familiar to most Indian tribes, and he had learned that the Indians knew -nothing exact concerning the old man; but rumours had passed from tribe -to tribe that this white man had lived for ever in the farthest north -among the Arctic tribes, and that he passed from people to people, -disappearing into the untenanted wilderness, but reappearing again among -stranger tribes, never resting, and as one always seeking what he could -not find. - -One thing had helped this old man in all his travels and sojourning. -He had, as it seemed to the native people, a gift of the hands; for when -they were sick, a few moments' manipulation of his huge, quiet fingers -vanquished pain. A few herbs he gave in tincture, and these also were -praised; but it was a legend that when he was persuaded to lay on his -hands and close his eyes, and with his fingers to "search for the pain -and find it, and kill it," he always prevailed. They believed that -though his body was on earth his soul was with Manitou, and that it was -his soul which came into him again, and gave the Great Spirit's healing -to the fingers. This had been the man's safety through how many years-- -or how many generations--they did not know; for legends regarding the -pilgrim had grown and were fostered by the medicine men who, by giving -him great age and supernatural power, could, with more self-respect, -apologise for their own incapacity. - -So the years--how many it was impossible to tell, since he did not know -or would not say--had gone on; and now, after ceaseless wandering, his -face was turned towards that civilisation out of which he had come so -long ago--or was it so long ago--one generation, or two, or ten? It -seemed to Bickersteth at times as though it were ten, so strange, so -unworldly was his companion. At first he thought that the man remembered -more than he would appear to acknowledge, but he found that after a day -or two everything that happened as they journeyed was also forgotten. - -It was only visible things, or sounds, that appeared to open the doors of -memory of the most recent happenings. These happenings, if not varied, -were of critical moment, since, passing down from the land of unchanging -ice and snow, they had come into March and April storms, and the perils -of the rapids and the swollen floods of May. Now, in June, two years and -a month since Bickersteth had gone into the wilds, they looked down upon -the goal of one at least--of the younger man who had triumphed in his -quest up in these wilds abandoned centuries ago. - -With the joyous thought in his heart, that he had discovered anew one of -the greatest gold-fields of the world, that a journey unparalleled had -been accomplished, he turned towards his ancient companion, and a feeling -of pity and human love enlarged within him. He, John Bickersteth, was -going into a world again, where--as he believed--a happy fate awaited -him; but what of this old man? He had brought him out of the wilds, out -of the unknown--was he only taking him into the unknown again? -Were there friends, any friends anywhere in the world waiting for him? -He called himself by no name, he said he had no name. Whence came he? -Of whom? Whither was he wending now? Bickersteth had thought of the -problem often, and he had no answer for it save that he must be taken -care of, if not by others, then by himself; for the old man had saved him -from drowning; had also saved him from an awful death on a March day when -he fell into a great hole and was knocked insensible in the drifting -snow; had saved him from brooding on himself--the beginning of madness-- -by compelling him to think for another. And sometimes, as he had looked -at the old man, his imagination had caught the spirit of the legend of -the Indians, and he had cried out, "O soul, come back and give him -memory--give him back his memory, Manitou the mighty!" - -Looking on the old man now, an impulse seized him. "Dear old man," he -said, speaking as one speaks to a child that cannot understand, "you -shall never want, while I have a penny, or have head or hands to work. -But is there no one that you care for or that cares for you, that you -remember, or that remembers you?" - -The old man shook his head though not with understanding, and he laid a -hand on the young man's shoulder, and whispered: - -"Once it was always snow, but now it is green, the land. I have seen it ---I have seen it once." His shaggy eyebrows gathered over, his eyes -searched, searched the face of John Bickersteth. "Once, so long ago-- -I cannot think," he added helplessly. - -"Dear old man," Bickersteth said gently, knowing he would not wholly -comprehend, "I am going to ask her--Alice--to marry me, and if she does, -she will help look after you, too. Neither of us would have been here -without the other, dear old man, and we shall not be separated. Whoever -you are, you are a gentleman, and you might have been my father or hers ---or hers." - -He stopped suddenly. A thought had flashed through his mind, a thought -which stunned him, which passed like some powerful current through his -veins, shocked him, then gave him a palpitating life. It was a wild -thought, but yet why not--why not? There was the chance, the faint, -far-off chance. He caught the old man by the shoulders, and looked him -in the eyes, scanned his features, pushed back the hair from the rugged -forehead. - -"Dear old man," he said, his voice shaking, "do you know what I'm -thinking? I'm thinking that you may be of those who went out to the -Arctic Sea with Sir John Franklin--with Sir John Franklin, you -understand. Did you know Sir John Franklin--is it true, dear old boy, is -it true? Are you one that has lived to tell the tale? Did you know Sir -John Franklin--is it--tell me, is it true?" - -He let go the old man's shoulders, for over the face of the other there -had passed a change. It was strained and tense. The hands were -outstretched, the eyes were staring straight into the west and the coming -night. - -"It is--it is--that's it!" cried Bickersteth. "That's it--love o' God, -that's it! Sir John Franklin--Sir John Franklin, and all the brave lads -that died up there! You remember the ship--the Arctic Sea--the ice- -fields, and Franklin--you remember him? Dear old man, say you remember -Franklin?" - -The thing had seized him. Conviction was upon him, and he watched the -other's anguished face with anguish and excitement in his own. But--but -it might be, it might be her father--the eyes, the forehead are like -hers; the hands, the long hands, the pointed fingers. "Come, tell me, -did you have a wife and child, and were they both called Alice--do you -remember? Franklin--Alice! Do you remember?" - -The other got slowly to his feet, his arms outstretched, the look in his -face changing, understanding struggling for its place, memory fighting -for its own, the soul contending for its mastery. - -"Franklin--Alice--the snow," he said confusedly, and sank down. - -"God have mercy!" cried Bickersteth, as he caught the swaying body, and -laid it upon the ground. "He was there--almost." - -He settled the old man against the great pine stump and chafed his hands. -"Man, dear man, if you belong to her--if you do, can't you see what it -will mean to me? She can't say no to me then. But if it's true, you'll -belong to England and to all the world, too, and you'll have fame -everlasting. I'll have gold for her and for you, and for your Alice, -too, poor old boy. Wake up now and remember if you are Luke Allingham -who went with Franklin to the silent seas of the Pole. If it's you, -really you, what wonder you lost your memory! You saw them all die, -Franklin and all, die there in the snow, with all the white world round -them. If you were there, what a travel you have had, what strange things -you have seen! Where the world is loneliest, God lives most. If you get -close to the heart of things, it's no marvel you forgot what you were, -or where you came from; because it didn't matter; you knew that you were -only one of thousands of millions who have come and gone, that make up -the soul of things, that make the pulses of the universe beat. That's -it, dear old man. The universe would die, if it weren't for the souls -that leave this world and fill it with life. Wake up! Wake up, -Allingham, and tell us where you've been and what you've seen." - -He did not labour in vain. Slowly consciousness came back, and the grey -eyes opened wide, the lips smiled faintly under the bushy beard; but -Bickersteth saw that the look in the face was much the same as it had -been before. The struggle had been too great, the fight for the other -lost self had exhausted him, mind and body, and only a deep obliquity and -a great weariness filled the countenance. He had come back to the verge, -he had almost again discovered himself; but the opening door had shut -fast suddenly, and he was back again in the night, the incompanionable -night of forgetfulness. - -Bickersteth saw that the travail and strife had drained life and energy, -and that he must not press the mind and vitality of this exile of time -and the unknown too far. He felt that when the next test came the old -man would either break completely, and sink down into another and -everlasting forgetfulness, or tear away forever the veil between himself -and his past, and emerge into a long-lost life. His strength must be -shepherded, and he must be kept quiet and undisturbed until they came to -the town yonder in the valley, over which the night was slowly settling -down. There two women waited, the two Alices, from both of whom had gone -lovers into the North. The daughter was living over again in her young -love the pangs of suspense through which her mother had passed. Two -years since Bickersteth had gone, and not a sign! - -Yet, if the girl had looked from her bedroom window, this Friday night, -she would have seen on the far hill a sign; for there burned a fire -beside which sat two travellers who had come from the uttermost limits of -snow. But as the fire burned--a beacon to her heart if she had but known -it--she went to her bed, the words of a song she had sung at choir-- -practice with tears in her voice and in her heart ringing in her ears. -A concert was to be held after the service on the coming Sunday night, -at which there was to be a collection for funds to build another mission- -house a hundred miles farther North, and she had been practising music -she was to sing. Her mother had been an amateur singer of great power, -and she was renewing her mother's gift in a voice behind which lay a -hidden sorrow. As she cried herself to sleep the words of the song which -had moved her kept ringing in her ears and echoing in her heart: - - "When the swallows homeward fly, - And the roses' bloom is o'er--" - -But her mother, looking out into the night, saw on the far hill the fire, -burning like a star, where she had never seen a fire set before, and a -hope shot into her heart for her daughter--a hope that had flamed up and -died down so often during the past year. Yet she had fanned with -heartening words every such glimmer of hope when it came, and now she -went to bed saying, "Perhaps he will come to-morrow." In her mind, too, -rang the words of the song which had ravished her ears that night, the -song she had sung the night before her own husband, Luke Allingham, had -gone with Franklin to the Polar seas: - -"When the swallows homeward fly--" - -As she and her daughter entered the little church on the Sunday evening, -two men came over the prairie slowly towards the town, and both raised -their heads to the sound of the church-bell calling to prayer. In the -eyes of the younger man there was a look which has come to many in this -world returning from hard enterprise and great dangers, to the familiar -streets, the friendly faces of men of their kin and clan-to the lights of -home. - -The face of the older man, however, had another look. - -It was such a look as is seldom seen in the faces of men, for it showed -the struggle of a soul to regain its identity. The words which the old -man had uttered in response to Bickersteth's appeal before he fainted -away, "Franklin--Alice--the snow," had showed that he was on the verge; -the bells of the church pealing in the summer air brought him near it -once again. How many years had gone since he had heard church-bells? -Bickersteth, gazing at him in eager scrutiny, wondered if, after all, he -might be mistaken about him. But no, this man had never been born and -bred in the far North. His was a type which belonged to the civilisation -from which he himself had come. There would soon be the test of it all. -Yet he shuddered, too, to think what might happen if it was all true, and -discovery or reunion should shake to the centre the very life of the two -long-parted ones. - -He saw the look of perplexed pain and joy at once in the face of the old -man, but he said nothing, and he was almost glad when the bell stopped. -The old man turned to him. - -"What is it?" he asked. "I remember--" but he stopped suddenly, shaking -his head. - -An hour later, cleared of the dust of travel, the two walked slowly -towards the church from the little tavern where they were lodged. The -service was now over, but the concert had begun. The church was full, -and there were people in the porch; but these made way for the two -strangers; and, as Bickersteth was recognised by two or three present, -place was found for them. Inside, the old man stared round him in a -confused and troubled way, but his motions were quiet and abstracted and -he looked like some old viking, his workaday life done, come to pray ere -he went hence forever. They had entered in a pause in the concert, but -now two ladies came forward to the chancel steps, and one with her hands -clasped before her, began to sing: - - "When the swallows homeward fly, - And the roses' bloom is o'er, - And the nightingale's sweet song - In the woods is heard no more--" - -It was Alice--Alice the daughter--and presently the mother, the other -Alice, joined in the refrain. At sight of them Bickersteth's eyes had -filled, not with tears, but with a cloud of feeling, so that he went -blind. There she was, the girl he loved. Her voice was ringing in his -ears. In his own joy for one instant he had forgotten the old man beside -him, and the great test that was now upon him. He turned quickly, -however, as the old man got to his feet. For an instant the lost exile -of the North stood as though transfixed. The blood slowly drained from -his face, and in his eyes was an agony of struggle and desire. For a -moment an awful confusion had the mastery, and then suddenly a clear -light broke into his eyes, his face flushed healthily and shone, his arms -went up, and there rang in his ears the words: - - "Then I think with bitter pain, - Shall we ever meet again? - When the swallows homeward fly--" - -"Alice--Alice!" he called, and tottered forward up the aisle, followed -by John Bickersteth. - -"Alice, I have come back!" he cried again. - - - - - - -GEORGE'S WIFE - -"She's come, and she can go back. No one asked her, no one wants her, -and she's got no rights here. She thinks she'll come it over me, but -she'll get nothing, and there's no place for her here." - -The old, grey-bearded man, gnarled and angular, with overhanging brows -and a harsh face, made this little speech of malice and unfriendliness, -looking out on the snow-covered prairie through the window. Far in the -distance were a sleigh and horses like a spot in the snow, growing larger -from minute to minute. - -It was a day of days. Overhead, the sun was pouring out a flood of light -and warmth, and though it was bitterly cold, life was beating hard in the -bosom of the West. Men walked lightly, breathed quickly, and their eyes -were bright with the brightness of vitality and content. Even the old -man at the window of this lonely house, in a great lonely stretch of -country, with the cedar hills behind it, had a living force which defied -his seventy odd years, though the light in his face was hard and his -voice was harder still. Under the shelter of the foothills, cold as the -day was, his cattle were feeding in the open, scratching away the thin -layer of snow, and browsing on the tender grass underneath. An arctic -world in appearance, it had an abounding life which made it friendly and -generous--the harshness belonged to the surface. So, perhaps, it was -with the old man who watched the sleigh in the distance coming nearer, -but that in his nature on which any one could feed was not so easily -reached as the fresh young grass under the protecting snow. - -"She'll get nothing out of me," he repeated, as the others in the room -behind him made no remark, and his eyes ranged gloatingly over the cattle -under the foothills and the buildings which he had gathered together to -proclaim his substantial greatness in the West. "Not a sous markee," he -added, clinking some coins in his pocket. "She's got no rights." - -"Cassy's got as much right here as any of us, Abel, and she's coming to -say it, I guess." - -The voice which spoke was unlike a Western voice. It was deep and full -and slow, with an organ-like quality. It was in good keeping with the -tall, spare body and large, fine rugged face of the woman to whom it -belonged. She sat in a rocking-chair, but did not rock, her fingers busy -with the knitting-needles, her feet planted squarely on the home-made -hassock at her feet. - -The old man waited for a minute in a painful silence, then he turned -slowly round, and, with tight-pressed lips, looked at the woman in the -rocking-chair. If it had been anyone else who had "talked back" at him, -he would have made quick work of them, for he was of that class of tyrant -who pride themselves on being self-made, and have an undue respect for -their own judgment and importance. But the woman who had ventured to -challenge his cold-blooded remarks about his dead son's wife, now -hastening over the snow to the house her husband had left under a cloud -eight years before, had no fear of him, and, maybe, no deep regard for -him. He respected her, as did all who knew her--a very reticent, -thoughtful, busy being, who had been like a well of comfort to so many -that had drunk and passed on out of her life, out of time and time's -experiences. Seventy-nine years saw her still upstanding, strong, full -of work, and fuller of life's knowledge. It was she who had sent the -horses and sleigh for "Gassy," when the old man, having read the letter -that Cassy had written him, said that she could "freeze at the station" -for all of him. Aunt Kate had said nothing then, but, when the time -came, by her orders the sleigh and horses were at the station; and the -old man had made no direct protest, for she was the one person he had -never dominated nor bullied. If she had only talked, he would have worn -her down, for he was fond of talking, and it was said by those who were -cynical and incredulous about him that he had gone to prayer-meetings, -had been a local preacher, only to hear his own voice. Probably if there -had been any politics in the West in his day, he would have been a -politician, though it would have been too costly for his taste, and -religion was very cheap; it enabled him to refuse to join in many forms -of expenditure, on the ground that he "did not hold by such things." - -In Aunt Kate, the sister of his wife, dead so many years ago, he had -found a spirit stronger than his own. He valued her; he had said more -than once, to those who he thought would never repeat it to her, that -she was a "great woman"; but self-interest was the mainspring of his -appreciation. Since she had come again to his house--she had lived with -him once before for two years when his wife was slowly dying--it had been -a different place. Housekeeping had cost less than before, yet the -cooking was better, the place was beautifully clean, and discipline -without rigidity reigned everywhere. One by one the old woman's boys -and girls had died--four of them--and she was now alone, with not -a single grandchild left to cheer her; and the life out here with Abel -Baragar had been unrelieved by much that was heartening to a woman; for -Black Andy, Abel's son, was not an inspiring figure, though even his -moroseness gave way under her influence. So it was that when Cassy's -letter came, her breast seemed to grow warmer, and swell with longing to -see the wife of her nephew, who had such a bad reputation in Abel's eyes, -and to see George's little boy, who was coming too. After all, whatever -Cassy was, she was the mother of Abel's son's son; and Aunt Kate was too -old and wise to be frightened by tales told of Cassy or any one else. -So, having had her own way so far regarding Cassy's coming, she looked -Abel calmly in the eyes, over the gold-rimmed spectacles which were her -dearest possession--almost the only thing of value she had. She was not -afraid of Abel's anger, and he knew it; but his eldest son, Black Andy, -was present, and he must make a show of being master of the situation. - -"Aunt Kate," he said, "I didn't make a fuss about you sending the horses -and sleigh for her, because women do fool things sometimes. I suppose -curiosity got the best of you. Anyhow, mebbe it's right Cassy should -find out, once for all, how things stand, and that they haven't altered -since she took George away, and ruined his life, and sent him to his -grave. That's why I didn't order Mick back when I saw him going out with -the team." - -"Cassy Mavor," interjected a third voice from a corner behind the great -stove--"Cassy Mavor, of the variety-dance-and-song, and a talk with the -gallery between!" - -Aunt Kate looked over at Black Andy, and stopped knitting, for there was -that in the tone of the sullen ranchman which stirred in her a sudden -anger, and anger was a rare and uncomfortable sensation to her. A flush -crept slowly over her face, then it died away, and she said quietly to -Black Andy--for she had ever prayed to be master of the demon of temper -down deep in her, and she was praying now: - -"She earnt her living by singing and dancing, and she's brought up -George's boy by it, and singing and dancing isn't a crime. David danced -before the Lord. I danced myself when I was a young girl, and before I -joined the church. 'Twas about the only pleasure I ever had; 'bout the -only one I like to remember. There's no difference to me 'twixt making -your feet handy and clever and full of music, and playing with your -fingers on the piano or on a melodeon at a meeting. As for singing, it's -God's gift; and many a time I wisht I had it. I'd have sung the -blackness out of your face and heart, Andy." She leaned back again and -began to knit very fast. "I'd like to hear Cassy sing, and see her dance -too." - -Black Andy chuckled coarsely, "I often heard her sing and saw her dance -down at Lumley's before she took George away East. You wouldn't have -guessed she had consumption. She knocked the boys over down to Lumley's. -The first night at Lumley's done for George." - -Black Andy's face showed no lightening of its gloom as he spoke, but -there was a firing up of the black eyes, and the woman with the knitting -felt that--for whatever reason--he was purposely irritating his father. - -"The devil was in her heels and in her tongue," Andy continued. "With -her big mouth, red hair, and little eyes, she'd have made anybody laugh. -I laughed." - -"You laughed!" snapped out his father with a sneer. - -Black Andy's eyes half closed with a morose look, then he went on. "Yes, -I laughed at Cassy. While she was out here at Lumley's getting cured, -accordin' to the doctor's orders, things seemed to get a move on in the -West. But it didn't suit professing Christians like you, dad." He -jerked his head towards the old man and drew the spittoon near with his -feet. - -"The West hasn't been any worse off since she left," snarled the old man. - -"Well, she took George with her," grimly retorted Black Andy. - -Abel Baragar's heart had been warmer towards his dead son George than -to any one else in the world. George had been as fair of face and hair -as Andrew was dark; as cheerful and amusing as Andrew was gloomy and -dispiriting; as agile and dexterous of mind and body as his brother was -slow and angular; as emotional and warm-hearted as the other was -phlegmatic and sour--or so it seemed to the father and to nearly all -others. - -In those old days they had not been very well off. The railway was not -completed, and the West had not begun "to move." The old man had bought -and sold land and cattle and horses, always living on a narrow margin of -safety, but in the hope that one day the choice bits of land he was -shepherding here and there would take a leap up in value; and his -judgment had been right. His prosperity had all come since George went -away with Cassy Mavor. His anger at George had been the more acute, -because the thing happened at a time when his affairs were on the edge of -a precipice. He had won through it, but only by the merest shave, and it -had all left him with a bad spot in his heart, in spite of his "having -religion." Whenever he remembered George, he instinctively thought of -those black days when a Land and Cattle Syndicate was crowding him over -the edge into the chasm of failure, and came so near doing it. A few -thousand dollars less to put up here and there, and he would have been -ruined; his blood became hotter whenever he thought of it. He had had to -fight the worst of it through alone, for George, who had been useful as a -kind of buyer and seller, who was ever all things to all men, and ready -with quip and jest, and not a little uncertain as to truth--to which the -old man shut his eyes when there was a "deal" on--had, in the end, been -of no use at all, and had seemed to go to pieces just when he was most -needed. His father had put it all down to Cassy Mavor, who had unsettled -things since she had come to Lumley's, and being a man of very few ideas, -he cherished those he had with an exaggerated care. Prosperity had not -softened him; it had given him an arrogance unduly emphasised by a -reputation for rigid virtue and honesty. The indirect attack which -Andrew now made on George's memory roused him to anger, as much because -it seemed to challenge his own judgment as cast a slight on the name of -the boy whom he had cast off, yet who had a firmer hold on his heart than -any human being ever had. It had only been pride which had prevented him -from making it up with George before it was too late; but, all the more, -he was set against the woman who "kicked up her heels for a living"; and, -all the more, he resented Black Andy, who, in his own grim way, had -managed to remain a partner with him in their present prosperity, and had -done so little for it. - -"George helped to make what you've got, Andy," he said darkly now. "The -West missed George. The West said, 'There was a good man ruined by a -woman.' The West'd never think anything or anybody missed you, 'cept -yourself. When you went North, it never missed you; when you come back, -its jaw fell. You wasn't fit to black George's boots." - -Black Andy's mouth took on a bitter sort of smile, and his eyes drooped -furtively, as he struck the damper of the stove heavily with his foot, -then he replied slowly: - -"Well, that's all right; but if I wasn't fit to black his boots, it ain't -my fault. I git my nature honest, as he did. We wasn't any cross- -breeds, I s'pose. We got the strain direct, and we was all right on her -side." He jerked his head towards Aunt Kate, whose face was growing -pale. She interposed now. - -"Can't you leave the dead alone?" she asked in a voice ringing a little. -"Can't you let them rest? Ain't it enough to quarrel about the living? -Cassy'll be here soon," she added, peering out of the window, "and if I -was you, I'd try and not make her sorry she ever married a Baragar. It -ain't a feeling that'd make a sick woman live long." - -Aunt Kate did not strike often, but when she did, she struck hard. Abel -Baragar staggered a little under this blow, for, at the moment, it seemed -to him that he saw his dead wife's face looking at him from the chair -where her sister now sat. Down in his ill-furnished heart, where there -had been little which was companionable, there was a shadowed corner. -Sophy Baragar had been such a true-hearted, brave-souled woman, and he -had been so impatient and exacting with her, till the beautiful face, -which had been reproduced in George, had lost its colour and its fire, -had become careworn and sweet with that sweetness which goes early out of -the world. In all her days the vanished wife had never hinted at as much -as Aunt Kate suggested now, and Abel Baragar shut his eyes against the -thing which he was seeing. He was not all hard, after all. - -Aunt Kate turned to Black Andy now. - -"Mebbe Cassy ain't for long," she said. "Mebbe she's come out for what -she came out for before. It seems to me it's that, or she wouldn't have -come; because she's young yet, and she's fond of her boy, and she'd not -want to bury herself alive out here with us. Mebbe her lungs is bad -again." - -"Then she's sure to get another husband out here," said the old man, -recovering himself. "She got one before easy, on the same ticket." With -something of malice he looked over at Black Andy. - -"If she can sing and dance as she done nine years ago, I shouldn't -wonder," answered Black Andy smoothly. These two men knew each other; -they had said hard things to each other for many a year, yet they lived -on together unshaken by each other's moods and bitternesses. - -"I'm getting old,--I'm seventy-nine,--and I ain't for long," urged Aunt -Kate, looking Abel in the eyes. "Some day soon I'll be stepping out and -away. Then things'll go to sixes and sevens, as they did after Sophy -died. Some one ought to be here that's got a right to be here, not a -hired woman." - -Suddenly the old man raged out. - -"Her--off the stage, to look after this! Her, that's kicked up her heels -for a living! It's--no, she's no good. She's common. She's come, and -she can go. I ain't having sweepings from the streets living here as if -they had rights." - -Aunt Kate set her lips. - -"Sweepings! You've got to take that back, Abel. It's not Christian. -You've got to take that back." - -"He'll take it back all right before we've done, I guess," remarked Black -Andy. "He'll take a lot back." - -"Truth's truth, and I'll stand by it, and--" - -The old man stopped, for there came to them now, clearly, the sound of -sleigh bells. They all stood still for an instant, silent and attentive, -then Aunt Kate moved towards the door. - -"Cassy's come," she said. "Cassy and George's boy've come." - -Another instant and the door was opened on the beautiful, white, -sparkling world, and the low sleigh, with its great warm buffalo robes, -in which the small figures of a woman and a child were almost lost, -stopped at the door. Two whimsical but tired eyes looked over a rim of -fur at the old woman in the doorway, then Cassy's voice rang out. - -"Hello, that's Aunt Kate, I know! Well, here we are, and here's my boy. -Jump, George!" - -A moment later, and the gaunt old woman folded both mother and son in her -arms and drew them into the room. The door was shut, and they all faced -each other. - -The old man and Black Andy did not move, but stood staring at the trim -figure in black, with the plain face, large mouth, and tousled red hair, -and the dreamy-eyed, handsome little boy beside her. - -Black Andy stood behind the stove, looking over at the new-comers with -quizzical, almost furtive eyes, and his father remained for a moment with -mouth open, gazing at his dead son's wife and child, as though not quite -comprehending the scene. The sight of the boy had brought back, in some -strange, embarrassing way, a vision of thirty years before, when George -was a little boy in buckskin pants and jacket, and was beginning to ride -the prairie with him. This boy was like George, yet not like him. The -face was George's, the sensuous, luxurious mouth; but the eyes were not -those of a Baragar, nor yet those of Aunt Kate's family; and they were -not wholly like the mother's. They were full and brimming, while hers -were small and whimsical; yet they had her quick, humourous flashes and -her quaintness. - -"Have I changed so much? Have you forgotten me?" Cassy asked, looking -the old man in the eyes. "You look as strong as a bull." She held out -her hand to him and laughed. - -"Hope I see you well," said Abel Baragar mechanically, as he took the -hand and shook it awkwardly. - -"Oh, I'm all right," answered the nonchalant little woman, undoing her -jacket. "Shake hands with your grandfather, George. That's right--don't -talk too much," she added, with a half-nervous little laugh, as the old -man, with a kind of fixed smile, and the child shook hands in silence. - -Presently she saw Black Andy behind the stove. "Well, Andy, have you -been here ever since?" she asked, and, as he came forward, she suddenly -caught him by both arms, stood on tiptoe, and kissed him. "Last time I -saw you, you were behind the stove at Lumley's. Nothing's ever too warm -for you," she added. "You'd be shivering on the Equator. You were -always hugging the stove at Lumley's." - -"Things was pretty warm there, too, Cassy," he said, with a sidelong look -at his father. - -She saw the look, her face flashed with sudden temper, then her eyes fell -on her boy, now lost in the arms of Aunt Kate, and she curbed herself. - -"There were plenty of things doing at Lumley's in those days," she said -brusquely. "We were all young and fresh then," she added, and then -something seemed to catch her voice, and she coughed a little--a hard, -dry, feverish cough. "Are the Lumleys all right? Are they still there, -at the Forks?" she asked, after the little paroxysm of coughing. - -"Cleaned out--all scattered. We own the Lumleys' place now," replied -Black Andy, with another sidelong glance at his father, who, as he put -some more wood on the fire and opened the damper of the stove wider, -grimly watched and listened. - -"Jim, and Lance, and Jerry, and Abner?" she asked almost abstractedly. - -"Jim's dead-shot by a U. S. marshal by mistake for a smuggler," answered -Black Andy suggestively. "Lance is up on the Yukon, busted; Jerry is one -of our, hands on the place; and Abner is in jail." - -"Abner-in jail!" she exclaimed in a dazed way. "What did he do? Abner -always seemed so straight." - -"Oh, he sloped with a thousand dollars of the railway people's money. -They caught him, and he got seven years." - -"He was married, wasn't he?" she asked in a low voice. "Yes, to Phenie -Tyson. There's no children, so she's all right, and divorce is cheap -over in the States, where she is now." - -"Phenie Tyson didn't marry Abner because he was a saint, but because he -was a man, I suppose," she replied gravely. "And the old folks?" - -"Both dead. What Abner done sent the old man to his grave. But Abner's -mother died a year before." - -"What Abner done killed his father," said Abel Baragar with dry emphasis. -"Phenie Tyson was extravagant-wanted this and that, and nothin' was too -good for her. Abner spoilt his life gettin' her what she wanted; and it -broke old Ezra Lumley's heart." - -George's wife looked at him for a moment with her eyes screwed up, and -then she laughed softly. "My, it's curious how some folks go up and some -go down! It must be lonely for Phenie waiting all these years for Abner -to get free. . . . I had the happiest time in my life at Lumley's. -I was getting better of my-cold. While I was there I got lots of -strength stored up, to last me many a year when I needed it; and, then, -George and I were married at Lumley's. . . ." - -Aunt Kate came slowly over with the boy, and laid a hand on Cassy's -shoulder, for there was an undercurrent to the conversation which boded -no good. The very first words uttered had plunged Abel Baragar and his -son's wife into the midst of the difficulty which she had hoped might, -after all, be avoided. - -"Come, and I'll show you your room, Cassy," she said. "It faces south, -and you'll get the sun all day. It's like a sun-parlour. We're going to -have supper in a couple of hours, and you must rest some first. Is the -house warm enough for you?" - -The little, garish woman did not reply directly, but shook back her red -hair and caught her boy to her breast and kissed him; then she said in -that staccato manner which had given her words on the stage such point -and emphasis, "Oh, this house is a'most too warm for me, Aunt Kate!" - -Then she moved towards the door with the grave, kindly old woman, her -son's hand in her own. - -"You can see the Lumleys' place from your window, Cassy," said Black Andy -grimly. "We got a mortgage on it, and foreclosed it, and it's ours now; -and Jerry Lumley's stock-riding for us. Anyhow, he's better off than -Abner, or Abner's wife." - -Cassy turned at the door and faced him. Instinctively she caught at some -latent conflict with old Abel Baragar in what Black Andy had said, and -her face softened, for it suddenly flashed into her mind that he was not -against her. - -"I'm glad to be back West," she said. "It meant a lot to me when I was -at Lumley's." She coughed a little again, but turned to the door with a -laugh. - -"How long have you come to stay here--out West?" asked the old man -furtively. - -"Why, there's plenty of time to think of that!" she answered brusquely, -and she heard Black Andy laugh derisively as the door closed behind her. - -In a blaze of joy the sun swept down behind the southern hills, and the -windows of Lumley's house at the Forks, catching the oblique rays, -glittered and shone like flaming silver. Nothing of life showed, save -the cattle here and there, creeping away to the shelter of the foothills -for the night. The white, placid snow made a coverlet as wide as the -vision of the eye, save where spruce and cedar trees gave a touch of -warmth and refuge here and there. A wonderful, buoyant peace seemed to -rest upon the wide, silent expanse. The birds of song were gone South -over the hills, and the living wild things of the prairies had stolen -into winter quarters. Yet, as Cassy Mavor looked out upon the exquisite -beauty of the scene, upon the splendid outspanning of the sun along the -hills, the deep plangent blue of the sky and the thrilling light, she saw -a world in agony and she heard the moans of the afflicted. The sun shone -bright on the windows of Lumley's house, but she could hear the crying of -Abner's wife, and of old Ezra and Eliza Lumley, when their children were -stricken or shamed; when Abel Baragar drew tighter and tighter the chains -of the mortgage, which at last made them tenants in the house once their -own. Only eight years ago, and all this had happened. And what had not -happened to her, too, in those eight years! - -With George--reckless, useless, loving, lying George--she had left -Lumley's with her sickness cured, as it seemed, after a long year in the -West, and had begun life again. What sort of life had it been? "Kicking -up her heels on the stage," as Abel Baragar had said; but, somehow, not -as it was before she went West to give her perforated lung to the healing -air of the plains, and to live outdoors with the men--a man's life. Then -she had never put a curb on her tongue, or greatly on her actions, except -that, though a hundred men quarrelled openly, or in their own minds, -about her, no one had ever had any right to quarrel about her. With a -tongue which made men gasp with laughter, with as comic a gift as ever -woman had, and as equally comic a face, she had been a good-natured -little tyrant in her way. She had given a kiss here and there, and had -taken one, but always there had been before her mind the picture of a -careworn woman who struggled to bring up her three children honestly, and -without the help of charity, and, with a sigh of content and weariness, -had died as Cassy made her first hit on the stage and her name became a -household word. And Cassy, garish, gay, freckled, witty and whimsical, -had never forgotten those days when her mother prayed and worked her -heart out to do her duty by her children. Cassy Mavor had made her -following, had won her place, was the idol of "the gallery"; and yet she -was "of the people," as she had always been, until her first sickness -came, and she had gone out to Lumley's, out along the foothills of the -Rockies. - -What had made her fall in love with George Baragar? - -She could not have told, if she had been asked. He was wayward, given to -drink at times, given also to card-playing and racing; but he had a way -with him which few women could resist and which made men his friends; and -he had a sense of humour akin to her own. In any case, one day she let -him catch her up in his arms, and there was the end of it. But no, not -the end, after all. It was only the beginning of real life for her. All -that had gone before seemed but playing on the threshold, though it had -meant hard, bitter hard work, and temptation, and patience, and endurance -of many kinds. And now George was gone for ever. But George's little -boy lay there on the bed in a soft sleep, with all his life before him. - -She turned from the warm window and the buoyant, inspiring scene to the -bed. Stooping over, she kissed the sleeping boy with an abrupt -eagerness, and made a little awkward, hungry gesture of love over him, -and her face flushed hot with the passion of motherhood in her. - -"All I've got now," she murmured. "Nothing else left--nothing else at -all." - -She heard the door open behind her, and she turned round. Aunt Kate was -entering with a bowl in her hands. - -"I heard you moving about, and I've brought you something hot to drink," -she said. - -"That's real good of you, Aunt Kate," was the cheerful reply. "But it's -near supper-time, and I don't need it." - -"It's boneset tea--for your cold," answered Aunt Kate gently, and put it -on the high dressing-table made of a wooden box and covered with muslin. -"For your cold, Cassy," she repeated. - -The little woman stood still a moment gazing at the steaming bowl, lines -growing suddenly around her mouth, then she looked at Aunt Kate -quizzically. "Is my cold bad--so bad that I need boneset?" she asked in -a queer, constrained voice. - -"It's comforting, is boneset tea, even when there's no cold, 'specially -when the whiskey's good, and the boneset and camomile has steeped some -days." - -"Have you been steeping them some days?" Cassy asked softly, eagerly. - -Aunt Kate nodded, then tried to explain. - -"It's always good to be prepared, and I didn't know but what the cold you -used to have might be come back," she said. "But I'm glad if it ain't, -if that cough of yours is only one of the measly little hacks people get -in the East, where it's so damp." - -Cassy was at the window again, looking out at the dying radiance of the -sun. Her voice seemed hollow and strange and rather rough, as she said -in reply: - -"It's a real cold, deep down, the same as I had nine years ago, Aunt -Kate; and it's come to stay, I guess. That's why I came back West. But -I couldn't have gone to Lumley's again, even if they were at the Forks -now, for I'm too poor. I'm a back-number now. I had to give up singing -and dancing a year ago, after George died. So I don't earn my living any -more, and I had to come to George's father with George's boy." - -Aunt Kate had a shrewd mind, and it was tactful, too. She did not -understand why Cassy, who had earned so much money all these years, -should be so poor now, unless it was that she hadn't saved--that she and -George hadn't saved. But, looking at the face before her, and the child -on the bed, she was convinced that the woman was a good woman, that, -singer and dancer as she was, there was no reason why any home should be -closed to her, or any heart should shut its doors before her. She -guessed a reason for this poverty of Cassy Mavor, but it only made her -lay a hand on the little woman's shoulders and look into her eyes. - -"Cassy," she said gently, "you was right to come here. There's trials -before you, but for the boy's sake you must bear them. Sophy, George's -mother, had to bear them, and Abel was fond of her, too, in his way. -He's stored up a lot of things to say, and he'll say them; but you'll -keep the boy in your mind, and be patient, won't you, Cassy? You got -rights here, and it's comfortable, and there's plenty, and the air will -cure your lung as it did before. It did all right before, didn't it?" -She handed the bowl of boneset tea. "Take it; it'll do you good, Cassy," -she added. - -Cassy said nothing in reply. She looked at the bed where her boy lay, -she looked at the angular face of the woman, with its brooding -motherliness, at the soft, grey hair, and, with a little gasp of feeling, -she raised the bowl to her lips and drank freely. Then, putting it down, -she said: - -"He doesn't mean to have us, Aunt Kate, but I'll try and keep my temper -down. Did he ever laugh in his life?" - -"He laughs sometimes--kind o' laughs." - -"I'll make him laugh real, if I can," Cassy rejoined. "I've made a lot -of people laugh in my time." - -The old woman leaned suddenly over, and drew the red, ridiculous head to -her shoulder with a gasp of affection, and her eyes were full of tears. - -"Cassy," she exclaimed, "Cassy, you make me cry." Then she turned and -hurried from the room. - -Three hours later the problem was solved in the big sitting-room where -Cassy had first been received with her boy. Aunt Kate sat with her feet -on a hassock, rocking gently and watching and listening. Black Andy was -behind the great stove with his chair tilted back, carving the bowl of a -pipe; the old man sat rigid by the table, looking straight before him and -smacking his lips now and then as he was won't to do at meeting; while -Cassy, with her chin in her hands and elbows on her knees, gazed into the -fire and waited for the storm to break. - -Her little flashes of humour at dinner had not brightened things, -and she had had an insane desire to turn cart-wheels round the room, -so implacable and highly strained was the attitude of the master of the -house, so unctuous was the grace and the thanksgiving before and after -the meal. Abel Baragar had stored up his anger and his righteous -antipathy for years, and this was the first chance he had had of visiting -his displeasure on the woman who had "ruined" George, and who had now -come to get "rights," which he was determined she should not have. He -had steeled himself against seeing any good in her whatever. Self-will, -self-pride, and self-righteousness were big in him, and so the supper had -ended in silence, and with a little attack of coughing on the part of -Cassy, which made her angry at herself. Then the boy had been put to -bed, and she had come back to await the expected outburst. She could -feel it in the air, and while her blood tingled in a desire to fight this -tyrant to the bitter end, she thought of her boy and his future, and she -calmed the tumult in her veins. - -She did not have to wait very long. The querulous voice of the old man -broke the silence. - -"When be you goin' back East? What time did you fix for goin'?" he -asked. - -She raised her head and looked at him squarely. "I didn't fix any time -for going East again," she replied. "I came out West this time to stay." - -"I thought you was on the stage," was the rejoinder. - -"I've left the stage. My voice went when I got a bad cold again, and I -couldn't stand the draughts of the theatre, and so I couldn't dance, -either. I'm finished with the stage. I've come out here for good and -all. - -"Where did you think of livin' out here?" - -"I'd like to have gone to Lumley's, but that's not possible, is it? -Anyway, I couldn't afford it now. So I thought I'd stay here, if there -was room for me." - -"You want to board here?" - -"I didn't put it to myself that way. I thought perhaps you'd be glad to -have me. I'm handy. I can cook, I can sew, and I'm quite cheerful and -kind. Then there's George--little George. I thought you'd like to have -your grandson here with you." - -"I've lived without him--or his father--for eight years, an' I could bear -it a while yet, mebbe." - -There was a half-choking sound from the old woman in the rocking-chair, -but she did not speak, though her knitting dropped into her lap. - -"But if you knew us better, perhaps you'd like us better," rejoined Cassy -gently. "We're both pretty easy to get on with, and we see the bright -side of things. He has a wonderful disposition, has George." - -"I ain't goin' to like you any better," said the old man, getting to his -feet. "I ain't goin' to give you any rights here. I've thought it out, -and my mind's made up. You can't come it over me. You ruined my boy's -life and sent him to his grave. He'd have lived to be an old man out -here; but you spoiled him. You trapped him into marrying you, with your -kicking and your comic songs, and your tricks of the stage, and you -parted us--parted him and me for ever." - -"That was your fault. George wanted to make it up." - -"With you!" The old man's voice rose shrilly, the bitterness and passion -of years was shooting high in the narrow confines of his mind. The -geyser of his prejudice and antipathy was furiously alive. "To come back -with you that ruined him and broke up my family, and made my life like -bitter aloes! No! And if I wouldn't have him with you, do you think -I'll have you without him? By the God of Israel, no!" - -Black Andy was now standing up behind the stove intently watching, his -face grim and sombre; Aunt Kate sat with both hands gripping the arms of -the rocker. - -Cassy got slowly to her feet. "I've been as straight a woman as your -mother or your wife ever was," she said, "and all the world knows it. -I'm poor--and I might have been rich. I was true to myself before I -married George, and I was true to George after, and all I earned he -shared; and I've got little left. The mining stock I bought with what -I saved went smash, and I'm poor as I was when I started to work for -myself. I can work awhile yet, but I wanted to see if I could fit in out -here, and get well again, and have my boy fixed in the house of his -grandfather. That's the way I'm placed, and that's how I came. But -give a dog a bad name--ah, you shame your dead boy in thinking bad of me! -I didn't ruin him. I didn't kill him. He never came to any bad through -me. I helped him; he was happy. Why, I--" She stopped suddenly, putting -a hand to her mouth. "Go on, say what you want to say, and let's -understand once for all," she added with a sudden sharpness. - -Abel Baragar drew himself up. "Well, I say this. I'll give you three -thousand dollars, and you can go somewhere else to live. I'll keep the -boy here. That's what I've fixed in my mind to do. You can go, and the -boy stays. I ain't goin' to live with you that spoiled George's life." - -The eyes of the woman dilated, she trembled with a sudden rush of anger, -then stood still, staring in front of her without a word. Black Andy -stepped from behind the stove. - -"You are going to stay here, Cassy," he said; "here where you have rights -as good as any, and better than any, if it comes to that." He turned to -his father. "You thought a lot of George," he added. "He was the apple -of your eye. He had a soft tongue, and most people liked him; but George -was foolish--I've known it all these years. George was pretty foolish. -He gambled, he bet at races, he speculated--wild. You didn't know it. -He took ten thousand dollars of your money, got from the Wonegosh farm he -sold for you. He--" - -Cassy Mavor started forwards with a cry, but Black Andy waved her down. - -"No, I'm going to tell it. George lost your ten thousand dollars, dad, -gambling, racing, speculating. He told her--Cassy-two days after they -was married, and she took the money she earned on the stage, and give it -to him to pay you back on the quiet through the bank. You never knew, -but that's the kind of boy your son George was, and that's the kind of -wife he had. George told me all about it when I was East six years ago." - -He came over to Cassy and stood beside her. "I'm standing by George's -wife," he said, taking her hand, while she shut her eyes in her misery-- -had she not hid her husband's wrong-doing all these years? "I'm standing -by her. If it hadn't been for that ten thousand dollars she paid back -for George, you'd have been swamped when the Syndicate got after you, -and we wouldn't have had Lumley's place, nor this, nor anything. I guess -she's got rights here, dad, as good as any." - -The old man sank slowly into a chair. "George--George stole from me-- -stole money from me!" he whispered. His face was white. His pride and -vainglory were broken. He was a haggard, shaken figure. His self- -righteousness was levelled in the dust. - -With sudden impulse, Cassy stole over to him, and took his hand and held -it tight. - -"Don't! Don't feel so bad!" she said. "He was weak and wild then. -But he was all right afterwards. He was happy with me." - -"I've owed Cassy this for a good many years, dad," said Black Andy, "and -it had to be paid. She's got better stuff in her than any Baragar." - - ......................... - -An hour later, the old man said to Cassy at the door of her room: "You -got to stay here and git well. It's yours, the same as the rest of us ---what's here." - -Then he went downstairs and sat with Aunt Kate by the fire. - -"I guess she's a good woman," he said at last. "I didn't use her right." - -"You've been lucky with your women-folk," Aunt Kate answered quietly. - -"Yes, I've been lucky," he answered. "I dunno if I deserve it. Mebbe -not. Do you think she'll git well?" - -"It's a healing air out here," Aunt Kate answered, and listened to the -wood of the house snapping in the sharp frost. - - - - - - -MARCILE - -That the day was beautiful, that the harvest of the West had been a great -one, that the salmon-fishing had been larger than ever before, that gold -had been found in the Yukon, made no difference to Jacques Grassette, for -he was in the condemned cell of Bindon Jail, living out those days which -pass so swiftly between the verdict of the jury and the last slow walk -with the Sheriff. - -He sat with his back to the stone wall, his hands on his knees, looking -straight before him. All that met his physical gaze was another stone -wall, but with his mind's eye he was looking beyond it into spaces far -away. His mind was seeing a little house with dormer windows, and a -steep roof on which the snow could not lodge in winter-time; with a -narrow stoop in front where one could rest of an evening, the day's work -done; the stone-and-earth oven near by in the open, where the bread for a -family of twenty was baked; the wooden plough tipped against the fence, -to wait the "fall" cultivation; the big iron cooler in which the sap from -the maple trees was boiled, in the days when the snow thawed and spring -opened the heart of the wood; the flash of the sickle and the scythe hard -by; the fields of the little narrow farm running back from the St. -Lawrence like a riband; and, out on the wide stream, the great rafts with -their riverine population floating down to Michelin's mill-yards. - -For hours he had sat like this, unmoving, his gnarled red hands clamping -each leg as though to hold him steady while he gazed; and he saw himself -as a little lad, barefooted, doing chores, running after the shaggy, -troublesome pony which would let him catch it when no one else could, -and, with only a halter on, galloping wildly back to the farmyard, to be -hitched up in the carriole which had once belonged to the old Seigneur. -He saw himself as a young man, back from "the States" where he had been -working in the mills, regarded austerely by little Father Roche, who had -given him his first Communion--for, down in Massachusetts he had learned -to wear his curly hair plastered down on his forehead, smoke bad cigars, -and drink "old Bourbon," to bet and to gamble, and be a figure at horse- -races. - -Then he saw himself, his money all gone, but the luck still with him, -at Mass on the Sunday before going to the backwoods lumber-camp for the -winter, as boss of a hundred men. He had a way with him, and he had -brains, had Jacques Grassette, and he could manage men, as Michelin the -lumber-king himself had found in a great river-row and strike, when -bloodshed seemed certain. Even now the ghost of a smile played at his -lips, as he recalled the surprise of the old habitants and of Father -Roche when he was chosen for this responsible post; for to run a great -lumber-camp well, hundreds of miles from civilisation, where there is no -visible law, no restraints of ordinary organised life, and where men, for -seven months together, never saw a woman or a child, and ate pork and -beans, and drank white whisky, was a task of administration as difficult -as managing a small republic new-created out of violent elements of -society. But Michelin was right, and the old Seigneur, Sir Henri -Robitaille, who was a judge of men, knew he was right, as did also -Hennepin the schoolmaster, whose despair Jacques had been, for he never -worked at his lessons as a boy, and yet he absorbed Latin and mathematics -by some sure but unexplainable process. "Ah! if you would but work, -Jacques, you vaurien, I would make a great man of you," Hennepin had said -to him more than once; but this had made no impression on Jacques. It -was more to the point that the ground-hogs and black squirrels and -pigeons were plentiful in Casanac Woods. - -And so he thought as he stood at the door of the Church of St. Francis on -that day before going "out back" to the lumber-camp. He had reached the -summit of greatness--to command men. That was more than wealth or -learning, and as he spoke to the old Seigneur going in to Mass, he still -thought so, for the Seigneur's big house and the servants and the great -gardens had no charm for him. The horses--that was another thing; but -there would be plenty of horses in the lumber-camp; and, on the whole, he -felt himself rather superior to the old Seigneur, who now was Lieutenant- -Governor of the province in which lay Bindon Jail. - -At the door of the Church of St. Francis he had stretched himself up -with good-natured pride, for he was by nature gregarious and friendly, -but with a temper quick and strong, and even savage when roused; though -Michelin the lumber-king did not know that when he engaged him as boss, -having seen him only at the one critical time, when his superior brain -and will saw its chance to command, and had no personal interest in the -strife. He had been a miracle of coolness then, and his six-foot-two of -pride and muscle was taking natural tribute at the door of the Church of -St. Francis, where he waited till nearly everyone had entered, and Father -Roche's voice could be heard in the Mass. - -Then had happened the real event of his life: a blackeyed, rose-checked -girl went by with her mother, hurrying in to Mass. As she passed him -their eyes met, and his blood leapt in his veins. He had never seen her -before, and, in a sense, he had never seen any woman before. He had -danced with many a one, and kissed a few in the old days among the flax- -beaters, at the harvesting, in the gaieties of a wedding, and also down -in Massachusetts. That, however, was a different thing, which he forgot -an hour after; but this was the beginning of the world for him; for he -knew now, of a sudden, what life was, what home meant, why "old folks" -slaved for their children, and mothers wept when girls married or sons -went away from home to bigger things; why in there, in at Mass, so many -were praying for all the people, and thinking only of one. All in a -moment it came--and stayed; and he spoke to her, to Marcile, that very -night, and he spoke also to her father, Valloir the farrier, the next -morning by lamplight, before he started for the woods. He would not be -gainsaid, nor take no for an answer, nor accept, as a reason for refusal, -that she was only sixteen, and that he did not know her, for she had been -away with a childless aunt since she was three. That she had fourteen -brothers and sisters who had to be fed and cared for did not seem to -weigh with the farrier. That was an affair of le bon Dieu, and enough -would be provided for them all as heretofore--one could make little -difference; and though Jacques was a very good match, considering his -prospects and his favour with the lumber-king, Valloir had a kind of fear -of him, and could not easily promise his beloved Marcile, the flower of -his flock, to a man of whom the priest so strongly disapproved. But it -was a new sort of Jacques Grassette who, that morning, spoke to him -with the simplicity and eagerness of a child; and the suddenly conceived -gift of a pony stallion, which every man in the parish envied Jacques, -won Valloir over; and Jacques went "away back" with the first timid kiss -of Marcile Valloir burning on his cheek. - -"Well, bagosh, you are a wonder!" said Jacques' father, when he told him -the news, and saw Jacques jump into the carriole and drive away. - -Here in prison, this, too, Jacques saw--this scene; and then the wedding -in the spring, and the tour through the parishes for days together, lads -and lasses journeying with them; and afterwards the new home with a -bigger stoop than any other in the village, with some old gnarled crab- -apple trees and lilac bushes, and four years of happiness, and a little -child that died; and all the time Jacques rising in the esteem of -Michelin the lumber-king, and sent on inspections, and to organise camps; -for weeks, sometimes for months, away from the house behind the lilac -bushes--and then the end of it all, sudden and crushing and unredeemable. - -Jacques came back one night and found the house empty. Marcile had gone -to try her luck with another man. - -That was the end of the upward career of Jacques Grassette. He went out -upon a savage hunt which brought him no quarry, for the man and the woman -had disappeared as completely as though they had been swallowed by the -sea. And here, at last, he was waiting for the day when he must settle -a bill for a human life taken in passion and rage. - -His big frame seemed out of place in the small cell, and the watcher -sitting near him, to whom he had not addressed a word nor replied to a -question since the watching began, seemed an insignificant factor in the -scene. Never had a prisoner been more self-contained, or rejected more -completely all those ministrations of humanity which relieve the horrible -isolation of the condemned cell. Grassette's isolation was complete. He -lived in a dream, did what little there was to do in a dark abstraction, -and sat hour after hour, as he was sitting now, piercing, with a brain at -once benumbed to all outer things and afire with inward things, those -realms of memory which are infinite in a life of forty years. - -"Sacre!" he muttered at last, and a shiver seemed to pass through him -from head to foot; then an ugly and evil oath fell from his lips, which -made his watcher shrink back appalled, for he also was a Catholic, and -had been chosen of purpose, in the hope that he might have an influence -on this revolted soul. It had, however, been of no use, and Grassette -had refused the advances and ministrations of the little good priest, -Father Laflamme, who had come from the coast of purpose to give him the -offices of the Church. Silent, obdurate, sullen, he had looked the -priest straight in the face and had said in broken English, "Non, I pay -my bill. Nom de diable, I will say my own Mass, light my own candle, go -my own way. I have too much." - -Now, as he sat glooming, after his outbreak of oaths, there came a -rattling noise at the door, the grinding of a key in the lock, the -shooting of bolts, and a face appeared at the little wicket in the door. -Then the door opened and the Sheriff stepped inside, accompanied by a -white-haired, stately old man. At sight of this second figure--the -Sheriff had come often before, and would come for one more doleful walk -with him--Grassette started. His face, which had never whitened in all -the dismal and terrorising doings of the capture and the trial and -sentence, though it had flushed with rage more than once, now turned a -little pale, for it seemed as if this old man had stepped out of the -visions which had just passed before his eyes. - -"His Honour, the Lieutenant-Governor, Sir Henri Robitaille, has come to -speak with you. . . . Stand up," the Sheriff added sharply, as -Grassette kept his seat. - -Grassette's face flushed with anger, for the prison had not broken his -spirits; then he got up slowly. "I not stand up for you," he growled at -the Sheriff; "I stand up for him." He jerked his head towards Sir Henri -Robitaille. This grand Seigneur, with Michelin, had believed in him in -those far-off days which he had just been seeing over again, and all his -boyhood and young manhood was rushing back on him. But now it was the -Governor who turned pale, seeing who the criminal was. - -"Jacques Grassette!" he cried in consternation and emotion, for under -another name the murderer had been tried and sentenced, nor had his -identity been established--the case was so clear, the defence had been -perfunctory, and Quebec was very far away. - -"M'sieu'!" was the respectful response, and Grassette's fingers -twitched. - -"It was my sister's son you killed, Grassette," said the Governor in a -low, strained voice. - -"Nom de Dieu!" said Grassette hoarsely. - -"I did not know, Grassette," the Governor went on "I did not know it was -you." - -"Why did you come, m'sieu'?" - -"Call him 'your Honour,"' said the Sheriff sharply. Grassette's face -hardened, and his look turned upon the Sheriff was savage and forbidding. -"I will speak as it please me. Who are you? What do I care? To hang -me--that is your business; but, for the rest, you spik to me differen'. -Who are you? Your father kep' a tavern for thieves, vous savez bien!" -It was true that the Sheriff's father had had no savoury reputation in -the West. - -The Governor turned his head away in pain and trouble, for the man's rage -was not a thing to see--and they both came from the little parish of St. -Francis, and had passed many an hour together. - -"Never mind, Grassette," he said gently. "Call me what you will. You've -got no feeling against me; and I can say with truth that I don't want -your life for the life you took." - -Grassette's breast heaved. "He put me out of my work, the man I kill. -He pass the word against me, he hunt me out of the mountains, he call-- -tete de diable! he call me a name so bad. Everything swim in my head, -and I kill him." - -The Governor made a protesting gesture. "I understand. I am glad his -mother was dead. But do you not think how sudden it was? Now here, in -the thick of life, then, out there, beyond this world in the darkin -purgatory." - -The brave old man had accomplished what everyone else, priest, lawyer, -Sheriff and watcher, had failed to do: he had shaken Grassette out of his -blank isolation and obdurate unrepentance, had touched some chord of -recognisable humanity. - -"It is done--well, I pay for it," responded Grassette, setting his jaw. -"It is two deaths for me. Waiting and remembering, and then with the -Sheriff there the other--so quick, and all." - -The Governor looked at him for some moments without speaking. The -Sheriff intervened again officiously. - -"His Honour has come to say something important to you," he remarked -oracularly. - -"Hold you--does he need a Sheriff to tell him when to spik?" was -Grassette's surly comment. Then he turned to the Governor. "Let us -speak in French," he said in patois. "This rope-twister will not -understan'. He is no good--I spit at him." - -The Governor nodded, and, despite the Sheriff's protest, they spoke in -French, Grassette with his eyes intently fixed on the other, eagerly -listening. - -"I have come," said the Governor, "to say to you, Grassette, that you -have still a chance of life." - -He paused, and Grassette's face took on a look of bewilderment and vague -anxiety. A chance of life--what did it mean? - -"Reprieve?" he asked in a hoarse voice. - -The Governor shook his head. "Not yet; but there is a chance. Something -has happened. A man's life is in danger, or it may be he is dead; but -more likely he is alive. You took a life; perhaps you can save one now. -Keeley's Gulch--the mine there." - -"They have found it--gold?" asked Grassette, his eyes staring. He was -forgetting for a moment where and what he was. - -"He went to find it, the man whose life is in danger. He had heard from -a trapper who had been a miner once. While he was there, a landslip -came, and the opening to the mine was closed up--" - -"There were two ways in. Which one did he take?" cried Grassette. - -"The only one he could take, the only one he or anyone else knew. You -know the other way in--you only, they say." - -"I found it--the easier, quick way in; a year ago I found it." - -"Was it near the other entrance?" Grassette shook his head. "A mile -away." - -"If the man is alive--and we think he is--you are the only person that -can save him. I have telegraphed the Government. They do not promise, -but they will reprieve, and save your life, if you find the man." - -"Alive or dead?" - -"Alive or dead, for the act would be the same. I have an order to take -you to the Gulch, if you will go; and I am sure that you will have your -life, if you do it. I will promise--ah yes, Grassette, but it shall be -so! Public opinion will demand it. You will do it?" - -"To go free--altogether?" - -"Well, but if your life is saved, Grassette?" - -The dark face flushed, then grew almost repulsive again in its -sullenness. - -"Life--and this, in prison, shut in year after year. To do always what -some one else wills, to be a slave to a warder. To have men like that -over me that have been a boss of men--wasn't it that drove me to kill?-- -to be treated like dirt. And to go on with this, while outside there is -free life, and to go where you will at your own price-no! What do I care -for life! What is it to me! To live like this--ah, I would break my -head against these stone walls, I would choke myself with my own hands! -If I stayed here, I would kill again, I would kill--kill." - -"Then to go free altogether--that would be the wish of all the world, -if you save this man's life, if it can be saved. Will you not take the -chance? We all have to die some time or other, Grassette, some sooner, -some later; and when you go, will you not want to take to God in your -hands a life saved for a life taken? Have you forgotten God, Grassette? -We used to remember Him in the Church of St. Francis down there at home." - -There was a moment's silence, in which Grassette's head was thrust -forwards, his eyes staring into space. The old Seigneur had touched a -vulnerable corner in his nature. - -Presently he said in a low voice: "To be free altogether. . . . What -is his name? Who is he?" - -"His name is Bignold," the Governor answered. He turned to the Sheriff -inquiringly. "That is it, is it not?" he asked in English again. - -"James Tarran Bignold," answered the Sheriff. - -The effect of these words upon Grassette was remarkable. His body -appeared to stiffen, his face became rigid, he stared at the Governor -blankly, appalled, the colour left his face, and his mouth opened with a -curious and revolting grimace. The others drew back, startled, and -watched him. - -"Sang de Dieu!" he murmured at last, with a sudden gesture of misery and -rage. - -Then the Governor understood: he remembered that the name just given by -the Sheriff and himself was the name of the Englishman who had carried -off Grassette's wife years ago. He stepped forwards and was about to -speak, but changed his mind. He would leave it all to Grassette; he -would not let the Sheriff know the truth, unless Grassette himself -disclosed the situation. He looked at Grassette with a look of poignant -pity and interest combined. In his own placid life he had never had any -tragic happening, his blood had run coolly, his days had been blessed by -an urbane fate; such scenes as this were but a spectacle to him; there -was no answering chord of human suffering in his own breast, to make him -realise what Grassette was undergoing now; but he had read widely, he had -been an acute observer of the world and its happenings, and he had a -natural human sympathy which had made many a man and woman eternally -grateful to him. - -What would Grassette do? It was a problem which had no precedent, and -the solution would be a revelation of the human mind and heart. What -would the man do? - -"Well, what is all this, Grassette?" asked the Sheriff brusquely. His -official and officious intervention, behind which was the tyranny of the -little man, given a power which he was incapable of wielding wisely, -would have roused Grassette to a savage reply a half-hour before, but now -it was met by a contemptuous wave of the hand, and Grassette kept his -eyes fixed on the Governor. - -"James Tarran Bignold!" Grassette said harshly, with eyes that searched -the Governor's face; but they found no answering look there. The -Governor, then, did not remember that tragedy of his home and hearth, and -the man who had made of him an Ishmael. Still, Bignold had been almost a -stranger in the parish, and it was not curious if the Governor had -forgotten. - -"Bignold!" he repeated, but the Governor gave no response. - -"Yes, Bignold is his name, Grassette," said the Sheriff. "You took a -life, and now, if you save one, that'll balance things. As the Governor -says, there'll be a reprieve anyhow. It's pretty near the day, and this -isn't a bad world to kick in, so long as you kick with one leg on the -ground, and--" - -The Governor hastily intervened upon the Sheriff's brutal remarks. -"There is no time to be lost, Grassette. He has been ten days in the -mine." - -Grassette's was not a slow brain. For a man of such physical and bodily -bulk, he had more talents than are generally given. If his brain had -been slower, his hand also would have been slower to strike. But his -intelligence had been surcharged with hate these many years, and since -the day he had been deserted, it had ceased to control his actions--a -passionate and reckless wilfulness had governed it. But now, after the -first shock and stupefaction, it seemed to go back to where it was before -Marcile went from him, gather up the force and intelligence it had then, -and come forwards again to this supreme moment, with all that life's -harsh experiences had done for it, with the education that misery and -misdoing give. Revolutions are often the work of instants, not years, -and the crucial test and problem by which Grassette was now faced had -lifted him into a new atmosphere, with a new capacity alive in him. -A moment ago his eyes had been bloodshot and swimming with hatred and -passion; now they grew, almost suddenly, hard and lurking and quiet, -with a strange, penetrating force and inquiry in them. - -"Bignold--where does he come from? What is he?" he asked the Sheriff. - -"He is an Englishman; he's only been out here a few months. He's been -shooting and prospecting; but he's a better shooter than prospector. -He's a stranger; that's why all the folks out here want to save him if -it's possible. It's pretty hard dying in a strange land far away from -all that's yours. Maybe he's got a wife waiting for him over there." - -"Nom de Dieu!" said Grassette with suppressed malice, under his breath. - -"Maybe there's a wife waiting for him, and there's her to think of. The -West's hospitable, and this thing has taken hold of it; the West wants to -save this stranger, and it's waiting for you, Grassette, to do its work -for it, you being the only man that can do it, the only one that knows -the other secret way into Keeley's Gulch. Speak right out, Grassette. -It's your chance for life. Speak out quick." - -The last three words were uttered in the old slave-driving tone, though -the earlier part of the speech had been delivered oracularly, and had -brought again to Grassette's eyes the reddish, sullen look which had made -them, a little while before, like those of some wounded, angered animal -at bay; but it vanished slowly, and there was silence for a moment. The -Sheriff's words had left no vestige of doubt in Grassette's mind. This -Bignold was the man who had taken Marcile away, first to the English -province, then into the States, where he had lost track of them, then -over to England. Marcile--where was Marcile now? - -In Keeley's Gulch was the man who could tell him, the man who had ruined -his home and his life. Dead or alive, he was in Keeley's Gulch, the man -who knew where Marcile was; and if he knew where Marcile was, and if she -was alive, and he was outside these prison walls, what would he do to -her? And if he was outside these prison walls, and in the Gulch, -and the man was there alive before him, what would he do? - -Outside these prison walls-to be out there in the sun, where life would -be easier to give up, if it had to be given up! An hour ago he had been -drifting on a sea of apathy, and had had his fill of life. An hour ago -he had had but one desire, and that was to die fighting, and he had even -pictured to himself a struggle in this narrow cell where he would compel -them to kill him, and so in any case let him escape the rope. Now he -was suddenly brought face to face with the great central issue of his -life, and the end, whatever that end might be, could not be the same in -meaning, though it might be the same concretely. If he elected to let -things be, then Bignold would die out there in the Gulch, starved, -anguished, and alone. If he went, he could save his own life by saving -Bignold, if Bignold was alive; or he could go--and not save Bignold's -life or his own! What would he do? - -The Governor watched him with a face controlled to quietness, but with -an anxiety which made him pale in spite of himself. - -"What will you do, Grassette?" he said at last in a low voice, and with -a step forwards to him. "Will you not help to clear your conscience by -doing this thing? You don't want to try and spite the world by not doing -it. You can make a lot of your life yet, if you are set free. Give -yourself, and give the world a chance. You haven't used it right. Try -again." - -Grassette imagined that the Governor did not remember who Bignold was, -and that this was an appeal against his despair, and against revenging -himself on the community which had applauded his sentence. If he went -to the Gulch, no one would know or could suspect the true situation, -everyone would be unprepared for that moment when Bignold and he would -face each other--and all that would happen then. - -Where was Marcile? Only Bignold knew. Alive or dead? Only Bignold -knew. - -"Bien, I will do it, m'sieu'," he said to the Governor. "I am to go -alone--eh?" - -The Sheriff shook his head. "No, two warders will go with you--and -myself." - -A strange look passed over Grassette's face. He seemed to hesitate for -a moment, then he said again: "Bon, I will go." - -"Then there is, of course, the doctor," said the Sheriff. - -"Bon," said Grassette. "What time is it?" "Twelve o'clock," answered -the Sheriff, and made a motion to the warder to open the door of the -cell. - -"By sundown!" Grassette said, and he turned with a determined gesture to -leave the cell. - -At the gate of the prison, a fresh, sweet air caught his face. -Involuntarily he drew in a great draught of it, and his eyes seemed -to gaze out, almost wonderingly, over the grass and the trees to the -boundless horizon. Then he became aware of the shouts of the crowd-- -shouts of welcome. This same crowd had greeted him with shouts of -execration when he had left the Court House after his sentence. He stood -still for a moment and looked at them, as it were only half comprehending -that they were cheering him now, and that voices were saying, "Bravo, -Grassette! Save him, and we'll save you." - -Cheer upon cheer, but he took no notice. He walked like one in a dream, -a long, strong step. He turned neither to left nor right, not even when -the friendly voice of one who had worked with him bade him: "Cheer up, -and do the trick." He was busy working out a problem which no one but -himself could solve. He was only half conscious of his surroundings; he -was moving in a kind of detached world of his own, where the warders and -the Sheriff and those who followed were almost abstract and unreal -figures. He was living with a past which had been everlasting distant, -and had now become a vivid and buffeting present. He returned no answers -to the questions addressed to him, and would not talk, save when for a -little while they dismounted from their horses, and sat under the shade -of a great ash-tree for a few moments, and snatched a mouthful of -luncheon. Then he spoke a little and asked some questions, but lapsed -into a moody silence afterwards. His life and nature were being passed -through a fiery crucible. In all the years that had gone, he had had an -ungovernable desire to kill both Bignold and Marcile if he ever met them, -a primitive, savage desire to blot them out of life and being. His -fingers had ached for Marcile's neck, that neck in which he had lain his -face so often in the transient, unforgettable days of their happiness. -If she was alive now--if she was still alive! Her story was hidden there -in Keeley's Gulch with Bignold, and he was galloping hard to reach his -foe. As he went, by some strange alchemy of human experience, by that -new birth of his brain, the world seemed different from what it had ever -been before, at least since the day when he had found an empty home and a -shamed hearthstone. He got a new feeling toward it, and life appealed to -him as a thing that might have been so well worth living. But since that -was not to be, then he would see what he could do to get compensation for -all that he had lost, to take toll for the thing that had spoiled him, -and given him a savage nature and a raging temper, which had driven him -at last to kill a man who, in no real sense, had injured him. - -Mile after mile they journeyed, a troop of interested people coming -after, the sun and the clear sweet air, the waving grass, the occasional -clearings where settlers had driven in the tent-pegs of home, the forest -now and then swallowing them, the mountains rising above them like a -blank wall, and then suddenly opening out before them; and the rustle and -scamper of squirrels and coyotes; and over their heads the whistle of -birds, the slow beat of wings of great wild-fowl. The tender sap of -youth was in this glowing and alert new world, and, by sudden contrast -with the prison walls which he had just left behind, the earth seemed -recreated, unfamiliar, compelling and companionable. Strange that in all -the years that had been since he had gone back to his abandoned home to -find Marcile gone, the world had had no beauty, no lure for him. In the -splendour of it all, he had only raged and stormed, hating his fellowman, -waiting, however hopelessly, for the day when he should see Marcile and -the man who had taken her from him. And yet now, under the degradation -of his crime and its penalty, and the unmanning influence of being the -helpless victim of the iron power of the law, rigid, ugly and -demoralising--now with the solution of his life's great problem here -before him in the hills, with the man for whom he had waited so long -caverned in the earth, but a hand-reach away, as it were, his wrongs had -taken a new manifestation in him, and the thing that kept crying out in -him every moment was, Where is Marcile? - -It was four o'clock when they reached the pass which only Grassette knew, -the secret way into the Gulch. There was two hours' walking through the -thick, primeval woods, where few had ever been, except the ancient tribes -which had once lorded it here; then came a sudden drop into the earth, -a short travel through a dim cave, and afterward a sheer wall of stone -enclosing a ravine where the rocks on either side nearly met overhead. - -Here Grassette gave the signal to shout aloud, and the voice of the -Sheriff called out: "Hello, Bignold! - -"Hello! Hello, Bignold! Are you there?--Hello!" His voice rang out -clear and piercing, and then came a silence-a long, anxious silence. -Again the voice rang out: "Hello! Hello-o-o! Bignold! Bigno-o-ld!" - -They strained their ears. Grassette was flat on the ground, his ear to -the earth. Suddenly he got to his feet, his face set, his eyes -glittering. - -"He is there beyon'--I hear him," he said, pointing farther down the -Gulch. "Water--he is near it." - -"We heard nothing," said the Sheriff, "not a sound." "I hear ver' good. -He is alive. I hear him--so," responded Grassette; and his face had a -strange, fixed look which the others interpreted to be agitation at the -thought that he had saved his own life by finding Bignold--and alive; -which would put his own salvation beyond doubt. - -He broke away from them and hurried down the Gulch. The others followed -hard after, the Sheriff and the warders close behind; but he outstripped -them. - -Suddenly he stopped and stood still, looking at something on the ground. -They saw him lean forwards and his hands stretch out with a fierce -gesture. It was the attitude of a wild animal ready to spring. - -They were beside him in an instant, and saw at his feet Bignold worn to a -skeleton, with eyes starting from his head, and fixed on Grassette in -agony and stark fear. - -The Sheriff stooped to lift Bignold up, but Grassette waved them back -with a fierce gesture, standing over the dying man. - -"He spoil my home. He break me--I have my bill to settle here," he said -in a voice hoarse and harsh. "It is so? It is so--eh? Spik!" he said -to Bignold. - -"Yes," came feebly from the shrivelled lips. "Water! Water!" the -wretched man gasped. "I'm dying!" - -A sudden change came over Grassette. "Water--queeck!" he said. - -The Sheriff stooped and held a hatful of water to Bignold's lips, while -another poured brandy from a flask into the water. - -Grassette watched them eagerly. When the dying man had swallowed a -little of the spirit and water, Grassette leaned over him again, and the -others drew away. They realised that these two men had an account to -settle, and there was no need for Grassette to take revenge, for Bignold -was going fast. - -"You stan' far back," said Grassette, and they fell away. - -Then he stooped down to the sunken, ashen face, over which death was fast -drawing its veil. "Marcile--where is Marcile?" he asked. - -The dying man's lips opened. "God forgive me--God save my soul!" he -whispered. He was not concerned for Grassette now. - -"Queeck-queeck, where is Marcile?" Grassette said sharply. "Come back, -Bignold. Listen--where is Marcile?" - -He strained to hear the answer. Bignold was going, but his eyes opened -again, however, for this call seemed to pierce to his soul as it -struggled to be free. - -"Ten years--since--I saw her," he whispered. "Good girl--Marcile. She -loves you, but she--is afraid." He tried to say something more, but his -tongue refused its office. - -"Where is she-spik!" commanded Grassette in a tone of pleading and agony -now. - -Once more the flying spirit came back. A hand made a motion towards his -pocket, then lay still. - -Grassette felt hastily in the dead man's pocket, drew forth a letter, -and with half-blinded eyes read the few lines it contained. It was dated -from a hospital in New York, and was signed: "Nurse Marcile." - -With a moan of relief Grassette stood staring at the dead man. When the -others came to him again, his lips were moving, but they did not hear -what he was saying. They took up the body and moved away with it up the -ravine. - -"It's all right, Grassette. You'll be a freeman," said the Sheriff. - -Grassette did not answer. He was thinking how long it would take him to -get to Marcile, when he was free. - -He had a true vision of beginning life again with Marcile. - - - - -ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: - -Being a man of very few ideas, he cherished those he had -Self-will, self-pride, and self-righteousness were big in him -Tyranny of the little man, given a power - - - - - - -NORTHERN LIGHTS - -By Gilbert Parker - -Volume 4. - - - -A MAN, A FAMINE, AND A HEATHEN BOY -THE HEALING SPRINGS AND THE PIONEERS -THE LITTLE WIDOW OF JANSEN -WATCHING THE RISE OF ORION - - - - -A MAN, A FAMINE, AND A HEATHEN BOY - -Athabasca in the Far North is the scene of this story--Athabasca, one of -the most beautiful countries in the world in summer, but a cold, bare -land in winter. Yet even in winter it is not so bleak and bitter as the -districts south-west of it, for the Chinook winds steal through from the -Pacific and temper the fierceness of the frozen Rockies. Yet forty and -fifty degrees below zero is cold after all, and July strawberries in this -wild North land are hardly compensation for seven months of ice and snow, -no matter how clear and blue the sky, how sweet the sun during its short -journey in the day. Some days, too, the sun may not be seen even when -there is no storm, because of the fine, white, powdered frost in the air. - -A day like this is called a poudre day; and woe to the man who tempts it -unthinkingly, because the light makes the delicate mist of frost shine -like silver. For that powder bites the skin white in short order, and -sometimes reckless men lose ears, or noses, or hands under its sharp -caress. But when it really storms in that Far North, then neither man -nor beast should be abroad--not even the Eskimo dogs; though times and -seasons can scarcely be chosen when travelling in Athabasca, for a storm -comes unawares. Upon the plains you will see a cloud arising, not in the -sky, but from the ground--a billowy surf of drifting snow; then another -white billow from the sky will sweep down and meet it, and you are caught -between. - -He who went to Athabasca to live a generation ago had to ask himself if -the long winter, spent chiefly indoors, with, maybe, a little trading -with the Indians, meagre sport, and scant sun, savages and half-breeds -the only companions, and out of all touch with the outside world, letters -coming but once a year; with frozen fish and meat, always the same, as -the staple items in a primitive fare; with danger from starvation and -marauding tribes; with endless monotony, in which men sometimes go mad-- -he had to ask himself if these were to be cheerfully endured because, in -the short summer, the air is heavenly, the rivers and lakes are full of -fish, the flotilla of canoes of the fur-hunters is pouring down, and all -is gaiety and pleasant turmoil; because there is good shooting in the -autumn, and the smell of the land is like a garden, and hardy fruits and -flowers are at hand. - -That is a question which was asked William Rufus Holly once upon a time. - -William Rufus Holly, often called "Averdoopoy," sometimes "Sleeping -Beauty," always Billy Rufus, had had a good education. He had been to -high school and to college, and he had taken one or two prizes en route -to graduation; but no fame travelled with him, save that he was the -laziest man of any college year for a decade. He loved his little -porringer, which is to say that he ate a good deal; and he loved to read -books, which is not to say that he loved study; he hated getting out of -bed, and he was constantly gated for morning chapel. More than once he -had sweetly gone to sleep over his examination papers. This is not to -say that he failed at his examinations--on the contrary, he always -succeeded; but he only did enough to pass and no more; and he did not -wish to do more than pass. His going to sleep at examinations was -evidence that he was either indifferent or self-indulgent, and it -certainly showed that he was without nervousness. He invariably roused -himself, or his professor roused him, a half-hour before the papers -should be handed in, and, as it were by a mathematical calculation, -he had always done just enough to prevent him being plucked. - -He slept at lectures, he slept in hall, he slept as he waited his turn -to go to the wicket in a cricket match, and he invariably went to sleep -afterwards. He even did so on the day he had made the biggest score, -in the biggest game ever played between his college and the pick of the -country; but he first gorged himself with cake and tea. The day he took -his degree he had to be dragged from a huge grandfather's chair, and -forced along in his ragged gown--"ten holes and twelve tatters"--to the -function in the convocation hall. He looked so fat and shiny, so balmy -and sleepy when he took his degree and was handed his prize for a poem on -Sir John Franklin, that the public laughed, and the college men in the -gallery began singing: - - "Bye O, my baby, - Father will come to you soo-oon!" - -He seemed not to care, but yawned in his hand as he put his prize book -under his arm through one of the holes in his gown, and in two minutes -was back in his room, and in another five was fast asleep. - -It was the general opinion that William Rufus Holly, fat, yellow-haired, -and twenty-four years old, was doomed to failure in life, in spite of the -fact that he had a little income of a thousand dollars a year, and had -made a century in an important game of cricket. Great, therefore, was -the surprise of the college, and afterward of the Province, when, at the -farewell dinner of the graduates, Sleeping Beauty announced, between his -little open-eyed naps, that he was going Far North as a missionary. - -At first it was thought he was joking, but when at last, in his calm and -dreamy look, they saw he meant what he said, they rose and carried him -round the room on a chair, making impromptu songs as they travelled. -They toasted Billy Rufus again and again, some of them laughing till they -cried at the thought of Averdoopoy going to the Arctic regions. But an -uneasy seriousness fell upon these "beautiful, bountiful, brilliant -boys," as Holly called them later, when in a simple, honest, but indolent -speech he said he had applied for ordination. - -Six months later William Rufus Holly, a deacon in holy orders, journeyed -to Athabasca in the Far North. On his long journey there was plenty of -time to think. He was embarked on a career which must for ever keep him -in the wilds; for very seldom indeed does a missionary of the North ever -return to the crowded cities or take a permanent part in civilised life. - -What the loneliness of it would be he began to feel, as for hours and -hours he saw no human being on the plains; in the thrilling stillness of -the night; in fierce storms in the woods, when his half-breed guides bent -their heads to meet the wind and rain, and did not speak for hours; in -the long, adventurous journey on the river by day, in the cry of the -plaintive loon at night; in the scant food for every meal. Yet what the -pleasure would be he felt in the joyous air, the exquisite sunshine, the -flocks of wild-fowl flying North, honking on their course; in the song of -the half-breeds as they ran the rapids. Of course, he did not think -these things quite as they are written here--all at once and all -together; but in little pieces from time to time, feeling them rather -than saying them to himself. - -At least he did understand how serious a thing it was, his going as a -missionary into the Far North. Why did he do it? Was it a whim, or the -excited imagination of youth, or that prompting which the young often -have to make the world better? Or was it a fine spirit of adventure with -a good heart behind it? Perhaps it was a little of all these; but there -was also something more, and it was to his credit. - -Lazy as William Rufus Holly had been at school and college, he had still -thought a good deal, even when he seemed only sleeping; perhaps he -thought more because he slept so much, because he studied little and read -a great deal. He always knew what everybody thought--that he would never -do anything but play cricket till he got too heavy to run, and then would -sink into a slothful, fat, and useless middle and old age; that his life -would be a failure. And he knew that they were right; that if he stayed -where he could live an easy life, a fat and easy life he would lead; that -in a few years he would be good for nothing except to eat and sleep--no -more. One day, waking suddenly from a bad dream of himself so fat as to -be drawn about on a dray by monstrous fat oxen with rings through their -noses, led by monkeys, he began to wonder what he should do--the hardest -thing to do; for only the hardest life could possibly save him from -failure, and, in spite of all, he really did want to make something of -his life. He had been reading the story of Sir John Franklin's Arctic -expedition, and all at once it came home to him that the only thing for -him to do was to go to the Far North and stay there, coming back about -once every ten years to tell the people in the cities what was being done -in the wilds. Then there came the inspiration to write his poem on Sir -John Franklin, and he had done so, winning the college prize for poetry. -But no one had seen any change in him in those months; and, indeed, there -had been little or no change, for he had an equable and practical, though -imaginative, disposition, despite his avoirdupois, and his new purpose -did not stir him yet from his comfortable sloth. - -And in all the journey West and North he had not been stirred greatly -from his ease of body, for the journey was not much harder than playing -cricket every day, and there were only the thrill of the beautiful air, -the new people, and the new scenes to rouse him. As yet there was no -great responsibility. He scarcely realised what his life must be, until -one particular day. Then Sleeping Beauty waked wide up, and from that -day lost the name. Till then he had looked and borne himself like any -other traveller, unrecognised as a parson or "mikonaree." He had not had -prayers in camp en route, he had not preached, he had held no meetings. -He was as yet William Rufus Holly, the cricketer, the laziest dreamer of -a college decade. His religion was simple and practical; he had never -had any morbid ideas; he had lived a healthy, natural, and honourable -life, until he went for a mikonaree, and if he had no cant, he had not a -clear idea of how many-sided, how responsible, his life must be--until -that one particular day. This is what happened then. - -From Fort O'Call, an abandoned post of the Hudson's Bay Company on the -Peace River, nearly the whole tribe of the Athabasca Indians in -possession of the post now had come up the river, with their chief, -Knife-in-the-Wind, to meet the mikonaree. Factors of the Hudson's Bay -Company, coureurs de bois, and voyageurs had come among them at times, -and once the renowned Father Lacombe, the Jesuit priest, had stayed with -them three months; but never to this day had they seen a Protestant -mikonaree, though once a factor, noted for his furious temper, his powers -of running, and his generosity, had preached to them. These men, -however, were both over fifty years old. The Athabascas did not hunger -for the Christian religion, but a courier from Edmonton had brought them -word that a mikonaree was coming to their country to stay, and they put -off their stoical manner and allowed themselves the luxury of curiosity. -That was why even the squaws and papooses came up the river with the -braves, all wondering if the stranger had brought gifts with him, all -eager for their shares; for it had been said by the courier of the tribe -that "Oshondonto," their name for the newcomer, was bringing mysterious -loads of well-wrapped bales and skins. Upon a point below the first -rapids of the Little Manitou they waited with their camp-fires burning -and their pipe of peace. - -When the canoes bearing Oshondonto and his voyageurs shot the rapids to -the song of the river, - - "En roulant, ma boule roulant, - En roulant, ma boule!" - -with the shrill voices of the boatmen rising to meet the cry of the -startled water-fowl, the Athabascas crowded to the high banks. They -grunted "How!" in greeting, as the foremost canoe made for the shore. - -But if surprise could have changed the countenances of Indians, these -Athabascas would not have known one another when the missionary stepped -out upon the shore. They had looked to see a grey-bearded man like the -chief factor who quarrelled and prayed; but they found instead a round- -faced, clean-shaven youth, with big, good-natured eyes, yellow hair, and -a roundness of body like that of a month-old bear's cub. They expected -to find a man who, like the factor, could speak their language, and they -found a cherub sort of youth who talked only English, French, and -Chinook--that common language of the North--and a few words of their own -language which he had learned on the way. - -Besides, Oshondonto was so absent-minded at the moment, so absorbed in -admiration of the garish scene before him, that he addressed the chief in -French, of which Knife-in-the-Wind knew but the one word cache, which all -the North knows. - -But presently William Rufus Holly recovered himself, and in stumbling -Chinook made himself understood. Opening a bale, he brought out beads -and tobacco and some bright red flannel, and two hundred Indians sat -round him and grunted "How!" and received his gifts with little comment. -Then the pipe of peace went round, and Oshondonto smoked it becomingly. - -But he saw that the Indians despised him for his youth, his fatness, his -yellow hair as soft as a girl's, his cherub face, browned though it was -by the sun and weather. - -As he handed the pipe to Knife-in-the-Wind, an Indian called Silver -Tassel, with a cruel face, said grimly: - -"Why does Oshondonto travel to us?" - -William Rufus Holly's eyes steadied on those of the Indian as he replied -in Chinook: "To teach the way to Manitou the Mighty, to tell the -Athabascas of the Great Chief who died to save the world." - -"The story is told in many ways; which is right? There was the factor, -Word of Thunder. There is the song they sing at Edmonton--I have heard." - -"The Great Chief is the same Chief," answered the missionary. "If you -tell of Fort O'Call, and Knife-in-the-Wind tells of Fort O'Call, he and -you will speak different words, and one will put in one thing and one -will leave out another; men's tongues are different. But Fort O'Call is -the-same, and the Great Chief is the same." - -"It was a long time ago," said Knife-in-the-Wind sourly, "many thousand -moons, as the pebbles in the river, the years." - -"It is the same world, and it is the same Chief, and it was to save us," -answered William Rufus Holly, smiling, yet with a fluttering heart, for -the first test of his life had come. - -In anger Knife-in-the-Wind thrust an arrow into the ground and said: - -"How can the white man who died thousands of moons ago in a far country -save the red man to-day?" - -"A strong man should bear so weak a tale," broke in Silver Tassel -ruthlessly. "Are we children that the Great Chief sends a child as -messenger?" - -For a moment Billy Rufus did not know how to reply, and in the pause -Knife-in-the-Wind broke in two pieces the arrow he had thrust in the -ground in token of displeasure. - -Suddenly, as Oshondonto was about to speak, Silver Tassel sprang to his -feet, seized in his arms a lad of twelve who was standing near, and -running to the bank, dropped him into the swift current. - -"If Oshondonto be not a child, let him save the lad," said Silver Tassel, -standing on the brink. - -Instantly William Rufus Holly was on his feet. His coat was off before -Silver Tassel's words were out of his mouth, and crying, "In the name of -the Great White Chief!" he jumped into the rushing current. "In the -name of your Manitou, come on, Silver Tassel!" he called up from the -water, and struck out for the lad. - -Not pausing an instant, Silver Tassel sprang into the flood, into the -whirling eddies and dangerous current below the first rapids and above -the second. - -Then came the struggle for Wingo of the Cree tribe, a waif among the -Athabascas, whose father had been slain as they travelled, by a wandering -tribe of Blackfeet. Never was there a braver rivalry, although the odds -were with the Indian-in lightness, in brutal strength. With the -mikonaree, however, were skill, and that sort of strength which the world -calls "moral," the strength of a good and desperate purpose. Oshondonto -knew that on the issue of this shameless business--this cruel sport of -Silver Tassel--would depend his future on the Peace River. As he shot -forward with strong strokes in the whirling torrent after the helpless -lad, who, only able to keep himself afloat, was being swept down towards -the rapids below, he glanced up to the bank along which the Athabascas -were running. He saw the garish colours of their dresses; he saw the -ignorant medicine man, with his mysterious bag, making incantations; he -saw the tepee of the chief, with its barbarous pennant above; he saw the -idle, naked children tearing at the entrails of a calf; and he realised -that this was a deadly tournament between civilisation and barbarism. - -Silver Tassel was gaining on him, they were both overhauling the boy; it -was now to see which should reach Wingo first, which should take him to -shore. That is, if both were not carried under before they reached him; -that is, if, having reached him, they and he would ever get to shore; -for, lower down, before it reached the rapids, the current ran horribly -smooth and strong, and here and there were jagged rocks just beneath the -surface. - -Still Silver Tassel gained on him, as they both gained on the boy. -Oshondonto swam strong and hard, but he swam with his eye on the struggle -for the shore also; he was not putting forth his utmost strength, for he -knew it would be bitterly needed, perhaps to save his own life by a last -effort. - -Silver Tassel passed him when they were about fifty feet from the boy. -Shooting by on his side, with a long stroke and the plunge of his body -like a projectile, the dark face with the long black hair plastering it -turned towards his own, in fierce triumph Silver Tassel cried "How!" in -derision. - -Billy Rufus set his teeth and lay down to his work like a sportsman. His -face had lost its roses, and it was set and determined, but there was no -look of fear upon it, nor did his heart sink when a cry of triumph went -up from the crowd on the banks. The white man knew by old experience in -the cricket-field and in many a boat-race that it is well not to halloo -till you are out of the woods. His mettle was up, he was not the -Reverend William Rufus Holly, missionary, but Billy Rufus, the champion -cricketer, the sportsman playing a long game. - -Silver Tassel reached the boy, who was bruised and bleeding and at his -last gasp, and throwing an arm round him, struck out for the shore. The -current was very strong, and he battled fiercely as Billy Rufus, not far -above, moved down toward them at an angle. For a few yards Silver Tassel -was going strong, then his pace slackened, he seemed to sink lower in the -water, and his stroke became splashing and irregular. Suddenly he struck -a rock, which bruised him badly, and, swerving from his course, he lost -his stroke and let go the boy. - -By this time the mikonaree had swept beyond them, and he caught the boy -by his long hair as he was being swept below. Striking out for the -shore, he swam with bold, strong strokes, his judgment guiding him well -past rocks beneath the surface. Ten feet from shore he heard a cry of -alarm from above. It concerned Silver Tassel, he knew, but he could not -look round yet. - -In another moment the boy was dragged up the bank by strong hands, and -Billy Rufus swung round in the water towards Silver Tassel, who, in his -confused energy, had struck another rock, and, exhausted now, was being -swept towards the rapids. Silver Tassel's shoulder scarcely showed, his -strength was gone. In a flash Billy Rufus saw there was but one thing to -do. He must run the rapids with Silver Tassel-there was no other way. -It would be a fight through the jaws of death; but no Indian's eyes had -a better sense for river-life than William Rufus Holly's. - -How he reached Silver Tassel, and drew the Indian's arm over his own -shoulder; how they drove down into the boiling flood; how Billy Rufus's -fat body was battered and torn and ran red with blood from twenty flesh -wounds; but how by luck beyond the telling he brought Silver Tassel -through safely into the quiet water a quarter of a mile below the rapids, -and was hauled out, both more dead than alive, is a tale still told by -the Athabascas around their camp-fire. The rapids are known to-day as -the Mikonaree Rapids. - -The end of this beginning of the young man's career was that Silver -Tassel gave him the word of eternal friendship, Knife-in-the-Wind took -him into the tribe, and the boy Wingo became his very own, to share his -home, and his travels, no longer a waif among the Athabascas. - -After three days' feasting, at the end of which the missionary held his -first service and preached his first sermon, to the accompaniment of -grunts of satisfaction from the whole tribe of Athabascas, William Rufus -Holly began his work in the Far North. - -The journey to Fort O'Call was a procession of triumph, for, as it was -summer, there was plenty of food, the missionary had been a success, and -he had distributed many gifts of beads and flannel. - -All went well for many moons, although converts were uncertain and -baptisms few, and the work was hard and the loneliness at times terrible. -But at last came dark days. - -One summer and autumn there had been poor fishing and shooting, the -caches of meat were fewer on the plains, and almost nothing had come up -to Fort O'Call from Edmonton, far below. The yearly supplies for the -missionary, paid for out of his private income--the bacon, beans, tea, -coffee and flour--had been raided by a band of hostile Indians, and he -viewed with deep concern the progress of the severe winter. Although -three years of hard, frugal life had made his muscles like iron, they had -only mellowed his temper, increased his flesh and rounded his face; nor -did he look an hour older than on the day when he had won Wingo for his -willing slave and devoted friend. - -He never resented the frequent ingratitude of the Indians; he said little -when they quarrelled over the small comforts his little income brought -them yearly from the South. He had been doctor, lawyer, judge among -them, although he interfered little in the larger disputes, and was -forced to shut his eyes to intertribal enmities. He had no deep faith -that he could quite civilise them; he knew that their conversion was only -on the surface, and he fell back on his personal influence with them. By -this he could check even the excesses of the worst man in the tribe, his -old enemy, Silver Tassel of the bad heart, who yet was ready always to -give a tooth for a tooth, and accepted the fact that he owed Oshondonto -his life. - -When famine crawled across the plains to the doors of the settlement and -housed itself at Fort O'Call, Silver Tassel acted badly, however, and -sowed fault-finding among the thoughtless of the tribe. - -"What manner of Great Spirit is it who lets the food of his chief -Oshondonto fall into the hands of the Blackfeet?" he said. "Oshondonto -says the Great Spirit hears. What has the Great Spirit to say? Let -Oshondonto ask." - -Again, when they all were hungrier, he went among them with complaining -words. "If the white man's Great Spirit can do all things, let him give -Oshondonto and the Athabascas food." - -The missionary did not know of Silver Tassel's foolish words, but he saw -the downcast face of Knife-in-the-Wind, the sullen looks of the people; -and he unpacked the box he had reserved jealously for the darkest days -that might come. For meal after meal he divided these delicacies among -them--morsels of biscuit, and tinned meats, and dried fruits. But his -eyes meanwhile were turned again and again to the storm raging without, -as it had raged for this the longest week he had ever spent. If it would -but slacken, a boat could go out to the nets set in the lake near by some -days before, when the sun of spring had melted the ice. From the hour -the nets had been set the storm had raged. On the day when the last -morsel of meat and biscuit had been given away the storm had not abated, -and he saw with misgiving the gloomy, stolid faces of the Indians round -him. One man, two children, and three women had died in a fortnight. He -dreaded to think what might happen, his heart ached at the looks of gaunt -suffering in the faces of all; he saw, for the first time, how black and -bitter Knife-in-the-Wind looked as Silver Tassel whispered to him. - -With the colour all gone from his cheeks, he left the post and made his -way to the edge of the lake where his canoe was kept. Making it ready -for the launch, he came back to the Fort. Assembling the Indians, who -had watched his movements closely, he told them that he was going through -the storm to the nets on the lake, and asked for a volunteer to go with -him. - -No one replied. He pleaded-for the sake of the women and children. - -Then Knife-in-the-Wind spoke. "Oshondonto will die if he goes. It is a -fool's journey--does the wolverine walk into an empty trap?" - -Billy Rufus spoke passionately now. His genial spirit fled; he -reproached them. - -Silver Tassel spoke up loudly. "Let Oshondonto's Great Spirit carry him -to the nets alone, and back again with fish for the heathen the Great -Chief died to save." - -"You have a wicked heart, Silver Tassel. You know well that one man -can't handle the boat and the nets also. Is there no one of you--?" - -A figure shot forwards from a corner. "I will go with Oshondonto," came -the voice of Wingo, the waif of the Crees. - -The eye of the mikonaree flashed round in contempt on the tribe. Then -suddenly it softened, and he said to the lad: "We will go together, -Wingo." - -Taking the boy by the hand, he ran with him through the rough wind to the -shore, launched the canoe on the tossing lake, and paddled away through -the tempest. - -The bitter winds of an angry spring, the sleet and wet snow of a belated -winter, the floating blocks of ice crushing against the side of the boat, -the black water swishing over man and boy, the harsh, inclement world -near and far. . . . The passage made at last to the nets; the brave -Wingo steadying the canoe--a skilful hand sufficing where the strength of -a Samson would not have availed; the nets half full, and the breaking cry -of joy from the lips of the waif-a cry that pierced the storm and brought -back an answering cry from the crowd of Indians on the far shore. . . -The quarter-hour of danger in the tossing canoe; the nets too heavy to be -dragged, and fastened to the thwarts instead; the canoe going shoreward -jerkily, a cork on the waves with an anchor behind; heavier seas and -winds roaring down on them as they slowly near the shore; and at last, in -one awful moment, the canoe upset, and the man and the boy in the water. -. . . Then both clinging to the upturned canoe as it is driven nearer -and nearer shore.... The boy washed off once, twice, and the man with -his arm round clinging-clinging, as the shrieking storm answers to the -calling of the Athabascas on the shore, and drives craft and fish and man -and boy down upon the banks; no savage bold enough to plunge in to their -rescue. . . . At last a rope thrown, a drowning man's wrists wound -round it, his teeth set in it--and now, at last, a man and a heathen boy, -both insensible, being carried to the mikonaree's but and laid upon two -beds, one on either side of the small room, as the red sun goes slowly -down. . . . The two still bodies on bearskins in the hut, and a -hundred superstitious Indians flying from the face of death. . . . -The two alone in the light of the flickering fire; the many gone to feast -on fish, the price of lives. - -But the price was not yet paid, for the man waked from insensibility-- -waked to see himself with the body of the boy beside him in the red light -of the fires. - -For a moment his heart stopped beating, he turned sick and faint. -Deserted by those for whom he risked his life! . . . How long had he -lain there? What time was it? When was it that he had fought his way to -the nets and back again-hours maybe? And the dead boy there, Wingo, who -had risked his life, also dead--how long? His heart leaped--ah! not -hours, only minutes maybe. It was sundown as unconsciousness came on -him--Indians would not stay with the dead after sundown. Maybe it was -only ten minutes-five minutes--one minute ago since they left him!. . . - -His watch! Shaking fingers drew it out, wild eyes scanned it. It was -not stopped. Then it could have only been minutes ago. Trembling to his -feet, he staggered over to Wingo, he felt the body, he held a mirror to -the lips. Yes, surely there was light moisture on the glass. - -Then began another fight with death--William Rufus Holly struggling to -bring to life again Wingo, the waif of the Crees. - -The blood came back to his own heart with a rush as the mad desire to -save this life came on him. He talked to the dumb face, he prayed in a -kind of delirium, as he moved the arms up and down, as he tilted the -body, as he rubbed, chafed and strove. He forgot he was a missionary, -he almost cursed himself. "For them--for cowards, I risked his life, -the brave lad with no home. Oh, God! give him back to me!" he sobbed. -"What right had I to risk his life for theirs? I should have shot the -first man that refused to go.... Wingo, speak! Wake up! Come back!" - -The sweat poured from him in his desperation and weakness. He said to -himself that he had put this young life into the hazard without cause. -Had he, then, saved the lad from the rapids and Silver Tassel's brutality -only to have him drag fish out of the jaws of death for Silver Tassel's -meal? - -It seemed to him that he had been working for hours, though it was in -fact only a short time, when the eyes of the lad slowly opened and closed -again, and he began to breathe spasmodically. A cry of joy came from the -lips of the missionary, and he worked harder still. At last the eyes -opened wide, stayed open, saw the figure bent over him, and the lips -whispered, "Oshondonto--my master," as a cup of brandy was held to his -lips. - -He had conquered the Athabascas for ever. Even Silver Tassel -acknowledged his power, and he as industriously spread abroad the -report that the mikonaree had raised Wingo from the dead, as he had sown -dissension during the famine. But the result was that the missionary had -power in the land, and the belief in him was so great, that, when Knife- -in-the-Wind died, the tribe came to ask him to raise their chief from the -dead. They never quite believed that he could not--not even Silver -Tassel, who now rules the Athabascas and is ruled by William Rufus Holly: -which is a very good thing for the Athabascas. - -Billy Rufus the cricketer had won the game, and somehow the Reverend -William Rufus Holly the missionary never repented the strong language he -used against the Athabascas, as he was bringing Wingo back to life, -though it was not what is called "strictly canonical." - - - - - -THE HEALING SPRINGS AND THE PIONEERS - -He came out of the mysterious South one summer day, driving before him a -few sheep, a cow, and a long-eared mule which carried his tent and other -necessaries, and camped outside the town on a knoll, at the base of which -was a thicket of close shrub. During the first day no one in Jansen -thought anything of it, for it was a land of pilgrimage, and hundreds -came and went on their journeys in search of free homesteads and good -water and pasturage. But when, after three days, he was still there, -Nicolle Terasse, who had little to do, and an insatiable curiosity, went -out to see him. He found a new sensation for Jansen. This is what he -said when he came back: - -"You want know 'bout him, bagosh! Dat is somet'ing to see, dat man-- -Ingles is his name. Sooch hair--mooch long an' brown, and a leetla beard -not so brown, an' a leather sole onto his feet, and a grey coat to his -anklesyes, so like dat. An' his voice--voila, it is like water in a -cave. He is a great man--I dunno not; but he spik at me like dis, -'Is dere sick, and cripple, and stay in-bed people here dat can't get -up?' he say. An' I say, 'Not plenty, but some-bagosh! Dere is dat Miss -Greet, an' ole Ma'am Drouchy, an' dat young Pete Hayes--an' so on.' -'Well, if they have faith I will heal them,' he spik at me. 'From de -Healing Springs dey shall rise to walk,' he say. Bagosh, you not t'ink -dat true? Den you go see." - -So Jansen turned out to see, and besides the man they found a curious -thing. At the foot of the knoll, in a space which he had cleared, was a -hot spring that bubbled and rose and sank, and drained away into the -thirsty ground. Luck had been with Ingles the Faith Healer. Whether he -knew of the existence of this spring, or whether he chanced upon it, he -did not say; but while he held Jansen in the palm of his hand, in the -feverish days that followed, there were many who attached mysterious -significance to it, who claimed for it supernatural origin. In any case, -the one man who had known of the existence of this spring was far away -from Jansen, and he did not return till a day of reckoning came for the -Faith Healer. - -Meanwhile Jansen made pilgrimage to the Springs of Healing, and at -unexpected times Ingles suddenly appeared in the town, and stood at -street corners; and in his "Patmian voice," as Flood Rawley the lawyer -called it, warned the people to flee their sins, and purifying their -hearts, learn to cure all ills of mind and body, the weaknesses of the -sinful flesh and the "ancient evil" in their souls, by faith that saves. - -"'Is not the life more than meat'" he asked them. "And if, peradventure, -there be those among you who have true belief in hearts all purged of -evil, and yet are maimed, or sick of body, come to me, and I will lay my -hands upon you, and I will heal you." Thus he cried. - -There were those so wrought upon by his strange eloquence and spiritual -passion, so hypnotised by his physical and mental exaltation, that they -rose up from the hand-laying and the prayer eased of their ailments. -Others he called upon to lie in the hot spring at the foot of the hill -for varying periods, before the laying on of hands, and these also, -crippled, or rigid with troubles' of the bone, announced that they were -healed. - -People flocked from other towns, and though, to some who had been cured, -their pains and sickness returned, there were a few who bore perfect -evidence to his teaching and healing, and followed him, "converted and -consecrated," as though he were a new Messiah. In this corner of the -West was such a revival as none could remember--not even those who had -been to camp meetings in the East in their youth, and had seen the Spirit -descend upon hundreds and draw them to the anxious seat. - -Then came the great sensation--the Faith Healer converted Laura Sloly. -Upon which Jansen drew its breath painfully; for, while it was willing -to bend to the inspiration of the moment, and to be swept on a tide of -excitement into that enchanted field called Imagination, it wanted to -preserve its institutions--and Laura Sloly had come to be an institution. -Jansen had always plumed itself, and smiled, when she passed; and even -now the most sentimentally religious of them inwardly anticipated the -time when the town would return to its normal condition; and that -condition would not be normal if there were any change in Laura Sloly. -It mattered little whether most people were changed or not because one -state of their minds could not be less or more interesting than another; -but a change in Laura. Sloly could not be for the better. - -Her father had come to the West in the early days, and had prospered by -degrees until a town grew up beside his ranch; and though he did not -acquire as much permanent wealth from this golden chance as might have -been expected, and lost much he did make by speculation, still he had his -rich ranch left, and it, and he, and Laura were part of the history of -Jansen. Laura had been born at Jansen before even it had a name. Next -to her father she was the oldest inhabitant, and she had a prestige which -was given to no one else. - -Everything had conspired to make her a figure of moment and interest. -She was handsome in almost a mannish sort of way, being of such height -and straightness, and her brown eyes had a depth and fire in which more -than a few men had drowned themselves. Also, once she had saved a -settlement by riding ahead of a marauding Indian band to warn their -intended victims, and had averted another tragedy of pioneer life. -Pioneers proudly told strangers to Jansen of the girl of thirteen who -rode a hundred and twenty miles without food, and sank inside the -palisade of the Hudson's Bay Company's fort, as the gates closed upon the -settlers taking refuge, the victim of brain fever at last. Cerebrospinal -meningitis, the doctor from Winnipeg called it, and the memory of that -time when men and women would not sleep till her crisis was past, was -still fresh on the tongues of all. - -Then she had married at seventeen, and, within a year, had lost both her -husband and her baby, a child bereaved of her Playmates--for her husband -had been but twenty years old and was younger far than she in everything. -And since then, twelve years before, she had seen generations of lovers -pass into the land they thought delectable; and their children flocked to -her, hung about her, were carried off by her to the ranch, and kept for -days, against the laughing protests of their parents. Flood Rawley -called her the Pied Piper of Jansen, and indeed she had a voice that -fluted and piped, and yet had so whimsical a note, that the hardest faces -softened at the sound of it; and she did not keep its best notes for the -few. She was impartial, almost impersonal; no woman was her enemy, and -every man was her friend--and nothing more. She had never had an -accepted lover since the day her Playmates left her. Every man except -one had given up hope that he might win her; and though he had been gone -from Jansen for two years, and had loved her since the days before the -Playmates came and went, he never gave up hope, and was now to return and -say again what he had mutely said for years--what she understood, and he -knew she understood. - -Tim Denton had been a wild sort in his brief day. He was a rough -diamond, but he was a diamond, and was typical of the West--its heart, -its courage, its freedom, and its force; capable of exquisite gentleness, -strenuous to exaggeration, with a very primitive religion; and the only -religion Tim knew was that of human nature. Jansen did not think Tim -good enough--not within a comet shot--for Laura Sloly; but they thought -him better than any one else. - -But now Laura was a convert to the prophet of the Healing Springs, -and those people who still retain their heads in the eddy of religious -emotion were in despair. They dreaded to meet Laura; they kept away from -the "protracted meetings," but were eager to hear about her and what she -said and did. What they heard allayed their worst fears. She still -smiled, and seemed as cheerful as before, they heard, and she neither -spoke nor prayed in public, but she led the singing always. Now the -anxious and the sceptical and the reactionary ventured out to see and -hear; and seeing and hearing gave them a satisfaction they hardly dared -express. She was more handsome than ever, and if her eyes glistened with -a light they had never seen before, and awed them, her lips still smiled, -and the old laugh came when she spoke to them. Their awe increased. -This was "getting religion" with a difference. - -But presently they received a shock. A whisper grew that Laura was in -love with the Faith Healer. Some woman's instinct drove straight to the -centre of a disconcerting possibility, and in consternation she told her -husband; and Jansen husbands had a freemasonry of gossip. An hour, and -all Jansen knew, or thought they knew; and the "saved" rejoiced; and the -rest of the population, represented by Nicolle Terasse at one end and -Flood Rawley at the other, flew to arms. No vigilance committee was ever -more determined and secret and organised than the unconverted civic -patriots, who were determined to restore Jansen to its old-time -condition. They pointed out cold-bloodedly that the Faith Healer had -failed three times where he had succeeded once; and that, admitting the -successes, there was no proof that his religion was their cause. There -were such things as hypnotism and magnetism and will-power, and abnormal -mental stimulus on the part of the healed--to say nothing of the Healing -Springs. - -Carefully laying their plans, they quietly spread the rumour that Ingles -had promised to restore to health old Mary Jewell, who had been bedridden -ten years, and had sent word and prayed to have him lay his hands upon -her--Catholic though she was. The Faith Healer, face to face with this -supreme and definite test, would have retreated from it but for Laura -Sloly. She expected him to do it, believed that he could, said that he -would, herself arranged the day and the hour, and sang so much exaltation -into him, that at last a spurious power seemed to possess him. He felt -that there had entered into him something that could be depended on, -not the mere flow of natural magnetism fed by an outdoor life and a -temperament of great emotional force, and chance, and suggestion-- -and other things. If, at first, he had influenced Laura, some ill- -controlled, latent idealism in him, working on a latent poetry and -spirituality in her, somehow bringing her into nearer touch with her -lost Playmates than she had been in the long years that had passed; -she, in turn, had made his unrationalised brain reel; had caught him up -into a higher air, on no wings of his own; had added another lover to her -company of lovers--and the first impostor she had ever had. She who -had known only honest men as friends, in one blind moment lost her -perspicuous sense; her instinct seemed asleep. She believed in the man -and in his healing. Was there anything more than that? - -The day of the great test came, hot, brilliant, vivid. The air was of -a delicate sharpness, and, as it came toward evening, the glamour of an -August when the reapers reap was upon Jansen; and its people gathered -round the house of Mary Jewell to await the miracle of faith. Apart -from the emotional many who sang hymns and spiritual songs were a few -determined men, bent on doing justice to Jansen though the heavens might -fall. Whether or no Laura Sloly was in love with the Faith Healer, -Jansen must look to its own honour--and hers. In any case, this -peripatetic saint at Sloly's Ranch--the idea was intolerable; -women must be saved in spite of themselves. - -Laura was now in the house by the side of the bedridden Mary Jewell, -waiting, confident, smiling, as she held the wasted hand on the coverlet. -With her was a minister of the Baptist persuasion, who was swimming with -the tide, and who approved of the Faith Healer's immersions in the hot -Healing Springs; also a medical student who had pretended belief in -Ingles, and two women weeping with unnecessary remorse for human failings -of no dire kind. The windows were open, and those outside could see. -Presently, in a lull of the singing, there was a stir in the crowd, and -then, sudden loud greetings: - -"My, if it ain't Tim Denton! Jerusalem! You back, Tim!" - -These and other phrases caught the ear of Laura Sloly in the sick-room. -A strange look flashed across her face, and the depth of her eyes was -troubled for a moment, as to the face of the old comes a tremor at the -note of some long-forgotten song. Then she steadied herself and waited, -catching bits of the loud talk which still floated towards her from -without. - -"What's up? Some one getting married--or a legacy, or a saw-off? Why, -what a lot of Sunday-go-to-meeting folks to be sure!" Tim laughed -loudly. - -After which the quick tongue of Nicolle Terasse: "You want know? Tiens, -be quiet; here he come. He cure you body and soul, ver' queeck--yes." - -The crowd swayed and parted, and slowly, bare head uplifted, face looking -to neither right nor left, the Faith Healer made his way to the door of -the little house. The crowd hushed. Some were awed, some were -overpoweringly interested, some were cruelly patient. Nicolle Terasse -and others were whispering loudly to Tim Denton. That was the only -sound, until the Healer got to the door. Then, on the steps, he turned -to the multitude. - -"Peace be to you all, and upon this house," he said and stepped through -the doorway. - -Tim Denton, who had been staring at the face of the Healer, stood for an -instant like one with all his senses arrested. Then he gasped, and -exclaimed, "Well, I'm eternally--" and broke off with a low laugh, -which was at first mirthful, and then became ominous and hard. - -"Oh, magnificent--magnificent--jerickety!" he said into the sky above -him. - -His friends who were not "saved," closed in on him to find the meaning -of his words, but he pulled himself together, looked blankly at them, and -asked them questions. They told him so much more than he cared to hear, -that his face flushed a deep red--the bronze of it most like the colour -of Laura Sloly's hair; then he turned pale. Men saw that he was roused -beyond any feeling in themselves. - -"'Sh!" he said. "Let's see what he can do." With the many who were -silently praying, as they had been, bidden to do, the invincible ones -leant forwards, watching the little room where healing--or tragedy--was -afoot. As in a picture, framed by the window, they saw the kneeling -figures, the Healer standing with outstretched arms. They heard his -voice, sonorous and appealing, then commanding--and yet Mary Jewell did -not rise from her bed and walk. Again, and yet again, the voice rang -out, and still the woman lay motionless. Then he laid his hands upon -her, and again he commanded her to rise. - -There was a faint movement, a desperate struggle to obey, but Nature and -Time and Disease had their way. Yet again there was the call. An agony -stirred the bed. Then another great Healer came between, and mercifully -dealt the sufferer a blow--Death has a gentle hand sometimes. Mary -Jewell was bedridden still--and for ever. - -Like a wind from the mountains the chill knowledge of death wailed -through the window, and over the heads of the crowd. All the figures -were upright now in the little room. Then those outside saw Laura Sloly -lean over and close the sightless eyes. This done, she came to the door -and opened it, and motioned for the Healer to leave. He hesitated, -hearing the harsh murmur from the outskirts of the crowd. Once again she -motioned, and he came. With a face deadly pale she surveyed the people -before her silently for a moment, her eyes all huge and staring. - -Presently she turned to Ingles and spoke to him quickly in a low voice; -then, descending the steps, passed out through the lane made for her by -the crowd, he following with shaking limbs and bowed bead. - -Warning words had passed among the few invincible ones who waited where -the Healer must pass into the open, and there was absolute stillness as -Laura advanced. Their work was to come--quiet and swift and sure; but -not yet. - -Only one face Laura saw, as she led the way to the moment's safety--Tim -Denton's; and it was as stricken as her own. She passed, then turned, -and looked at him again. He understood; she wanted him. - -He waited till she sprang into her waggon, after the Healer had mounted -his mule and ridden away with ever-quickening pace into the prairie. -Then he turned to the set, fierce men beside him. - -"Leave him alone," he said, "leave him to me. I know him. You hear? -Ain't I no rights? I tell you I knew him--South. You leave him to me." - -They nodded, and he sprang into his saddle and rode away. They watched -the figure of the Healer growing smaller in the dusty distance. - -"Tim'll go to her," one said, "and perhaps they'll let the snake get off. -Hadn't we best make sure?" - -"Perhaps you'd better let him vamoose," said Flood Rawley anxiously. -"Jansen is a law-abiding place!" The reply was decisive. Jansen had its -honour to keep. It was the home of the Pioneers--Laura Sloly was a -Pioneer. - -Tim Denton was a Pioneer, with all the comradeship which lay in the word, -and he was that sort of lover who has seen one woman, and can never see -another--not the product of the most modern civilisation. Before Laura -had had Playmates he had given all he had to give; he had waited and -hoped ever since; and when the ruthless gossips had said to him before -Mary Jewell's house that she was in love with the Faith Healer, nothing -changed in him. For the man, for Ingles, Tim belonged to a primitive -breed, and love was not in his heart. As he rode out to Sloly's Ranch, -he ground his teeth in rage. But Laura had called him to her, and: -"Well, what you say goes, Laura," he muttered at the end of a long hour -of human passion and its repression. "If he's to go scot-free, then he's -got to go; but the boys yonder'll drop on me, if he gets away. Can't you -see what a swab he is, Laura?" - -The brown eyes of the girl looked at him gently. The struggle between -them was over; she had had her way--to save the preacher, impostor though -he was; and now she felt, as she had never felt before in the same -fashion, that this man was a man of men. - -"Tim, you do not understand," she urged. "You say he was a landsharp in -the South, and that he had to leave-" - -"He had to vamoose, or take tar and feathers." - -"But he had to leave. And he came here preaching and healing; and he is -a hypocrite and a fraud--I know that now, my eyes are opened. He didn't -do what he said he could do, and it killed Mary Jewell--the shock; and -there were other things he said he could do, and he didn't do them. -Perhaps he is all bad, as you say--I don't think so. But he did some -good things, and through him I've felt as I've never felt before about -God and life, and about Walt and the baby--as though I'll see them again, -sure. I've never felt that before. It was all as if they were lost in -the hills, and no trail home, or out to where they are. Like as not God -was working in him all the time, Tim; and he failed because he counted -too much on the little he had, and made up for what he hadn't by what he -pretended." - -"He can pretend to himself, or God Almighty, or that lot down there"--he -jerked a finger towards the town--"but to you, a girl, and a Pioneer--" - -A flash of humour shot into her eyes at his last words, then they filled -with tears, through which the smile shone. To pretend to "a Pioneer"-- -the splendid vanity and egotism of the West! - -"He didn't pretend to me, Tim. People don't usually have to pretend to -like me." - -"You know what I'm driving at." - -"Yes, yes, I know. And whatever he is, you've said that you will save -him. I'm straight, you know that. Somehow, what I felt from his -preaching--well, everything got sort of mixed up with him, and he was-- -was different. It was like the long dream of Walt and the baby, and he a -part of it. I don't know what I felt, or what I might have felt for him. -I'm a woman--I can't understand. But I know what I feel now. I never -want to see him again on earth--or in Heaven. It needn't be necessary -even in Heaven; but what happened between God and me through him stays, -Tim; and so you must help him get away safe. It's in your hands--you say -they left it to you." - -"I don't trust that too much." - -Suddenly he pointed out of the window towards the town. "See, I'm right; -there they are, a dozen of 'em mounted. They're off, to run him down." - -Her face paled; she glanced towards the Hill of Healing. "He's got an -hour's start," she said; "he'll get into the mountains and be safe." - -"If they don't catch him 'fore that." - -"Or if you don't get to him first," she said, with nervous insistence. - -He turned to her with a hard look; then, as he met her soft, fearless, -beautiful eyes, his own grew gentle. "It takes a lot of doing. Yet I'll -do it for you, Laura," he said. "But it's hard on the Pioneers." Once -more her humour flashed, and it seemed to him that "getting religion" was -not so depressing after all--wouldn't be, anyhow, when this nasty job was -over. "The Pioneers will get over it, Tim," she rejoined. "They've -swallowed a lot in their time. Heaven's gate will have to be pretty -wide to let in a real Pioneer," she added. "He takes up so much room-- -ah, Timothy Denton!" she added, with an outburst of whimsical merriment. - -"It hasn't spoiled you--being converted, has it?" he said, and gave a -quick little laugh, which somehow did more for his ancient cause with her -than all he had ever said or done. Then he stepped outside and swung -into his saddle. - -It had been a hard and anxious ride, but Tim had won, and was keeping his -promise. The night had fallen before he got to the mountains, which he -and the Pioneers had seen the Faith Healer enter. They had had four -miles' start of Tim, and had ridden fiercely, and they entered the gulch -into which the refugee had disappeared still two miles ahead. - -The invincibles had seen Tim coming, but they had determined to make a -sure thing of it, and would themselves do what was necessary with the -impostor, and take no chances. So they pressed their horses, and he saw -them swallowed by the trees, as darkness gathered. Changing his course, -he entered the familiar hills, which he knew better than any pioneer of -Jansen, and rode a diagonal course over the trail they would take. But -night fell suddenly, and there was nothing to do but to wait till -morning. There was comfort in this--the others must also wait, and the -refugee could not go far. In any case, he must make for settlement or -perish, since he had left behind his sheep and his cow. - -It fell out better than Tim hoped. The Pioneers were as good hunters as -was he, their instinct was as sure, their scouts and trackers were many, -and he was but one. They found the Faith Healer by a little stream, -eating bread and honey, and, like an ancient woodlander drinking from a -horn--relics of his rank imposture. He made no resistance. They tried -him formally, if perfunctorily; he admitted his imposture, and begged for -his life. Then they stripped him naked, tied a bit of canvas round his -waist, fastened him to a tree, and were about to complete his punishment -when Tim Denton burst upon them. - -Whether the rage Tim showed was all real or not; whether his accusations -of bad faith came from so deeply wounded a spirit as he would have them -believe, he was not likely to tell; but he claimed the prisoner as his -own, and declined to say what he meant to do. - -When, however, they saw the abject terror of the Faith Healer as he -begged not to be left alone with Tim--for they had not meant death, -and Ingles thought he read death in Tim's ferocious eyes--they laughed -cynically, and left it to Tim to uphold the honour of Jansen and the -Pioneers. - -As they disappeared, the last thing they saw was Tim with his back to -them, his hands on his hips, and a knife clasped in his fingers. - -"He'll lift his scalp and make a monk of him," chuckled the oldest and -hardest of them. - -"Dat Tim will cut his heart out, I t'ink-bagosh!" said Nicolle Terasse, -and took a drink of white-whiskey. For a long time Tim stood looking at -the other, until no sound came from the woods, whither the Pioneers had -gone. Then at last, slowly, and with no roughness, as the terror- -stricken impostor shrank and withered, he cut the cords. - -"Dress yourself," he said shortly, and sat down beside the stream, and -washed his face and hands, as though to cleanse them from contamination. -He appeared to take no notice of the other, though his ears keenly noted -every movement. - -The impostor dressed nervously, yet slowly; he scarce comprehended -anything, except that he was not in immediate danger. When he had -finished, he stood looking at Tim, who was still seated on a log plunged -in meditation. - -It seemed hours before Tim turned round, and now his face was quiet, -if set and determined. He walked slowly over, and stood looking at his -victim for some time without speaking. The other's eyes dropped, and -a greyness stole over his features. This steely calm was even more -frightening than the ferocity which had previously been in his captor's -face. At length the tense silence was broken. - -"Wasn't the old game good enough? Was it played out? Why did you take -to this? Why did you do it, Scranton?" - -The voice quavered a little in reply. "I don't know. Something sort of -pushed me into it." - -"How did you come to start it?" - -There was a long silence, then the husky reply came. "I got a sickener -last time--" - -"Yes, I remember, at Waywing." - -"I got into the desert, and had hard times--awful for a while. I hadn't -enough to eat, and I didn't know whether I'd die by hunger, or fever, or -Indians--or snakes." - -"Oh, you were seeing snakes!" said Tim grimly. - -"Not the kind you mean; I hadn't anything to drink--" - -"No, you never did drink, I remember--just was crooked, and slopped over -women. Well, about the snakes?" - -"I caught them to eat, and they were poison-snakes often. And I wasn't -quick at first to get them safe by the neck--they're quick, too." - -Tim laughed inwardly. "Getting your food by the sweat of your brow--and -a snake in it, same as Adam! Well, was it in the desert you got your -taste for honey, too, same as John the Baptist--that was his name, if I -recomember?" He looked at the tin of honey on the ground. - -"Not in the desert, but when I got to the grass-country." - -"How long were you in the desert?" - -"Close to a year." - -Tim's eyes opened wider. He saw that the man was speaking the truth. - -"Got to thinking in the desert, and sort of willing things to come to -pass, and mooning along, you, and the sky, and the vultures, and the hot -hills, and the snakes, and the flowers--eh?" - -"There weren't any flowers till I got to the grass-country." - -"Oh, cuss me, if you ain't simple for your kind! I know all about that. -And when you got to the grass-country, you just picked up the honey, and -the flowers, and a calf, and a lamb, and a mule here and there, 'without -money and without price,' and walked on--that it?" - -The other shrank before the steel in the voice, and nodded his head. - -"But you kept thinking in the grass-country of what you'd felt and said -and done--and willed, in the desert, I suppose?" - -Again the other nodded. - -"It seemed to you in the desert, as if you'd saved your own life a -hundred times, as if you'd just willed food and drink and safety to come; -as if Providence had been at your elbow?" - -"It was like a dream, and it stayed with me. I had to think in the -desert things I'd never thought before," was the half-abstracted answer. - -"You felt good in the desert?" The other hung his head in shame. - -"Makes you seem pretty small, doesn't it? You didn't stay long enough, -I guess, to get what you were feeling for; you started in on the new -racket too soon. You never got really possessed that you was a sinner. -I expect that's it." - -The other made no reply. - -"Well, I don't know much about such things. I was loose brought up; but -I've a friend"--Laura was before his eyes--"that says religion's all -right, and long ago as I can remember my mother used to pray three times -a day--with grace at meals, too. I know there's a lot in it for them -that need it; and there seems to be a lot of folks needing it, if I'm to -judge by folks down there at Jansen, specially when there's the laying-on -of hands and the Healing Springs. Oh, that was a pigsty game, Scranton, -that about God giving you the Healing Springs, like Moses and the rock! -Why, I discovered them springs myself two years ago, before I went South, -and I guess God wasn't helping me any--not after I've kept out of His way -as I have. But, anyhow, religion's real; that's my sense of it; and you -can get it, I bet, if you try. I've seen it got. A friend of mine got -it--got it under your preaching; not from you; but you was the accident -that brought it about, I expect. It's funny--it's merakilous, but it's -so. Kneel down!" he added, with peremptory suddenness. "Kneel, -Scranton!" - -In fear the other knelt. - -"You're going to get religion now--here. You're going to pray for what -you didn't get--and almost got--in the desert. You're going to ask -forgiveness for all your damn tricks, and pray like a fanning-mill for -the spirit to come down. You ain't a scoundrel at heart--a friend of -mine says so. You're a weak vessel, cracked, perhaps. You've got to -be saved, and start right over again--and 'Praise God from whom all -blessings flow!' Pray--pray, Scranton, and tell the whole truth, -and get it--get religion. Pray like blazes. You go on, and pray out -loud. Remember the desert, and Mary Jewell, and your mother--did you -have a mother, Scranton--say, did you have a mother, lad?" - -Tim's voice suddenly lowered before the last word, for the Faith Healer -had broken down in a torrent of tears. - -"Oh, my mother--O God!" he groaned. - -"Say, that's right--that's right--go on," said the other, and drew back a -little, and sat down on a log. The man on his knees was convulsed with -misery. Denton, the world, disappeared. He prayed in agony. Presently -Tim moved uneasily, then got up and walked about; and at last, with a -strange, awed look, when an hour was past, he stole back into the shadow -of the trees, while still the wounded soul poured out its misery and -repentance. - -Time moved on. A curious shyness possessed Tim now, a thing which he had -never felt in his life. He moved about self-consciously, awkwardly, -until at last there was a sudden silence over by the brook. - -Tim looked, and saw the face of the kneeling man cleared, and quiet and -shining. He hesitated, then stepped out, and came over. - -"Have you got it?" he asked quietly. "It's noon now." - -"May God help me to redeem my past," answered the other in a new voice. - -"You've got it--sure?" Tim's voice was meditative. "God has spoken to -me," was the simple answer. "I've got a friend'll be glad to hear that," -he said; and once more, in imagination, he saw Laura Sloly standing at -the door of her home, with a light in her eyes he had never seen before. - -"You'll want some money for your journey?" Tim asked. - -"I want nothing but to go away--far away," was the low reply. - -"Well, you've lived in the desert--I guess you can live in the grass- -country," came the dry response. "Good-bye-and good luck, Scranton." - -Tim turned to go, moved on a few steps, then looked back. - -"Don't be afraid--they'll not follow," he said. "I'll fix it for you all -right." - -But the man appeared not to hear; he was still on his knees. - -Tim faced the woods once more. - -He was about to mount his horse when he heard a step behind him. He -turned sharply--and faced Laura. "I couldn't rest. I came out this -morning. I've seen everything," she said. - -"You didn't trust me," he said heavily. - -"I never did anything else," she answered. - -He gazed half-fearfully into her eyes. "Well?" he asked. "I've done my -best, as I said I would." - -"Tim," she said, and slipped a hand in his, "would you mind the religion ---if you had me?" - - - - - - -THE LITTLE WIDOW OF JANSEN - -Her advent to Jansen was propitious. Smallpox in its most virulent form -had broken out in the French-Canadian portion of the town, and, coming -with some professional nurses from the East, herself an amateur, to -attend the sufferers, she worked with such skill and devotion that the -official thanks of the Corporation were offered her, together with a tiny -gold watch, the gift of grateful citizens. But she still remained on at -Jansen, saying always, however, that she was "going East in the spring." - -Five years had passed, and still she had not gone East, but remained -perched in the rooms she had first taken, over the Imperial Bank, while -the town grew up swiftly round her. And even when the young bank manager -married, and wished to take over the rooms, she sent him to the right- -about from his own premises in her gay, masterful way. The young manager -behaved well in the circumstances, because he had asked her to marry him, -and she had dismissed him with a warning against challenging his own -happiness--that was the way she had put it. Perhaps he was galled the -less because others had striven for the same prize, and had been thrust -back, with an almost tender misgiving as to their sense of self- -preservation and sanity. Some of them were eligible enough, and all were -of some position in the West. Yet she smiled them firmly away, to the -wonder of Jansen, and to its satisfaction, for was it not a tribute to -all that she would distinguish no particular unit by her permanent -favour? But for one so sprightly and almost frivolous in manner at -times, the self-denial seemed incongruous. She was unconventional enough -to sit on the side-walk with a half-dozen children round her blowing -bubbles, or to romp in any garden, or in the street, playing Puss-in-the- -ring; yet this only made her more popular. Jansen's admiration was at -its highest, however, when she rode in the annual steeplechase with the -best horsemen of the province. She had the gift of doing as well as of -being. - -"'Tis the light heart she has, and slippin' in and out of things like a -humming-bird, no easier to ketch, and no longer to stay," said Finden, -the rich Irish landbroker, suggestively to Father Bourassa, the huge -French-Canadian priest who had worked with her through all the dark weeks -of the smallpox epidemic, and who knew what lay beneath the outer gaiety. -She had been buoyant of spirit beside the beds of the sick, and her words -were full of raillery and humour, yet there was ever a gentle note behind -all; and the priest had seen her eyes shining with tears, as she bent -over some stricken sufferer bound upon an interminable journey. - -"Bedad! as bright a little spark as ever struck off the steel," added -Finden to the priest, with a sidelong, inquisitive look, "but a heart no -bigger than a marrowfat pea-selfishness, all self. Keepin' herself for -herself when there's manny a good man needin' her. Mother o' Moses, how -manny! From Terry O'Ryan, brother of a peer, at Latouche, to Bernard -Bapty, son of a millionaire, at Vancouver, there's a string o' them. All -pride and self; and as fair a lot they've been as ever entered for the -Marriage Cup. Now, isn't that so, father?" - -Finden's brogue did not come from a plebeian origin. It was part of his -commercial equipment, an asset of his boyhood spent among the peasants on -the family estate in Galway. - -Father Bourassa fanned himself with the black broadbrim hat he wore, and -looked benignly but quizzically on the wiry, sharp-faced Irishman. - -"You t'ink her heart is leetla. But perhaps it is your mind not so big -enough to see--hein?" The priest laughed noiselessly, showing white -teeth. "Was it so selfish in Madame to refuse the name of Finden-- -n'est-ce pas?" - -Finden flushed, then burst into a laugh. "I'd almost forgotten I was one -of them--the first almost. Blessed be he that expects nothing, for he'll -get it, sure. It was my duty, and I did it. Was she to feel that Jansen -did not price her high? Bedad, father, I rose betimes and did it, before -anny man should say he set me the lead. Before the carpet in the parlour -was down, and with the bare boards soundin' to my words, I offered her -the name of Finden." - -"And so--the first of the long line! Bien, it is an honour." The priest -paused a moment, looked at Finden with a curious reflective look, and -then said: "And so you t'ink there is no one; that she will say yes not -at all--no?" - -They were sitting on Father Bourassa's veranda, on the outskirts of the -town, above the great river, along which had travelled millions of bygone -people, fighting, roaming, hunting, trapping; and they could hear it -rushing past, see the swirling eddies, the impetuous currents, the -occasional rafts moving majestically down the stream. They were facing -the wild North, where civilisation was hacking and hewing and ploughing -its way to newer and newer cities, in an empire ever spreading to the -Pole. - -Finden's glance loitered on this scene before he replied. At length, -screwing up one eye, and with a suggestive smile, he answered: "Sure, -it's all a matter of time, to the selfishest woman. 'Tis not the same -with women as with men; you see, they don't get younger--that's a point. -But"--he gave a meaning glance at the priest--"but perhaps she's not -going to wait for that, after all. And there he rides, a fine figure of -a man, too, if I have to say it!" - -"M'sieu' Varley?" the priest responded, and watched a galloping horseman -to whom Finden had pointed, till he rounded the corner of a little wood. - -"Varley, the great London surgeon, sure! Say, father, it's a hundred to -one she'd take him, if--" - -There was a curious look in Father Bourassa's face, a cloud in his eyes. -He sighed. "London, it is ver' far away," he remarked obliquely. - -"What's to that? If she is with the right man, near or far is nothing." - -"So far--from home," said the priest reflectively, but his eyes furtively -watched the other's face. - -"But home's where man and wife are." - -The priest now looked him straight in the eyes. "Then, as you say, she -will not marry M'sieu' Varley--hein?" - -The humour died out of Finden's face. His eyes met the priest's eyes -steadily. "Did I say that? Then my tongue wasn't making a fool of me, -after all. How did you guess I knew--everything, father?" - -"A priest knows many t'ings--so." - -There was a moment of gloom, then the Irishman brightened. He came -straight to the heart of the mystery around which they had been -maneuvering. "Have you seen her husband--Meydon--this year? It isn't -his usual time to come yet." - -Father Bourassa's eyes drew those of his friend into, the light of a new -understanding and revelation. They understood and trusted each other. - -"Helas! He is there in the hospital," he answered, and nodded towards -a building not far away, which had been part of an old Hudson's Bay -Company's fort. It had been hastily adapted as a hospital for the -smallpox victims. - -"Oh, it's Meydon, is it, that bad case I heard of to-day?" - -The priest nodded again and 'pointed. "Voila, Madame Meydon, she is -coming. She has seen him--her hoosban'." - -Finden's eyes followed the gesture. The little widow of Jansen was -coming from the hospital, walking slowly towards the river. - -"As purty a woman, too--as purty and as straight bewhiles. What is the -matter with him--with Meydon?" Finden asked, after a moment. - -"An accident in the woods--so. He arrive, it is las' night, from Great -Slave Lake." - -Finden sighed. "Ten years ago he was a man to look at twice--before he -did It and got away. Now his own mother wouldn't know him--bad 'cess to -him! I knew him from the cradle almost. I spotted him here by a knife- -cut I gave him in the hand when we were lads together. A divil of a -timper always both of us had, but the good-nature was with me, and I -didn't drink and gamble and carry a pistol. It's ten years since he did -the killing, down in Quebec, and I don't suppose the police will get him -now. He's been counted dead. I recognised him here the night after I -asked her how she liked the name of Finden. She doesn't know that I ever -knew him. And he didn't recognise me-twenty-five years since we met -before! It would be better if he went under the sod. Is he pretty sick, -father?" - -"He will die unless the surgeon's knife it cure him before twenty-four -hours, and--" - -"And Doctor Brydon is sick, and Doctor Hadley away at Winnipeg, and this -is two hundred miles from nowhere! It looks as if the police'll never -get him, eh?" - -"You have not tell any one--never?" - -Finden laughed. "Though I'm not a priest, I can lock myself up as tight -as anny. There's no tongue that's so tied, when tying's needed, as the -one that babbles most bewhiles. Babbling covers a lot of secrets." - -"So you t'ink it better Meydon should die, as Hadley is away and Brydon -is sick-hein?" - -"Oh, I think--" - -Finden stopped short, for a horse's hoofs sounded on the turf beside the -house, and presently Varley, the great London surgeon, rounded the corner -and stopped his horse in front of the veranda. - -He lifted his hat to the priest. "I hear there's a bad case at the -hospital," he said. - -"It is ver' dangerous," answered Father Bourassa; "but, voila, come in! -There is something cool to drink. Ah yes, he is ver' bad, that man from -the Great Slave Lake." - -Inside the house, with the cooling drinks, Varley pressed his questions, -and presently, much interested, told at some length of singular cases -which had passed through his hands--one a man with his neck broken, who -had lived for six months afterward. - -"Broken as a man's neck is broken by hanging--dislocation, really--the -disjointing of the medulla oblongata, if you don't mind technicalities," -he said. "But I kept him living just the same. Time enough for him to -repent in and get ready to go. A most interesting case. He was a -criminal, too, and wanted to die; but you have to keep life going if -you can, to the last inch of resistance." - -The priest looked thoughtfully out of the window; Finden's eyes were -screwed up in a questioning way, but neither made any response to -Varley's remarks. There was a long minute's silence. They were all -three roused by hearing a light footstep on the veranda. - -Father Bourassa put down his glass and hastened into the hallway. Finden -caught a glimpse of a woman's figure, and, without a word, passed -abruptly from the dining-room where they were, into the priest's study, -leaving Varley alone. Varley turned to look after him, stared, and -shrugged his shoulders. - -"The manners of the West," he said good-humouredly, and turned again to -the hallway, from whence came the sound of the priest's voice. Presently -there was another voice--a woman's. He flushed slightly and -involuntarily straightened himself. - -"Valerie," he murmured. - -An instant afterwards she entered the room with the priest. She was -dressed in a severely simple suit of grey, which set off to advantage her -slim, graceful figure. There seemed no reason why she should have been -called the little widow of Jansen, for she was not small, but she was -very finely and delicately made, and the name had been but an expression -of Jansen's paternal feeling for her. She had always had a good deal of -fresh colour, but to-day she seemed pale, though her eyes had a strange -disturbing light. It was not that they brightened on seeing this man -before her; they had been brighter, burningly bright, when she left the -hospital, where, since it had been built, she had been the one visitor of -authority--Jansen had given her that honour. She had a gift of smiling, -and she smiled now, but it came from grace of mind rather than from -humour. As Finden had said, "She was for ever acting, and never doin' -any harm by it." - -Certainly she was doing no harm by it now; nevertheless, it was acting. -Could it be otherwise, with what was behind her life--a husband who had -ruined her youth, had committed homicide, had escaped capture, but who -had not subsequently died, as the world believed he had done, so -circumstantial was the evidence. He was not man enough to make the -accepted belief in his death a fact. What could she do but act, since -the day she got a letter from the Far North, which took her out to -Jansen, nominally to nurse those stricken with smallpox under Father -Bourassa's care, actually to be where her wretched husband could come -to her once a year, as he had asked with an impossible selfishness? - -Each year she had seen him for an hour or less, giving him money, -speaking to him over a gulf so wide that it seemed sometimes as though -her voice could not be heard across it; each year opening a grave to look -at the embalmed face of one who had long since died in shame, which only -brought back the cruellest of all memories, that which one would give -one's best years to forget. With a fortitude beyond description she had -faced it, gently, quietly, but firmly faced it--firmly, because she had -to be firm in keeping him within those bounds the invasion of which would -have killed her. And after the first struggle with his unchangeable -brutality it had been easier: for into his degenerate brain there had -come a faint understanding of the real situation and of her. He had -kept his side of the gulf, but gloating on this touch between the old -luxurious, indulgent life, with its refined vices, and this present -coarse, hard life, where pleasures were few and gross. The free Northern -life of toil and hardship had not refined him. He greedily hung over -this treasure, which was not for his spending, yet was his own--as though -in a bank he had hoards of money which he might not withdraw. - -So the years had gone on, with their recurrent dreaded anniversaries, -carrying misery almost too great to be borne by this woman mated to the -loathed phantom of a sad, dead life; and when this black day of each year -was over, for a few days afterwards she went nowhere, was seen by none. -Yet, when she did appear again, it was with her old laughing manner, her -cheerful and teasing words, her quick response to the emotions of others. - -So it had gone till Varley had come to follow the open air life for four -months, after a heavy illness due to blood-poisoning got in his surgical -work in London. She had been able to live her life without too great a -struggle till he came. Other men had flattered her vanity, had given her -a sense of power, had made her understand her possibilities, but nothing -more--nothing of what Varley brought with him. And before three months -had gone, she knew that no man had ever interested her as Varley had -done. Ten years before, she would not have appreciated or understood -him, this intellectual, clean-shaven, rigidly abstemious man, whose -pleasures belonged to the fishing-rod and the gun and the horse, and who -had come to be so great a friend of him who had been her best friend-- -Father Bourassa. Father Bourassa had come to know the truth--not from -her, for she had ever been a Protestant, but from her husband, who, -Catholic by birth and a renegade from all religion, had had a moment of -spurious emotion, when he went and confessed to Father Bourassa and got -absolution, pleading for the priest's care of his wife. Afterwards -Father Bourassa made up his mind that the confession had a purpose behind -it other than repentance, and he deeply resented the use to which he -thought he was being put--a kind of spy upon the beautiful woman whom -Jansen loved, and who, in spite of any outward flippancy, was above -reproach. - -In vital things the instinct becomes abnormally acute, and, one day, when -the priest looked at her commiseratingly, she had divined what moved him. -However it was, she drove him into a corner with a question to which he -dare not answer yes, but to which he might not answer no, and did not; -and she realised that he knew the truth, and she was the better for his -knowing, though her secret was no longer a secret. She was not aware -that Finden also knew. Then Varley came, bringing a new joy and interest -in her life, and a new suffering also, for she realised that if she were -free, and Varley asked her to marry him, she would consent. - -But when he did ask her, she said no with a pang that cut her heart in -two. He had stayed his four months, and it was now six months, and he -was going at last-tomorrow. He had stayed to give her time to learn to -say yes, and to take her back with him to London; and she knew that he -would speak again to-day, and that she must say no again; but she had -kept him from saying the words till now. And the man who had ruined her -life and had poisoned her true spirit was come back broken and battered. -He was hanging between life and death; and now--for he was going -to-morrow--Varley would speak again. - -The half-hour she had just spent in the hospital with Meydon had tried -her cruelly. She had left the building in a vortex of conflicting -emotions, with the call of duty and of honour ringing through a thousand -other voices of temptation and desire, the inner pleadings for a little -happiness while yet she was young. After she married Meydon, there had -only been a few short weeks of joy before her black disillusion came, -and she had realised how bitter must be her martyrdom. - -When she left the hospital, she seemed moving in a dream, as one, -intoxicated by some elixir, might move unheeding among event and accident -and vexing life and roaring multitudes. And all the while the river -flowing through the endless prairies, high-banked, ennobled by living -woods, lipped with green, kept surging in her ears, inviting her, -alluring her--alluring her with a force too deep and powerful for weak -human nature to bear for long. It would ease her pain, it said; it would -still the tumult and the storm; it would solve her problem, it would give -her peace. But as she moved along the river-bank among the trees, she -met the little niece of the priest, who lived in his house, singing as -though she was born but to sing, a song which Finden had written and -Father Bourassa had set to music. Did not the distant West know Father -Bourassa's gift, and did not Protestants attend Mass to hear him play the -organ afterwards? The fresh, clear voice of the child rang through the -trees, stealing the stricken heart away from the lure of the river: - - "Will you come back home, where the young larks are singin'? - The door is open wide, and the bells of Lynn are ringin'; - There's a little lake I know, - And a boat you used to row - To the shore beyond that's quiet--will you come back home? - - Will you come back, darlin'? Never heed the pain and blightin', - Never trouble that you're wounded, that you bear the scars of - fightin'; - Here's the luck o' Heaven to you, - Here's the hand of love will brew you - The cup of peace--ah, darlin', will you come back home?" - -She stood listening for a few moments, and, under the spell of the fresh, -young voice, the homely, heart-searching words, and the intimate -sweetness of the woods, the despairing apathy lifted slowly away. She -started forwards again with a new understanding, her footsteps quickened. -She would go to Father Bourassa. He would understand. She would tell -him all. He would help her to do what now she knew she must do, ask -Leonard Varley to save her husband's life--Leonard Varley to save her -husband's life! - -When she stepped upon the veranda of the priest's house, she did not know -that Varley was inside. She had no time to think. She was ushered into -the room where he was, with the confusing fact of his presence fresh upon -her. She had had but a word or two with the priest, but enough for him -to know what she meant to do, and that it must be done at once. - -Varley advanced to meet her. She shuddered inwardly to think what a -difference there was between the fallen creature she had left behind in -the hospital and this tall, dark, self-contained man, whose name was -familiar in the surgeries of Europe, who had climbed from being the son -of a clockmaker to his present distinguished place. - -"Have you come for absolution, also?" he asked with a smile; "or is it -to get a bill of excommunication against your only enemy--there couldn't -be more than one?" - -Cheerful as his words were, he was shrewdly observing her, for her -paleness, and the strange light in her eyes, gave him a sense of anxiety. -He wondered what trouble was on her. - -"Excommunication?" he repeated. - -The unintended truth went home. She winced, even as she responded with -that quaint note in her voice which gave humour to her speech. "Yes, -excommunication," she replied; "but why an enemy? Do we not need to -excommunicate our friends sometimes?" - -"That is a hard saying," he answered soberly. Tears sprang to her eyes, -but she mastered herself, and brought the crisis abruptly. - -"I want you to save a man's life," she said, with her eyes looking -straight into his. "Will you do it?" - -His face grew grave and eager. "I want you to save a man's happiness," -he answered. "Will you do it?" - -"That man yonder will die unless your skill saves him," she urged. - -"This man here will go away unhappy and alone, unless your heart -befriends him," he replied, coming closer to her. - -"At sunrise to-morrow he goes." He tried to take her hand. - -"Oh, please, please," she pleaded, with a quick, protesting gesture. -"Sunrise is far off, but the man's fate is near, and you must save him. -You only can do so, for Doctor Hadley is away, and Doctor Brydon is sick, -and in any case Doctor Brydon dare not attempt the operation alone. It -is too critical and difficult, he says." - -"So I have heard," he answered, with a new note in his voice, his -professional instinct roused in spite of himself. "Who is this man? -What interests you in him?" - -"To how many unknown people have you given your skill for nothing--your -skill and all your experience to utter strangers, no matter how low or -poor! Is it not so? Well, I cannot give to strangers what you have -given to so many, but I can help in my own way." - -"You want me to see the man at once?" - -"If you will." - -"What is his name? I know of his accident and the circumstances." - -She hesitated for an instant, then said, "He is called Draper--a trapper -and woodsman." - -"But I was going away to-morrow at sunrise. All my arrangements are -made," he urged, his eyes holding hers, his passion swimming in his eyes -again. - -"But you will not see a man die, if you can save him?" she pleaded, -unable now to meet his look, its mastery and its depth. - -Her heart had almost leaped with joy at the suggestion that he could not -stay; but as suddenly self-reproach and shame filled her mind, and she -had challenged him so. But yet, what right had she to sacrifice this man -she loved to the perverted criminal who had spoiled her youth and taken -away from her every dear illusion of her life and heart? By every right -of justice and humanity she was no more the wife of Henry Meydon than if -she had never seen him. He had forfeited every claim upon her, dragged -in the mire her unspotted life--unspotted, for in all temptation, in her -defenceless position, she had kept the whole commandment; she had, while -at the mercy of her own temperament, fought her way through all, with a -weeping heart and laughing lips. Had she not longed for a little home -with a great love, and a strong, true man? Ah, it had been lonely, -bitterly lonely! Yet she had remained true to the scoundrel, from whom -she could not free herself without putting him in the grasp of the law to -atone for his crime. She was punished for his crimes; she was denied the -exercise of her womanhood in order to shield him. Still she remembered -that once she had loved him, those years ago, when he first won her heart -from those so much better than he, who loved her so much more honestly; -and this memory had helped her in a way. She had tried to be true to it, -that dead, lost thing, of which this man who came once a year to see her, -and now, lying with his life at stake in the hospital, was the repellent -ghost. - -"Ah, you will not see him die?" she urged. - -"It seems to move you greatly what happens to this man," he said, his -determined dark eyes searching hers, for she baffled him. If she could -feel so much for a, "casual," why not a little more feeling for him? -Suddenly, as he drew her eyes to him again, there came the conviction -that they were full of feeling for him. They were sending a message, an -appealing, passionate message, which told him more than he had ever heard -from her or seen in her face before. Yes, she was his! Without a spoken -word she had told him so. What, then, held her back? But women were a -race by themselves, and he knew that he must wait till she chose to have -him know what she had unintentionally conveyed but now. - -"Yes, I am moved," she continued slowly. "Who can tell what this man -might do with his life, if it is saved! Don't you think of that? It -isn't the importance of a life that's at stake; it's the importance of -living; and we do not live alone, do we?" - -His mind was made up. "I will not, cannot promise anything till I have -seen him. But I will go and see him, and I'll send you word later what -I can do, or not do. Will that satisfy you? If I cannot do it, I will -come to say good-by." - -Her face was set with suppressed feeling. She held out her hand to him -impulsively, and was about to speak, but suddenly caught the hand away -again from his thrilling grasp and, turning hurriedly, left the room. -In the hall she met Father Bourassa. - -"Go with him to the hospital," she whispered, and disappeared through the -doorway. - -Immediately after she had gone, a man came driving hard to bring Father -Bourassa to visit a dying Catholic in the prairie, and it was Finden who -accompanied Varley to the hospital, waited for him till his examination -of the "casual" was concluded, and met him outside. - -"Can it be done?" he asked of Varley. "I'll take word to Father -Bourassa." - -"It can be done--it will be done," answered Varley absently. "I do not -understand the man. He has been in a different sphere of life. He tried -to hide it, but the speech--occasionally! I wonder." - -"You wonder if he's worth saving?" - -Varley shrugged his shoulders impatiently. "No, that's not what I -meant." - -Finden smiled to himself. "Is it a difficult case?" he asked. - -"Critical and delicate; but it has been my specialty." - -"One of the local doctors couldn't do it, I suppose?" - -"They would be foolish to try." - -"And you are going away at sunrise to-morrow?" - -"Who told you that?" Varley's voice was abrupt, impatient. - -"I heard you say so-everybody knows it. . . . That's a bad man -yonder, Varley." He jerked his thumb towards the hospital. "A terrible -bad man, he's been. A gentleman once, and fell down--fell down hard. -He's done more harm than most men. He's broken a woman's heart and -spoilt her life, and, if he lives, there's no chance for her, none at -all. He killed a man, and the law wants him; and she can't free herself -without ruining him; and she can't marry the man she loves because of -that villain yonder, crying for his life to be saved. By Josh and by -Joan, but it's a shame, a dirty shame, it is!" - -Suddenly Varley turned and gripped his arm with fingers of steel. - -"His name--his real name?" - -"His name's Meydon--and a dirty shame it is, Varley." - -Varley was white. He had been leading his horse and talking to Finden. -He mounted quickly now, and was about to ride away, but stopped short -again. "Who knows--who knows the truth?" he asked. - -"Father Bourassa and me--no others," he answered. "I knew Meydon thirty -years ago." - -There was a moment's hesitation, then Varley said hoarsely, "Tell me-- -tell me all." - -When all was told, he turned his horse towards the wide waste of the -prairie, and galloped away. Finden watched him till he was lost to view -beyond the bluff. - -"Now, a man like that, you can't guess what he'll do," he said -reflectively. "He's a high-stepper, and there's no telling what -foolishness will get hold of him. It'd be safer if he got lost on the -prairie for twenty-four hours. He said that Meydon's only got twenty- -four hours, if the trick isn't done! Well--" - -He took a penny from his pocket. "I'll toss for it. Heads he does it, -and tails he doesn't." - -He tossed. It came down heads. "Well, there's one more fool in the -world than I thought," he said philosophically, as though he had settled -the question; as though the man riding away into the prairie with a dark -problem to be solved had told the penny what he meant to do. - -Mrs. Meydon, Father Bourassa, and Finden stood in the little waiting-room -of the hospital at Jansen, one at each window, and watched the wild -thunderstorm which had broken over the prairie. The white heliographs of -the elements flashed their warnings across the black sky, and the roaring -artillery of the thunder came after, making the circle of prairie and -tree and stream a theatre of anger and conflict. The streets of Jansen -were washed with flood, and the green and gold things of garden and field -and harvest crumbled beneath the sheets of rain. - -The faces at the window of the little room of the hospital, however, were -but half-conscious of the storm; it seemed only an accompaniment of their -thoughts, to typify the elements of tragedy surrounding them. - -For Varley there had been but one thing to do. A life might be saved, -and it was his duty to save it. He had ridden back from the prairie as -the sun was setting the night before, and had made all arrangements at -the hospital, giving orders that Meydon should have no food whatever till -the operation was performed the next afternoon, and nothing to drink -except a little brandy-and-water. - -The operation was performed successfully, and Varley had issued from the -operating-room with the look of a man who had gone through an ordeal -which had taxed his nerve to the utmost, to find Valerie Meydon waiting, -with a piteous, dazed look in her eyes. But this look passed when she -heard him say, "All right!" The words brought a sense of relief, -for if he had failed it would have seemed almost unbearable in the -circumstances--the cup of trembling must be drunk to the dregs. - -Few words had passed between them, and he had gone, while she remained -behind with Father Bourassa, till the patient should wake from the sleep -into which he had fallen when Varley left. - -But within two hours they sent for Varley again, for Meydon was in -evident danger. Varley had come, and had now been with the patient for -some time. - -At last the door opened and Varley came in quickly. He beckoned to Mrs. -Meydon and to Father Bourassa. "He wishes to speak with you," he said to -her. "There is little time." - -Her eyes scarcely saw him, as she left the room and passed to where -Meydon lay nerveless, but with wide-open eyes, waiting for her. The eyes -closed, however, before she reached the bed. Presently they opened -again, but the lids remained fixed. He did not hear what she said. - - ...................... - -In the little waiting-room, Finden said to Varley, "What happened?" - -"Food was absolutely forbidden, but he got it from another patient early -this morning while the nurse was out for a moment. It has killed him." - -"'Twas the least he could do, but no credit's due him. It was to be. -I'm not envying Father Bourassa nor her there with him." - -Varley made no reply. He was watching the receding storm with eyes which -told nothing. - -Finden spoke once more, but Varley did not hear him. Presently the door -opened and Father Bourassa entered. He made a gesture of the hand to -signify that all was over. - -Outside, the sun was breaking through the clouds upon the Western -prairie, and there floated through the evening air the sound of a child's -voice singing beneath the trees that fringed the river: - - "Will you come back, darlin'? Never heed the pain and blightin', - Never trouble that you're wounded, that you bear the scars of - fightin'; - Here's the luck o' Heaven to you, - Here's the hand of love will brew you - The cup of peace-ah, darlin', will you come back home?" - - - - - - -WATCHING THE RISE OF ORION - -"In all the wide border his steed was the best," and the name and fame of -Terence O'Ryan were known from Strathcona to Qu'appelle. He had ambition -of several kinds, and he had the virtue of not caring who knew of it. He -had no guile, and little money; but never a day's work was too hard for -him, and he took bad luck, when it came, with a jerk of the shoulder and -a good-natured surprise on his clean-shaven face that suited well his -wide grey eyes and large, luxurious mouth. He had an estate, half ranch, -half farm, with a French Canadian manager named Vigon, an old prospector -who viewed every foot of land in the world with the eye of the -discoverer. Gold, coal, iron, oil, he searched for them everywhere, -making sure that sooner or later he would find them. Once Vigon had -found coal. That was when he worked for a man called Constantine Jopp, -and had given him great profit; but he, the discoverer, had been put off -with a horse and a hundred dollars. He was now as devoted to Terence -O'Ryan as he had been faithful to Constantine Jopp, whom he cursed waking -and sleeping. - -In his time O'Ryan had speculated, and lost; he had floated a coal mine, -and "been had"; he had run for the local legislature, had been elected, -and then unseated for bribery committed by an agent; he had run races at -Regina, and won--he had won for three years in succession; and this had -kept him going and restored his finances when they were at their worst. -He was, in truth, the best rider in the country, and, so far, was the -owner also of the best three-year-old that the West had produced. He -achieved popularity without effort. The West laughed at his enterprises -and loved him; he was at once a public moral and a hero. It was a legend -of the West that his forbears had been kings in Ireland like Brian -Borhoime. He did not contradict this; he never contradicted anything. -His challenge to all fun and satire and misrepresentation was, "What'll -be the differ a hundred years from now!" - -He did not use this phrase, however, towards one experience--the advent -of Miss Molly Mackinder, the heiress, and the challenge that reverberated -through the West after her arrival. Philosophy deserted him then; he -fell back on the primary emotions of mankind. - -A month after Miss Mackinder's arrival at La Touche a dramatic -performance was given at the old fort, in which the officers of the -Mounted Police took part, together with many civilians who fancied -themselves. By that time the district had realised that Terry O'Ryan -had surrendered to what they called "the laying on of hands" by Molly -Mackinder. It was not certain, however, that the surrender was complete, -because O'Ryan had been wounded before, and yet had not been taken -captive altogether. His complete surrender seemed now more certain to -the public because the lady had a fortune of two hundred thousand -dollars, and that amount of money would be useful to an ambitious man in -the growing West. It would, as Gow Johnson said, "Let him sit back and -view the landscape o'er, before he puts his ploughshare in the mud." - -There was an outdoor scene in the play produced by the impetuous -amateurs, and dialogue had been interpolated by three "imps of fame" at -the suggestion of Constantine Jopp, one of the three, who bore malice -towards O'Ryan, though this his colleagues did not know distinctly. The -scene was a camp-fire--a starlit night, a colloquy between the three, -upon which the hero of the drama, played by Terry O'Ryan, should break, -after having, unknown to them, but in sight of the audience, overheard -their kind of intentions towards himself. - -The night came. When the curtain rose for the third act there was -exposed a star-sown sky, in which the galaxy of Orion was shown with -distinctness, each star sharply twinkling from the electric power behind- -a pretty scene evoking great applause. O'Ryan had never seen this back -curtain--they had taken care that he should not--and, standing in the -wings awaiting his cue, he was unprepared for the laughter of the -audience, first low and uncertain, then growing, then insistent, -and now a peal of ungovernable mirth, as one by one they understood -the significance of the stars of Orion on the back curtain. - -O'Ryan got his cue, and came on to an outburst of applause which shook -the walls. La Touche rose at him, among them Miss Molly Mackinder in the -front row with the notables. - -He did not see the back curtain, or Orion blazing in the ultramarine -blue. According to the stage directions, he was to steal along the trees -at the wings, and listen to the talk of the men at the fire plotting -against him, who were presently to pretend good comradeship to his face. -It was a vigorous melodrama with some touches of true Western feeling. -After listening for a moment, O'Ryan was to creep up the stage again -towards the back curtain, giving a cue for his appearance. - -When the hilarious applause at his entrance had somewhat subsided, the -three took up their parable, but it was not the parable of the play. -They used dialogue not in the original. It had a significance which the -audience were not slow to appreciate, and went far to turn "The Sunburst -Trail" at this point into a comedy-farce. When this new dialogue began, -O'Ryan could scarcely trust his ears, or realise what was happening. - -"Ah, look," said Dicky Fergus at the fire, "as fine a night as ever I saw -in the West! The sky's a picture. You could almost hand the stars down, -they're so near." - -"What's that clump together on the right--what are they called in -astronomy?" asked Constantine Jopp, with a leer. - -"Orion is the name--a beauty, ain't it?" answered Fergus. - -"I've been watching Orion rise," said the third--Holden was his name. -"Many's the time I've watched Orion rising. Orion's the star for me. -Say, he wipes 'em all out--right out. Watch him rising now." - -By a manipulation of the lights Orion moved up the back curtain slowly, -and blazed with light nearer the zenith. And La Touche had more than the -worth of its money in this opening to the third act of the play. O'Ryan -was a favourite, at whom La Touche loved to jeer, and the parable of the -stars convulsed them. - -At the first words O'Ryan put a hand on himself and tried to grasp the -meaning of it all, but his entrance and the subsequent applause had -confused him. Presently, however, he turned to the back curtain, as -Orion moved slowly up the heavens, and found the key to the situation. -He gasped. Then he listened to the dialogue which had nothing to do with -"The Sunburst Trail." - -"What did Orion do, and why does he rise? Has he got to rise? Why was -the gent called Orion in them far-off days?" asked Holden. - -"He did some hunting in his time--with a club," Fergus replied. "He kept -making hits, he did. Orion was a spoiler. When he took the field there -was no room for the rest of the race. Why does he rise? Because it is a -habit. They could always get a rise out of Orion. The Athens Eirenicon -said that yeast might fail to rise, but touch the button and Orion would -rise like a bird." - -At that instant the galaxy jerked up the back curtain again, and when the -audience could control itself, Constantine Jopp, grinning meanly, asked: - -"Why does he wear the girdle?" - -"It is not a girdle--it is a belt," was Dicky Fergus's reply. "The gods -gave it to him because he was a favourite. There was a lady called -Artemis--she was the last of them. But he went visiting with Eos, -another lady of previous acquaintance, down at a place called Ortygia, -and Artemis shot him dead with a shaft Apollo had given her; but she -didn't marry Apollo neither. She laid Orion out on the sky, with his -glittering belt, around him. And Orion keeps on rising." - -"Will he ever stop rising?" asked Holden. - -Followed for the conspirators a disconcerting moment; for, when the -laughter had subsided, a lazy voice came from the back of the hall, -"He'll stop long enough to play with Apollo a little, I guess." - -It was Gow Johnson who had spoken, and no man knew Terry O'Ryan better, -or could gauge more truly the course he would take. He had been in many -an enterprise, many a brush with O'Ryan, and his friendship would bear -any strain. - -O'Ryan recovered himself from the moment he saw the back curtain, and -he did not find any fun in the thing. It took a hold on him out of all -proportion to its importance. He realised that he had come to the -parting of the ways in his life. It suddenly came upon him that -something had been lacking in him in the past; and that his want of -success in many things had not been wholly due to bad luck. He had been -eager, enterprising, a genius almost at seeing good things; and yet -others had reaped where he had sown. He had believed too much in his -fellow-man. For the first time in his life he resented the friendly, -almost affectionate satire of his many friends. It was amusing, it was -delightful; but down beneath it all there was a little touch of ridicule. -He had more brains than any of them, and he had known it in a way; he had -led them sometimes, too, as on raids against cattle-stealers, and in a -brush with half-breeds and Indians; as when he stood for the legislature; -but he felt now for the first time that he had not made the most of -himself, that there was something hurting to self-respect in this prank -played upon him. When he came to that point his resentment went higher. -He thought of Molly Mackinder, and he heard all too acutely the vague -veiled references to her in their satire. By the time Gow Johnson spoke -he had mastered himself, however, and had made up his mind. He stood -still for a moment. - -"Now, please, my cue," he said quietly and satirically from the trees -near the wings. - -He was smiling, but Gow Johnson's prognostication was right; and ere long -the audience realised that he was right. There was standing before them -not the Terry O'Ryan they had known, but another. He threw himself fully -into his part--a young rancher made deputy sheriff, who by the occasional -exercise of his duty had incurred the hatred of a small floating -population that lived by fraud, violence, and cattle-stealing. The -conspiracy was to raid his cattle, to lure him to pursuit, to ambush him, -and kill him. Terry now played the part with a naturalness and force -which soon lifted the play away from the farcical element introduced into -it by those who had interpolated the gibes at himself. They had gone a -step too far. - -"He's going large," said Gow Johnson, as the act drew near its close, -and the climax neared, where O'Ryan was to enter upon a physical struggle -with his assailants. "His blood's up. There'll be hell to pay." - -To Gow Johnson the play had instantly become real, and O'Ryan an injured -man at bay, the victim of the act--not of the fictitious characters of -the play, but of the three men, Fergus, Holden, and Constantine Jopp, who -had planned the discomfiture of O'Ryan; and he felt that the victim's -resentment would fall heaviest on Constantine Jopp, the bully, an old -schoolmate of Terry's. - -Jopp was older than O'Ryan by three years, which in men is little, but in -boys, at a certain time of life, is much. It means, generally, weight -and height, an advantage in a scrimmage. Constantine Jopp had been the -plague and tyrant of O'Ryan's boyhood. He was now a big, leering fellow -with much money of his own, got chiefly from the coal discovered on his -place by Vigon, the half-breed French Canadian. He had a sense of dark -and malicious humour, a long horse-like face, with little beady eyes and -a huge frame. - -Again and again had Terry fought him as a boy at school, and often he had -been badly whipped, but he had never refused the challenge of an insult -when he was twelve and Jopp fifteen. The climax to their enmity at -school had come one day when Terry was seized with a cramp while bathing, -and after having gone down twice was rescued by Jopp, who dragged him out -by the hair of the head. He had been restored to consciousness on the -bank and carried to his home, where he lay ill for days. During the -course of the slight fever which followed the accident his hair was cut -close to his head. Impetuous always, his first thought was to go and -thank Constantine Jopp for having saved his life. As soon as he was able -he went forth to find his rescuer, and met him suddenly on turning a -corner of the street. Before he could stammer out the gratitude that was -in his heart, Jopp, eyeing him with a sneering smile, said drawlingly: - -"If you'd had your hair cut like that I couldn't have got you out, could -I? Holy, what a sight! Next time I'll take you by the scruff, putty- -face--bah!" - -That was enough for Terry. He had swallowed the insult, stuttered his -thanks to the jeering laugh of the lank bully, and had gone home and -cried in shame and rage. - -It was the one real shadow in his life. Ill luck and good luck had been -taken with an equable mind; but the fact that he must, while he lived, -own the supreme debt of his life to a boy and afterwards to a man whom he -hated by instinct was a constant cloud on him. Jopp owned him. For some -years they did not meet, and then at last they again were thrown together -in the West, when Jopp settled at La Touche. It was gall and wormwood to -Terry, but he steeled himself to be friendly, although the man was as -great a bully as the boy, as offensive in mind and character; but withal -acute and able in his way, and with a reputation for commercial sharpness -which would be called by another name in a different civilisation. They -met constantly, and O'Ryan always put a hand on himself, and forced -himself to be friendly. Once when Jopp became desperately ill there had -been--though he fought it down, and condemned himself in every term of -reproach--a sense of relief in the thought that perhaps his ancient debt -would now be cancelled. It had gone on so long. And Constantine Jopp -had never lost an opportunity of vexing him, of torturing him, of giving -veiled thrusts, which he knew O'Ryan could not resent. It was the -constant pin-prick of a mean soul, who had an advantage of which he could -never be dispossessed--unless the ledger was balanced in some inscrutable -way. - -Apparently bent on amusement only, and hiding his hatred from his -colleagues, Jopp had been the instigator and begetter of the huge joke of -the play; but it was the brains of Dick Fergus which had carried it out, -written the dialogue, and planned the electric appliances of the back -curtain--for he was an engineer and electrician. Neither he nor Holden -had known the old antipathy of Terry and Constantine Jopp. There was -only one man who knew the whole truth, and that was Gow Johnson, to whom -Terry had once told all. At the last moment Fergus had interpolated -certain points in the dialogue which were not even included at rehearsal. -These referred to Apollo. He had a shrewd notion that Jopp had an idea -of marrying Molly Mackinder if he could, cousins though they were; and he -was also aware that Jopp, knowing Molly's liking for Terry, had tried to -poison her mind against him, through suggestive gossip about a little -widow at Jansen, thirty miles away. He had in so far succeeded that, -on the very day of the performance, Molly had declined to be driven home -from the race-course by Terry, despite the fact that Terry had won the -chief race and owned the only dog-cart in the West. - -As the day went on Fergus realised, as had Gow Johnson, that Jopp had -raised a demon. The air was electric. The play was drawing near to its -climax--an attempt to capture the deputy sheriff, tie him to a tree, and -leave him bound and gagged alone in the waste. There was a glitter in -Terry's eyes, belying the lips which smiled in keeping with the character -he presented. A look of hardness was stamped on his face, and the -outlines of the temples were as sharp as the chin was set and the -voice slow and penetrating. - -Molly Mackinder's eyes were riveted on him. She sat very still, her -hands clasped in her lap, watching his every move. Instinct told her -that Terry was holding himself in; that some latent fierceness and iron -force in him had emerged into life; and that he meant to have revenge on -Constantine Jopp one way or another, and that soon; for she had heard the -rumour flying through the hall that her cousin was the cause of the -practical joke just played. From hints she had had from Constantine that -very day she knew that the rumour was the truth; and she recalled now -with shrinking dislike the grimace accompanying the suggestion. She had -not resented it then, being herself angry with Terry because of the -little widow at Jansen. - -Presently the silence in the hall became acute; the senses of the -audience were strained to the utmost. The acting before them was more -realistic than anything they had ever seen, or were ever likely to see -again in La Touche. All three conspirators, Fergus, Holden, and Jopp, -realised that O'Ryan's acting had behind it an animal anger which -transformed him. When he looked into their eyes it was with a steely -directness harder and fiercer than was observed by the audience. Once -there was occasion for O'Ryan to catch Fergus by the arm, and Fergus -winced from the grip. When standing in the wings with Terry he ventured -to apologise playfully for the joke, but Terry made no answer; and once -again he had whispered good-naturedly as they stood together on the -stage; but the reply had been a low, scornful laugh. Fergus realised -that a critical moment was at hand. The play provided for some dialogue -between Jopp and Terry, and he observed with anxiety that Terry now -interpolated certain phrases meant to warn Constantine, and to excite -him to anger also. - -The moment came upon them sooner than the text of the play warranted. -O'Ryan deliberately left out several sentences, and gave a later cue, and -the struggle for his capture was precipitated. Terry meant to make the -struggle real. So thrilling had been the scene that to an extent the -audience was prepared for what followed; but they did not grasp the full -reality--that the play was now only a vehicle for a personal issue of a -desperate character. No one had ever seen O'Ryan angry; and now that the -demon of rage was on him, directed by a will suddenly grown to its full -height, they saw not only a powerful character in a powerful melodrama, -but a man of wild force. When the three desperadoes closed in on O'Ryan, -and, with a blow from the shoulder which was not a pretence, he sent -Holden into a far corner gasping for breath and moaning with pain, the -audience broke out into wild cheering. It was superb acting, they -thought. As most of them had never seen the play, they were not -surprised when Holden did not again join the attack on the deputy -sheriff. Those who did know the drama--among them Molly Mackinder-- -became dismayed, then anxious. Fergus and Jopp knew well from the blow -O'Ryan had given that, unless they could drag him down, the end must be -disaster to some one. They were struggling with him for personal safety -now. The play was forgotten, though mechanically O'Ryan and Fergus -repeated the exclamations and the few phrases belonging to the part. -Jopp was silent, fighting with a malice which belongs to only half-breed, -or half-bred, natures; and from far back in his own nature the distant -Indian strain in him was working in savage hatred. The two were -desperately hanging on to O'Ryan like pumas on a grizzly, when suddenly, -with a twist he had learned from Ogami the Jap on the Smoky River, the -slim Fergus was slung backward to the ground with the tendons of his arm -strained and the arm itself useless for further work. There remained now -Constantine Jopp, heavier and more powerful than O'Ryan. - -For O'Ryan the theatre, the people, disappeared. He was a boy again on -the village green, with the bully before him who had tortured his young -days. He forgot the old debt to the foe who saved his life; he forgot -everything, except that once again, as of old, Constantine Jopp was -fighting him, with long, strong arms trying to bring him to the ground. -Jopp's superior height gave him an advantage in a close grip; the -strength of his gorilla-like arms was difficult to withstand. Both were -forgetful of the world, and the two other injured men, silent and awed, -were watching the, fight, in which one of them, at least, was powerless -to take part. - -The audience was breathless. Most now saw the grim reality of the scene -before them; and when at last O'Ryan's powerful right hand got a grip -upon the throat of Jopp, and they saw the grip tighten, tighten, and -Jopp's face go from red to purple, a hundred people gasped. Excited men -made as though to move toward the stage; but the majority still believed -that it all belonged to the play, and shouted "Sit down!" - -Suddenly the voice of Gow Johnson was heard "Don't kill him--let go, -boy!" - -The voice rang out with sharp anxiety, and pierced the fog of passion and -rage in which O'Ryan was moving. He realised what he was doing, the real -sense of it came upon him. Suddenly he let go the lank throat of his -enemy, and, by a supreme effort, flung him across the stage, where Jopp -lay resting on his hands, his bleared eyes looking at Terry with the fear -and horror still in them which had come with that tightening grip on his -throat. - -Silence fell suddenly on the theatre. The audience was standing. A -woman sobbed somewhere in a far corner, but the rest were dismayed and -speechless. A few steps before them all was Molly Mackinder, white and -frightened, but in her eyes was a look of understanding as she gazed at -Terry. Breathing hard, Terry stood still in the middle of the stage, the -red fog not yet gone out of his eyes, his hands clasped at his side, -vaguely realising the audience again. Behind him was the back curtain in -which the lights of Orion twinkled aggressively. The three men who had -attacked him were still where he had thrown them. - -The silence was intense, the strain oppressive. But now a drawling voice -came from the back of the hall. "Are you watching the rise of Orion?" -it said. It was the voice of Gow Johnson. - -The strain was broken; the audience dissolved in laughter; but it was not -hilarious; it was the nervous laughter of relief, touched off by a native -humour always present in the dweller of the prairie. - -"I beg your pardon," said Terry quietly and abstractedly to the audience. - -And the scene-shifter bethought himself and let down the curtain. - -The fourth act was not played that night. The people had had more than -the worth of their money. In a few moments the stage was crowded with -people from the audience, but both Jopp and O'Ryan had disappeared. - -Among the visitors to the stage was Molly Mackinder. There was a meaning -smile upon her face as she said to Dicky Fergus: - -"It was quite wonderful, wasn't it--like a scene out of the classics--the -gladiators or something?" - -Fergus gave a wary smile as he answered: "Yes. I felt like saying Ave -Caesar, Ave! and I watched to see Artemis drop her handkerchief." - -"She dropped it, but you were too busy to pick it up. It would have been -a useful sling for your arm," she added with thoughtful malice. "It -seemed so real--you all acted so well, so appropriately. And how you -keep it up!" she added, as he cringed when some one knocked against his -elbow, hurting the injured tendons. - -Fergus looked at her meditatively before he answered. "Oh, I think we'll -likely keep it up for some time," he rejoined ironically. - -"Then the play isn't finished?" she added. "There is another act? Yes, -I thought there was, the programme said four." - -"Oh yes, there's another act," he answered, "but it isn't to be played -now; and I'm not in it." - -"No, I suppose you are not in it. You really weren't in the last act. -Who will be in it?" - -Fergus suddenly laughed outright, as he looked at Holden expostulating -intently to a crowd of people round him. "Well, honour bright, I don't -think there'll be anybody in it except little Conny Jopp and gentle Terry -O'Ryan; and Conny mayn't be in it very long. But he'll be in it for a -while, I guess. You see, the curtain came down in the middle of a -situation, not at the end of it. The curtain has to rise again." - -"Perhaps Orion will rise again--you think so?" She laughed in satire; -for Dicky Fergus had made love to her during the last three months with -unsuppressed activity, and she knew him in his sentimental moments; which -is fatal. It is fatal if, in a duet, one breathes fire and the other -frost. - -"If you want my opinion," he said in a lower voice, as they moved towards -the door, while people tried to listen to them--"if you want it straight, -I think Orion has risen--right up where shines the evening star--Oh, say, -now," he broke off, "haven't you had enough fun out of me? I tell you, -it was touch and go. He nearly broke my arm--would have done it, if I -hadn't gone limp to him; and your cousin Conny Jopp, little Conny Jopp, -was as near Kingdom Come as a man wants at his age. I saw an elephant -go 'must' once in India, and it was as like O'Ryan as putty is to dough. -It isn't all over either, for O'Ryan will forget and forgive, and Jopp -won't. He's your cousin, but he's a sulker. If he has to sit up nights -to do it, he'll try to get back on O'Ryan. He'll sit up nights, but -he'll do it, if he can. And whatever it is, it won't be pretty." - -Outside the door they met Gow Johnson, excitement in his eyes. He heard -Fergus's last words. - -"He'll see Orion rising if he sits up nights," Gow Johnson said. "The -game is with Terry--at last." Then he called to the dispersing gossiping -crowd: "Hold on--hold on, you people. I've got news for you. Folks, -this is O'Ryan's night. It's his in the starry firmament. Look at him -shine," he cried, stretching out his arm towards the heavens, where the -glittering galaxy hung near the zenith. "Terry O'Ryan, our O'Ryan--he's -struck oil--on his ranch it's been struck. Old Vigon found it. Terry's -got his own at last. O'Ryan's in it--in it alone. Now, let's hear the -prairie-whisper," he shouted, in a great raucous voice. "Let's hear the -prairie-whisper. What is it?" - -The crowd responded in a hoarse shout for O'Ryan and his fortune. -Even the women shouted--all except Molly Mackinder. She was wondering if -O'Ryan risen would be the same to her as O'Ryan rising. She got into her -carriage with a sigh, though she said to the few friends with her: - -"If it's true, it's splendid. He deserves it too. Oh, I'm glad--I'm so -glad." She laughed; but the laugh was a little hysterical. - -She was both glad and sorry. Yet as she drove home over the prairie she -was silent. Far off in the east was a bright light. It was a bonfire -built on O'Ryan's ranch, near where he had struck oil--struck it rich. -The light grew and grew, and the prairie was alive with people hurrying -towards it. La Touche should have had the news hours earlier, but the -half-breed French-Canadian, Vigon, who had made the discovery, and had -started for La Touche with the news, went suddenly off his head with -excitement, and had ridden away into the prairie fiercely shouting his -joy to an invisible world. The news had been brought in later by a -farmhand. - -Terry O'Ryan had really struck oil, and his ranch was a scene of decent -revelry, of which Gow Johnson was master. But the central figure of it -all, the man who had, in truth, risen like a star, had become to La -Touche all at once its notoriety as well as its favourite, its great man -as well as its friend, he was nowhere to be found. He had been seen -riding full speed into the prairie towards the Kourmash Wood, and the -starlit night had swallowed him. Constantine Jopp had also disappeared; -but at first no one gave that thought or consideration. - -As the night went on, however, a feeling began to stir which it is not -good to rouse in frontier lands. It is sure to exhibit itself in forms -more objective than are found in great populations where methods of -punishment are various, and even when deadly are often refined. But -society in new places has only limited resources, and is thrown back on -primary ways and means. La Touche was no exception, and the keener -spirits, to whom O'Ryan had ever been "a white man," and who so rejoiced -in his good luck now that they drank his health a hundred times in his -own whiskey and cider, were simmering with desire for a public reproval -of Constantine Jopp's conduct. Though it was pointed out to them by the -astute Gow Johnson that Fergus and Holden had participated in the -colossal joke of the play, they had learned indirectly also the whole -truth concerning the past of the two men. They realised that Fergus and -Holden had been duped by Jopp into the escapade. Their primitive sense -of justice exonerated the humourists and arraigned the one malicious man. -As the night wore on they decided on the punishment to be meted out by La -Touche to the man who had not "acted on the square." - -Gow Johnson saw, too late, that he had roused a spirit as hard to appease -as the demon roused in O'Ryan earlier in the evening. He would have -enjoyed the battue of punishment under ordinary circumstances; but he -knew that Miss Molly Mackinder would be humiliated and indignant at the -half-savage penalty they meant to exact. He had determined that O'Ryan -should marry her; and this might be an obstruction in the path. It was -true that O'Ryan now would be a rich man--one of the richest in the West, -unless all signs failed; but meanwhile a union of fortunes would only be -an added benefit. Besides, he had seen that O'Ryan was in earnest, and -what O'Ryan wanted he himself wanted even more strongly. He was not -concerned greatly for O'Ryan's absence. He guessed that Terry had ridden -away into the night to work off the dark spirit that was on him, to have -it out with himself. Gow Johnson was a philosopher. He was twenty years -older than O'Ryan, and he had studied his friend as a pious monk his -missal. - -He was right in his judgment. When Terry left the theatre he was like -one in a dream, every nerve in his body at tension, his head aflame, his -pulses throbbing. For miles he rode away into the waste along the -northern trail, ever away from La Touche and his own home. He did not -know of the great good fortune that had come to him; and if, in this -hour, he had known, he would not have cared. As he rode on and on -remorse drew him into its grasp. Shame seized him that he had let -passion be his master, that he had lost his self-control, had taken a -revenge out of all proportion to the injury and insult to himself. It -did not ease his mind that he knew Constantine Jopp had done the thing -out of meanness and malice; for he was alive to-night in the light of -the stars, with the sweet crisp air blowing in his face, because of an -act of courage on the part of his schooldays' foe. He remembered now -that, when he was drowning, he had clung to Jopp with frenzied arms and -had endangered the bully's life also. The long torture of owing this -debt to so mean a soul was on him still, was rooted in him; but suddenly, -in the silent searching night, some spirit whispered in his ear that this -was the price which he must pay for his life saved to the world, a -compromise with the Inexorable Thing. On the verge of oblivion and the -end, he had been snatched back by relenting Fate, which requires -something for something given, when laws are overridden and doom -defeated. Yes, the price he was meant to pay was gratitude to one of -shrivelled soul and innate antipathy; and he had not been man enough to -see the trial through to the end! With a little increased strain put -upon his vanity and pride he had run amuck. Like some heathen gladiator -he had ravaged in the ring. He had gone down into the basements of human -life and there made a cockpit for his animal rage, till, in the contest, -brain and intellect had been saturated by the fumes and sweat of fleshly -fury. - -How quiet the night was, how soothing to the fevered mind and body, how -the cool air laved the heated head and flushed the lungs of the rheum of -passion! He rode on and on, farther and farther away from home, his back -upon the scenes where his daily deeds were done. It was long past -midnight before he turned his horse's head again homeward. - -Buried in his thoughts, now calm and determined, with a new life grown up -in him, a new strength different from the mastering force which gave him -a strength in the theatre like one in delirium, he noticed nothing. He -was only conscious of the omniscient night and its warm penetrating -friendliness; as, in a great trouble, when no words can be spoken, a cool -kind palm steals into the trembling hand of misery and stills it, gives -it strength and life and an even pulse. He was now master in the house -of his soul, and had no fear or doubt as to the future, or as to his -course. - -His first duty was to go to Constantine Jopp, and speak his regret like a -man. And after that it would be his duty to carry a double debt his life -long for the life saved, for the wrong done. He owed an apology to La -Touche, and he was scarcely aware that the native gentlemanliness in him -had said through his fever of passion over the footlights: "I beg your -pardon." In his heart he felt that he had offered a mean affront to -every person present, to the town where his interests lay, where his -heart lay. - -Where his heart lay--Molly Mackinder! He knew now that vanity had -something to do, if not all to do, with his violent acts, and though -there suddenly shot through his mind, as he rode back, a savage thrill at -the remembrance of how he had handled the three, it was only a passing -emotion. He was bent on putting himself right with Jopp and with La -Touche. With the former his way was clear; he did not yet see his way as -to La Touche. How would he be able to make the amende honorable to La -Touche? - -By and by he became somewhat less absorbed and enveloped by the -comforting night. He saw the glimmer of red light afar, and vaguely -wondered what it was. It was in the direction of O'Ryan's Ranch, but he -thought nothing of it, because it burned steadily. It was probably a -fire lighted by settlers trailing to the farther north. While the night -wore on he rode as slowly back to the town as he had galloped from it -like a centaur with a captive. - -Again and again Molly Mackinder's face came before him; but he resolutely -shut it out of his thoughts. He felt that he had no right to think of -her until he had "done the right thing" by Jopp and by La Touche. Yet -the look in her face as the curtain came down, it was not that of one -indifferent to him or to what he did. He neared the town half-way -between midnight and morning. Almost unconsciously avoiding the main -streets, he rode a roundabout way towards the little house where -Constantine Jopp lived. He could hear loud noises in the streets, -singing, and hoarse shouts. Then silence came, then shouts, and silence -again. It was all quiet as he rode up to Jopp's house, standing on the -outskirts of the town. There was a bright light in the window of a room. - -Jopp, then, was still up. He would not wait till tomorrow. He would do -the right thing now. He would put things straight with his foe before he -slept; he would do it at any sacrifice to his pride. He had conquered -his pride. - -He dismounted, threw the bridle over a post, and, going into the garden, -knocked gently at the door. There was no response. He knocked again, -and listened intently. Now he heard a sound-like a smothered cry or -groan. He opened the door quickly and entered. It was dark. In another -room beyond was a light. From it came the same sound he had heard -before, but louder; also there was a shuffling footstep. Springing -forward to the half-open door, he pushed it wide, and met the terror- -stricken eyes of Constantine Jopp--the same look that he had seen at -the theatre when his hands were on Jopp's throat, but more ghastly. - -Jopp was bound to a chair by a lasso. Both arms were fastened to the -chair-arm, and beneath them, on the floor, were bowls into which blood -dripped from his punctured wrists. - -He had hardly taken it all in--the work of an instant--when he saw -crouched in a corner, madness in his eyes, his half-breed Vigon. He -grasped the situation in a flash. Vigon had gone mad, had lain in wait -in Jopp's house, and when the man he hated had seated himself in the -chair, had lassoed him, bound him, and was slowly bleeding him to death. - -He had no time to think. Before he could act Vigon was upon him also, -frenzy in his eyes, a knife clutched in his hand. Reason had fled, and -he only saw in O'Ryan the frustrator of his revenge. He had watched the -drip, drip from his victim's wrists with a dreadful joy. - -They were man and man, but O'Ryan found in this grisly contest a vaster -trial of strength than in the fight upon the stage a few hours ago. The -first lunge that Vigon made struck him on the tip of the shoulder, and -drew blood; but he caught the hand holding the knife in an iron grasp, -while the half-breed, with superhuman strength, tried in vain for the -long brown throat of the man for whom he had struck oil. As they -struggled and twisted, the eyes of the victim in the chair watched them -with agonised emotions. For him it was life or death. He could not cry -out--his mouth was gagged; but to O'Ryan his groans were like a distant -echo of his own hoarse gasps as he fought his desperate fight. Terry was -as one in an awful dream battling with vague impersonal powers which -slowly strangled his life, yet held him back in torture from the final -surrender. - -For minutes they struggled. At last O'Ryan's strength came to the point -of breaking, for Vigon was a powerful man, and to this was added a -madman's energy. He felt that the end was coming. But all at once, -through the groans of the victim in the chair, Terry became conscious of -noises outside--such noises as he had heard before he entered the house, -only nearer and louder. At the same time he heard a horse's hoofs, then -a knock at the door, and a voice calling: "Jopp! Jopp!" - -He made a last desperate struggle, and shouted hoarsely. - -An instant later there were footsteps in the room, followed by a cry of -fright and amazement. - -It was Gow Johnson. He had come to warn Constantine Jopp that a crowd -were come to tar and feather him, and to get him away on his own horse. - -Now he sprang to the front door, called to the approaching crowd for -help, then ran back to help O'Ryan. A moment later a dozen men had Vigon -secure, and had released Constantine Jopp, now almost dead from loss of -blood. - -As they took the gag from his mouth and tied their handkerchiefs round -his bleeding wrists, Jopp sobbed aloud. His eyes were fixed on Terry -O'Ryan. Terry met the look, and grasped the limp hand lying on the -chair-arm. - -"I'm sorry, O'Ryan, I'm sorry for all I've done to you," Jopp sobbed. -"I was a sneak, but I want to own it. I want to be square now. You can -tar and feather me, if you like. I deserve it." He looked at the -others. "I deserve it," he repeated. - -"That's what the boys had thought would be appropriate," said Gow Johnson -with a dry chuckle, and the crowd looked at each other and winked. The -wink was kindly, however. "To own up and take your gruel" was the -easiest way to touch the men of the prairie. - -A half-hour later the roisterers, who had meant to carry Constantine Jopp -on a rail, carried Terry O'Ryan on their shoulders through the town, -against his will. As they passed the house where Miss Mackinder lived -some one shouted: - -"Are you watching the rise of Orion?" - -Many a time thereafter Terry O'Ryan and Molly Mackinder looked at the -galaxy in the evening sky with laughter and with pride. It had played -its part with Fate against Constantine Jopp and the little widow at -Jansen. It had never shone so brightly as on the night when Vigon struck -oil on O'Ryan's ranch. But Vigon had no memory of that. Such is the -irony of life. - - - - -ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: - -Babbling covers a lot of secrets -Beneath it all there was a little touch of ridicule -What'll be the differ a hundred years from now - - - - - - -NORTHERN LIGHTS - -By Gilbert Parker - -Volume 5. - - -THE ERROR OF THE DAY -THE WHISPERER -AS DEEP AS THE SEA - - - - -THE ERROR OF THE DAY - -The "Error of the Day" may be defined as "The difference between the -distance or range which must be put upon the sights in order to hit the -target and the actual distance from the gun to the target."--Admiralty -Note. - -A great naval gun never fires twice alike. It varies from day to day, -and expert allowance has to be made in sighting every time it is fired. -Variations in atmosphere, condition of ammunition, and the wear of the -gun are the contributory causes to the ever-varying "Error of the Day." - - ......................... - -"Say, ain't he pretty?" - -"A Jim-dandy-oh, my!" - -"What's his price in the open market?" - -"Thirty millions-I think not." - -Then was heard the voice of Billy Goat--his name was William Goatry - - "Out in the cold world, out in the street; - Nothing to wear, and nothing to eat, - Fatherless, motherless, sadly I roam, - Child of misfortune, I'm driven from home." - -A loud laugh followed, for Billy Goat was a popular person at Kowatin in -the Saskatchewan country. He had an inimitable drollery, heightened by a -cast in his eye, a very large mouth, and a round, good-humoured face; -also he had a hand and arm like iron, and was altogether a great man on a -"spree." - -There had been a two days' spree at Kowatin, for no other reason than -that there had been great excitement over the capture and the subsequent -escape of a prairie-rover, who had robbed the contractor's money-chest at -the rail-head on the Canadian Pacific Railroad. Forty miles from Kowatin -he had been caught by, and escaped from, the tall, brown-eyed man with -the hard-bitten face who leaned against the open window of the tavern, -looking indifferently at the jeering crowd before him. For a police -officer he was not unpopular with them, but he had been a failure for -once, and, as Billy Goat had said: "It tickled us to death to see a rider -of the plains off his trolley--on the cold, cold ground, same as you and -me." - -They did not undervalue him. If he had been less a man than he was, -they would not have taken the trouble to cover him with their drunken -ribaldry. He had scored off them in the past in just such sprees as -this, when he had the power to do so, and used the power good-naturedly -and quietly--but used it. - -Then, he was Sergeant Foyle of the Royal North-West Mounted Police, on -duty in a district as large as the United Kingdom. And he had no greater -admirer than Billy Goat, who now reviled him. Not without cause, in a -way, for he had reviled himself to this extent, that when the prairie- -rover, Halbeck, escaped on the way to Prince Albert, after six months' -hunt for him and a final capture in the Kowatin district, Foyle resigned -the Force before the Commissioner could reproach him or call him to -account. Usually so exact, so certain of his target, some care had not -been taken, he had miscalculated, and there had been the Error of the -Day. Whatever it was, it had seemed to him fatal; and he had turned his -face from the barrack yard. - -Then he had made his way to the Happy Land Hotel at Kowatin, to begin -life as "a free and independent gent on the loose," as Billy Goat had -said. To resign had seemed extreme; because, though the Commissioner was -vexed at Halbeck's escape, Foyle was the best non-commissioned officer in -the Force. He had frightened horse thieves and bogus land-agents and -speculators out of the country; had fearlessly tracked down a criminal or -a band of criminals when the odds were heavy against him. He carried on -his cheek the scars of two bullets, and there was one white lock in his -brown hair, where an arrow had torn the scalp away as, alone, he drove -into the Post a score of Indians, fresh from raiding the cattle of an -immigrant trailing north. - -Now he was out of work, or so it seemed; he had stepped down from his -scarlet-coated dignity, from the place of guardian and guide of -civilisation, into the idleness of a tavern stoop. - -As the little group swayed round him, and Billy Goat started another -song, Foyle roused himself as though to move away--he was waiting for -the mail-stage to take him south: - - "Oh, father, dear father, come home with me now, - The clock in the steeple strikes one; - You said you were coming right home from the shop - As soon as your day's work was done. - Come home--come home--" - -The song arrested him, and he leaned back against the window again. A -curious look came into his eyes, a look that had nothing to do with the -acts of the people before him. It was searching into a scene beyond this -bright sunlight and the far green-brown grass, and the little oasis of -trees in the distance marking a homestead and the dust of the wagon- -wheels, out on the trail beyond the grain-elevator-beyond the blue -horizon's rim, quivering in the heat, and into regions where this crisp, -clear, life-giving, life-saving air never blew. - - "You said you were coming right home from the shop - As soon as your day's work was done. - Come home--come home--" - -He remembered when he had first heard this song in a play called 'Ten -Nights in a Bar-room', many years before, and how it had wrenched his -heart and soul, and covered him with a sudden cloud of shame and anger. -For his father had been a drunkard, and his brother had grown up a -drunkard, that brother whom he had not seen for ten years until--until-- - -He shuddered, closed his eyes, as though to shut out something that the -mind saw. He had had a rough life, he had become inured to the seamy -side of things--there was a seamy side even in this clean, free, wide -land; and he had no sentimentality; though something seemed to hurt and -shame him now. - - "As soon as your day's work was done. - Come home--come home--" - -The crowd was uproarious. The exhilaration had become a kind of -delirium. Men were losing their heads; there was an element of -irresponsibility in the new outbreak likely to breed some violent act, -which every man of them would lament when sober again. - -Nettlewood Foyle watched the dust rising from the wheels of the stage, -which had passed the elevator and was nearing the Prairie Home Hotel far -down the street. He would soon leave behind him this noisy ribaldry of -which he was the centre. He tossed his cheroot away. Suddenly he heard -a low voice behind him. - -"Why don't you hit out, sergeant?" it said. - -He started almost violently, and turned round. Then his face flushed, -his eyes blurred with feeling and deep surprise, and his lips parted -in a whispered exclamation and greeting. - -A girl's face from the shade of the sitting-room was looking out at him, -half-smiling, but with heightened colour and a suppressed agitation. The -girl was not more than twenty-five, graceful, supple, and strong. Her -chin was dimpled; across her right temple was a slight scar. She had -eyes of a wonderful deep blue; they seemed to swim with light. As Foyle -gazed at her for a moment dumfounded, with a quizzical suggestion and -smiling still a little more, she said: - -"You used to be a little quicker, Nett." The voice appeared to attempt -unconcern; but it quivered from a force of feeling underneath. It was so -long since she had seen him. - -He was about to reply, but, at the instant, a reveller pushed him with a -foot behind the knees so that they were sprung forward. The crowd -laughed--all save Billy Goat, who knew his man. - -Like lightning, and with cold fury in his eyes, Foyle caught the tall -cattleman by the forearm, and, with a swift, dexterous twist, had the -fellow in his power. - -"Down--down, to your knees, you skunk," he said in a low, fierce voice. - -The knees of the big man bent,--Foyle had not taken lessons of Ogami, -the Jap, for nothing--they bent, and the cattleman squealed, so intense -was the pain. It was break or bend; and he bent--to the ground and -lay there. Foyle stood over him for a moment, a hard light in his eyes, -and then, as if bethinking himself, he looked at the other roisterers, -and said: - -"There's a limit, and he reached it. Your mouths are your own, and you -can blow off to suit your fancy, but if any one thinks I'm a tame coyote -to be poked with a stick--!" He broke off, stooped over, and helped the -man before him to his feet. The arm had been strained, and the big -fellow nursed it. - -"Hell, but you're a twister!" the cattleman said with a grimace of pain. - -Billy Goat was a gentleman, after his kind, and he liked Sergeant Foyle -with a great liking. He turned to the crowd and spoke. - -"Say, boys, this mine's worked out. Let's leave the Happy Land to Foyle. -Boys, what is he--what--is he? What--is--Sergeant Foyle--boys?" - -The roar of the song they all knew came in reply, as Billy Goat waved his -arms about like the wild leader of a wild orchestra: - - "Sergeant Foyle, oh, he's a knocker from the West, - He's a chase-me-Charley, come-and-kiss-me tiger from the zoo; - He's a dandy on the pinch, and he's got a double cinch - On the gent that's going careless, and he'll soon cinch you: - And he'll soon--and he'll soon--cinch you!" - -Foyle watched them go, dancing, stumbling, calling back at him, as they -moved towards the Prairie Home Hotel: - - "And he'll soon-and he'll soon-cinch you!" - -His under lip came out, his eyes half-closed, as he watched them. "I've -done my last cinch. I've done my last cinch," he murmured. - -Then, suddenly, the look in his face changed, the eyes swam as they had -done a minute before at the sight of the girl in the room behind. -Whatever his trouble was, that face had obscured it in a flash, and the -pools of feeling far down in the depths of a lonely nature had been -stirred. Recognition, memory, tenderness, desire swam in his face, made -generous and kind the hard lines of the strong mouth. In an instant he -had swung himself over the window-sill. The girl had drawn away now into -a more shaded corner of the room, and she regarded him with a mingled -anxiety and eagerness. Was she afraid of something? Did she fear that ---she knew not quite what, but it had to do with a long ago. - -"It was time you hit out, Nett," she said, half shyly. "You're more -patient than you used to be, but you're surer. My, that was a twist you -gave him, Nett. Aren't you glad to see me?" she added hastily, and with -an effort to hide her agitation. - -He reached out and took her hand with a strange shyness, and a self- -consciousness which was alien to his nature. The touch of her hand -thrilled him. Their eyes met. She dropped hers. Then he gathered him -self together. "Glad to see you? Of course, of course, I'm glad. You -stunned me, Jo. Why, do you know where you are? You're a thousand miles -from home. I can't get it through my head, not really. What brings you -here? It's ten years--ten years since I saw you, and you were only -fifteen, but a fifteen that was as good as twenty." - -He scanned her face closely. "What's that scar on your forehead, Jo? -You hadn't that--then." - -"I ran up against something," she said evasively, her eyes glittering, -"and it left that scar. Does it look so bad?" - -"No, you'd never notice it, if you weren't looking close as I am. You -see, I knew your face so well ten years ago." - -He shook his head with a forced kind of smile. It became him, however, -for he smiled rarely; and the smile was like a lantern turned on his -face; it gave light and warmth to its quiet strength-or hardness. - -"You were always quizzing," she said with an attempt at a laugh--"always -trying to find out things. That's why you made them reckon with you out -here. You always could see behind things; always would have your own -way; always were meant to be a success." - -She was beginning to get control of herself again, was trying hard to -keep things on the surface. "You were meant to succeed--you had to," -she added. - -"I've been a failure--a dead failure," he answered slowly. "So they say. -So they said. You heard them, Jo." - -He jerked his head towards the open window. - -"Oh, those drunken fools!" she exclaimed indignantly, and her face -hardened. "How I hate drink! It spoils everything." - -There was silence for a moment. They were both thinking of the same -thing--of the same man. He repeated a question. - -"What brings you out here, Jo?" he asked gently. "Dorland," she -answered, her face setting into determination and anxiety. - -His face became pinched. "Dorl!" he said heavily. "What for, Jo? -What do you want with Dorl?" - -"When Cynthy died she left her five hundred dollars a year to the baby, -and--" - -"Yes, yes, I know. Well, Jo?" - -"Well, it was all right for five years--Dorland paid it in; but for five -years he hasn't paid anything. He's taken it, stolen it from his own -child by his own honest wife. I've come to get it--anyway, to stop him -from doing it any more. His own child--it puts murder in my heart, Nett! -I could kill him." - -He nodded grimly. "That's likely. And you've kept, Dorl's child with -your own money all these years?" - -"I've got four hundred dollars a year, Nett, you know; and I've been -dressmaking--they say I've got taste," she added, with a whimsical smile. - -Nett nodded his head. "Five years. That's twenty-five hundred dollars -he's stolen from his own child. It's eight years old now, isn't it?" - -"Bobby is eight and a half," she answered. - -"And his schooling, and his clothing, and everything; and you have to pay -for it all?" - -"Oh, I don't mind, Nett, it isn't that. Bobby is Cynthy's child; and I -love him--love him; but I want him to have his rights. Dorl must give up -his hold on that money--or--" - -He nodded gravely. "Or you'll set the law on him?" - -"It's one thing or the other. Better to do it now when Bobby is young -and can't understand." - -"Or read the newspapers," he commented thoughtfully. - -"I don't think I've a hard heart," she continued, "but I'd like to punish -him, if it wasn't that he's your brother, Nett; and if it wasn't for -Bobby. Dorland was dreadfully cruel, even to Cynthy." - -"How did you know he was up here?" he asked. "From the lawyer that pays -over the money. Dorland has had it sent out here to Kowatin this two -years. And he sent word to the lawyer a month ago that he wanted it to -get here as usual. The letter left the same day as I did, and it got -here yesterday with me, I suppose. He'll be after it-perhaps to-day. -He wouldn't let it wait long, Dorl wouldn't." - -Foyle started. "To-day--to-day--" - -There was a gleam in his eyes, a setting of the lips, a line sinking into -the forehead between the eyes. - -"I've been watching for him all day, and I'll watch till he comes. I'm -going to say some things to him that he won't forget. I'm going to get -Bobby's money, or have the law do it--unless you think I'm a brute, -Nett." She looked at him wistfully. - -"That's all right. Don't worry about me, Jo. He's my brother, but I -know him--I know him through and through. He's done everything that a -man can do and not be hanged. A thief, a drunkard, and a brute--and he -killed a man out here," he added hoarsely. "I found it out myself-- -myself. It was murder." - -Suddenly, as he looked at her, an idea seemed to flash into his mind. -He came very near and looked at her closely. Then he reached over and -almost touched the scar on her forehead. - -"Did he do that, Jo?" - -For an instant she was silent and looked down at the floor. Presently -she raised her eyes, her face suffused. Once or twice she tried to -speak, but failed. At last she gained courage and said: - -"After Cynthy's death I kept house for him for a year, taking care of -little Bobby. I loved Bobby so--he has Cynthy's eyes. One day Dorland ---oh, Nett, of course I oughtn't to have stayed there, I know it now; but -I was only sixteen, and what did I understand! And my mother was dead. -One day--oh, please, Nett, you can guess. He said something to me. -I made him leave the house. Before I could make plans what to do, -he came back mad with drink. I went for Bobby, to get out of the house, -but he caught hold of me. I struck him in the face, and he threw me -against the edge of the open door. It made the scar." - -Foyle's face was white. "Why did you never write and tell me that, Jo? -You know that I--" He stopped suddenly. - -"You had gone out of our lives down there. I didn't know where you were -for a long time; and then--then it was all right about Bobby and me, -except that Bobby didn't get the money that was his. But now--" - -Foyle's voice was hoarse and low. "He made that scar, and he--and you -only sixteen--Oh, my God!" Suddenly his face reddened, and he choked -with shame and anger. "And he's my brother!" was all that he could say. - -"Do you see him up here ever?" she asked pityingly. - -"I never saw him till a week ago." A moment, then he added: "The letter -wasn't to be sent here in his own name, was it?" - -She nodded. "Yes, in his own name, Dorland W. Foyle. Didn't he go by -that name when you saw him?" - -There was an oppressive silence, in which she saw that something moved -him strangely, and then he answered: "No, he was going by the name of -Halbeck--Hiram Halbeck." - -The girl gasped. Then the whole thing burst upon her. "Hiram Halbeck! -Hiram Halbeck, the thief--I read it all in the papers--the thief that you -caught, and that got away. And you've left the Mounted Police because of -it--oh, Nett!" Her eyes were full of tears, her face was drawn and grey. - -He nodded. "I didn't know who he was till I arrested him," he said. -"Then, afterward, I thought of his child, and let him get away; and for -my poor old mother's sake. She never knew how bad he was even as a boy. -But I remember how he used to steal and drink the brandy from her -bedside, when she had the fever. She never knew the worst of him. -But I let him away in the night, Jo, and I resigned, and they thought -that Halbeck had beaten me, had escaped. Of course I couldn't stay in -the Force, having done that. But, by the heaven above us, if I had him -here now, I'd do the thing--do it, so help me God!" - -"Why should you ruin your life for him?" she said, with an outburst of -indignation. All that was in her heart welled up in her eyes at the -thought of what Foyle was. "You must not do it. You shall not do it. -He must pay for his wickedness, not you. It would be a sin. You and -what becomes of you mean so much." Suddenly with a flash of purpose she -added: "He will come for that letter, Nett. He would run any kind of -risk to get a dollar. He will come here for that letter--perhaps today." - -He shook his head moodily, oppressed by the trouble that was on him. -"He's not likely to venture here, after what's happened." - -"You don't know him as well as I do, Nett. He is so vain he'd do it, -just to show that he could. He'd' probably come in the evening. Does -any one know him here? So many people pass through Kowatin every day. -Has any one seen him?" - -"Only Billy Goatry," he answered, working his way to a solution of the -dark problem. "Only Billy Goatry knows him. The fellow that led the -singing--that was Goatry." - -"There he is now," he added, as Billy Goat passed the window. - -She came and laid a hand on his arm. "We've got to settle things with -him," she said. "If Dorl comes, Nett--" - -There was silence for a moment, then he caught her hand in his and held -it. "If he comes, leave him to me, Jo. You will leave him to me?" he -added anxiously. - -"Yes," she answered. "You'll do what's right-by Bobby?" - -"And by Dorl, too," he replied strangely. There were loud footsteps -without. - -"It's Goatry," said Foyle. "You stay here. I'll tell him everything. -He's all right; he's a true friend. He'll not interfere." - -The handle of the door turned slowly. "You keep watch on the post- -office, Jo," he added. - -Goatry came round the opening door with a grin. "Hope I don't intrude," -he said, stealing a half-leering look at the girl. As soon as he saw her -face, however, he straightened himself up and took on different manners. -He had not been so intoxicated as he had made, out, and he seemed only -"mellow" as he stood before them, with his corrugated face and queer, -quaint look, the eye with the cast in it blinking faster than the. -other. - -"It's all right, Goatry," said Foyle. "This lady is, one of my family -from the East." - -"Goin' on by stage?" Goatry said vaguely, as they shook hands. - -She did not reply, for she was looking down the street, and presently she -started as she gazed. She laid a hand suddenly on Foyle's arm. - -"See--he's come," she said in a whisper, and as though not realising -Goatry's presence. "He's come." - -Goatry looked as well as Foyle. "Halbeck--the devil!" he said. - -Foyle turned to him. "Stand by, Goatry. I want you to keep a shut -mouth. I've work to do." - -Goatry held out his hand. "I'm with you. If you get him this time, -clamp him, clamp him like a tooth in a harrow." - -Halbeck had stopped his horse at the post-office door. Dismounting he -looked quickly round, then drew the reins over the horse's head, letting -them trail, as is the custom of the West. - -A few swift words passed between Goatry and Foyle. "I'll do this myself, -Jo," he whispered to the girl presently. "Go into another room. I'll -bring him here." - -In another minute Goatry was leading the horse away from the post-office, -while Foyle stood waiting quietly at the door. The departing footsteps -of the horse brought Halbeck swiftly to the doorway, with a letter in his -hand. - -"Hi, there, you damned sucker!" he called after Goatry, and then saw -Foyle waiting. - -"What the hell--!" he said fiercely, his hand on something in his hip -pocket. - -"Keep quiet, Dorl. I want to have a little talk with you. Take your -hand away from that gun--take it away," he added with a meaning not to be -misunderstood. - -Halbeck knew that one shout would have the town on him, and he did not -know what card his brother was going to play. He let his arm drop to his -side. "What's your game? What do you want?" he asked surlily. - -"Come over to the Happy Land Hotel," Foyle answered, and in the light of -what was in his mind his words had a grim irony. - -With a snarl Halbeck stepped out. Goatry, who had handed the horse over -to the hostler, watched them coming. - -"Why did I never notice the likeness before?" Goatry said to himself. -"But, gosh! what a difference in the men. Foyle's going to double cinch -him this time, I guess." - -He followed them inside the hall of the Happy Land. When they stepped -into the sitting-room, he stood at the door waiting. The hotel was -entirely empty, the roisterers at the Prairie Home having drawn off the -idlers and spectators. The barman was nodding behind the bar, the -proprietor was moving about in the backyard inspecting a horse. There -was a cheerful warmth everywhere, the air was like an elixir, the pungent -smell of a pine-tree at the door gave a kind of medicament to the indrawn -breath. And to Billy Goat, who sometimes sang in the choir of a church -not a hundred miles away--for people agreed to forget his occasional -sprees--there came, he knew not why, the words of a hymn he had sung only -the preceding Sunday: - - "As pants the hart for cooling streams, - When heated in the chase--" - -The words kept ringing in his ears as he listened to the conversation -inside the room--the partition was thin, the door thinner, and he heard -much. Foyle had asked him not to intervene, but only to stand by and -await the issue of this final conference. He meant, however, to take a -hand in, if he thought he was needed, and he kept his ear glued to the -door. If he thought Foyle needed him--his fingers were on the handle of -the door. - -"Now, hurry up! What do you want with me?" asked Halbeck of his -brother. - -"Take your time," said ex-Sergeant Foyle, as he drew the blind three- -quarters down, so that they could not be seen from the street. - -"I'm in a hurry, I tell you. I've got my plans. I'm going South. I've -only just time to catch the Canadian Pacific three days from now, riding -hard." - -"You're not going South, Dorl." - -"Where am I going, then?" was the sneering reply. "Not farther than the -Happy Land." - -"What the devil's all this? You don't mean you're trying to arrest me -again, after letting me go?" - -"You don't need to ask. You're my prisoner. You're my prisoner," he -said in a louder voice--" until you free yourself." - -"I'll do that damn quick, then," said the other, his hand flying to his -hip. - -"Sit down," was the sharp rejoinder, and a pistol was in his face before -he could draw his own weapon. "Put your gun on the table," Foyle said -quietly. Halbeck did so. There was no other way. - -Foyle drew it over to himself. His brother made a motion to rise. - -"Sit still, Dorl," came the warning voice. - -White with rage, the freebooter sat still, his dissipated face and heavy -angry lips looking like a debauched and villainous caricature of his -brother before him. - -"Yes, I suppose you'd have potted me, Dorl," said the ex-sergeant. - -"You'd have thought no more of doing that than you did of killing Linley, -the ranchman; than you did of trying to ruin Jo Byndon, your wife's -sister, when she was sixteen years old, when she was caring for your -child--giving her life for the child you brought into the world." - -"What in the name of hell--it's a lie!" - -"Don't bluster. I know the truth." - -"Who told you-the truth?" - -"She did--to-day--an hour ago." - -"She here--out here?" There was a new cowed note in the voice. - -"She is in the next room." - -"What did she come here for?" - -"To make you do right by your own child. I wonder what a jury of decent -men would think about a man who robbed his child for five years, and let -that child be fed and clothed and cared for by the girl he tried to -destroy, the girl he taught what sin there was in the world." - -"She put you up to this. She was always in love with you, and you know -it." - -There was a dangerous look in Foyle's eyes, and his jaw set hard. "There -would be no shame in a decent woman caring for me, even if it was true. -I haven't put myself outside the boundary as you have. You're my -brother, but you're the worst scoundrel in the country--the worst -unhanged. Put on the table there the letter in your pocket. It holds -five hundred dollars belonging to your child. There's twenty-five -hundred dollars more to be accounted for." - -The other hesitated, then with an oath threw the letter on the table. -"I'll pay the rest as soon as I can, if you'll stop this damned -tomfoolery," he said sullenly, for he saw that he was in a hole. - -"You'll pay it, I suppose, out of what you stole from the C.P.R. -contractor's chest. No, I don't think that will do." - -"You want me to go to prison, then?" - -"I think not. The truth would come out at the trial--the whole truth-- -the murder, and all. There's your child Bobby. You've done him enough -wrong already. Do you want him--but it doesn't matter whether you do or -not--do you want him to carry through life the fact that his father was a -jail-bird and a murderer, just as Jo Byndon carries the scar you made -when you threw her against the door?" - -"What do you want with me, then?" The man sank slowly and heavily back -into the chair. - -"There is a way--have you never thought of it? When you threatened -others as you did me, and life seemed such a little thing in others ---can't you think?" - -Bewildered, the man looked around helplessly. In the silence which -followed Foyle's words his brain was struggling to see a way out. -Foyle's further words seemed to come from a great distance. - -"It's not too late to do the decent thing. You'll never repent of all -you've done; you'll never do different." - -The old reckless, irresponsible spirit revived in the man; he had both -courage and bravado, he was not hopeless yet of finding an escape from -the net. He would not beg, he would struggle. - -"I've lived as I meant to, and I'm not going to snivel or repent now. -It's all a rotten business, anyhow," he rejoined. - -With a sudden resolution the ex-sergeant put his own pistol in his -pocket, then pushed Halbeck's pistol over towards him on the table. -Halbeck's eyes lighted eagerly, grew red with excitement, then a change -passed over them. They now settled on the pistol, and stayed. He heard -Foyle's voice. "It's with you to do what you ought to do. Of course you -can kill me. My pistol's in my pocket. But I don't think you will. -You've murdered one man. You won't load your soul up with another. -Besides, if you kill me, you will never get away from Kowatin alive. -But it's with you--take your choice. It's me or you." - -Halbeck's fingers crept out and found the pistol. "Do your duty, Dorl," -said the ex-sergeant as he turned his back on his brother. - -The door of the room opened, and Goatry stepped inside softly. He had -work to do, if need be, and his face showed it. Halbeck did not see him. - -There was a demon in Halbeck's eyes, as his brother stood, his back -turned, taking his chances. A large mirror hung on the wall opposite -Halbeck. Goatry was watching Halbeck's face in the glass, and saw the -danger. He measured his distance. - -All at once Halbeck caught Goatry's face in the mirror. The dark devilry -faded out of his eyes. His lips moved in a whispered oath. Every way -was blocked. - -With a sudden wild resolution he raised the pistol to his head. It -cracked, and he fell back heavily in the chair. There was a red trickle -at the temple. - -He had chosen the best way out. - -"He had the pluck," said Goatry, as Foyle swung round with a face of -misery. - -A moment afterward came a rush of people. Goatry kept them back. - -"Sergeant Foyle arrested Halbeck, and Halbeck's shot himself," Goatry -explained to them. - -A white-faced girl with a scar on her temple made her way into the room. - -"Come away-come away, Jo," said the voice of the man she loved; and he -did not let her see the lifeless figure in the chair. - -Three days later the plains swallowed them, as they made their way with -Billy Goatry to the headquarters of the Riders of the Plains, where -Sergeant Foyle was asked to reconsider his resignation: which he did. - - - - - - -THE WHISPERER - - "And thou shalt be brought down and shalt speak out of the ground, - and thy speech shall be low out of the dust, and thy voice shall be - as of one that hath a familiar spirit out of the ground, and thy - speech shall whisper out of the dust." - -The harvest was all in, and, as far as eye could observe nothing remained -of the golden sea of wheat which had covered the wide prairie save the -yellow stubble, the bed of an ocean of wealth which had been gathered. -Here, the yellow level was broken by a dark patch of fallow land, there, -by a covert of trees also tinged with yellow, or deepening to crimson and -mauve--the harbinger of autumn. The sun had not the insistent and -intensive strength of more southerly climes; it was buoyant, confident -and heartening, and it shone in a turquoise vault which covered and -endeared the wide, even world beneath. Now and then a flock of wild -ducks whirred past, making for the marshes or the innumerable lakes that -vitalised the expanse, or buzzards hunched heavily along, frightened from -some far resort by eager sportsmen. - -That was above; but beneath, on a level with the unlifted eye, were -houses here and there, looking in the vastness like dolls' habitations. -Many of the houses stood blank and staring in the expanse, but some had -trees, and others little oases of green. Everywhere prosperity, -everywhere the strings of life pulled taut, signs that energy had been -straining on the leash. - -Yet there was one spot where it seemed that deadness made encampment. -It could not be seen in the sweep of the eye, you must have travelled and -looked vigilantly to find it; but it was there--a lake shimmering in the -eager sun, washing against a reedy shore, a little river running into the -reedy lake at one end and out at, the other, a small, dilapidated house -half hid in a wood that stretched for half a mile or so upon a rising -ground. In front of the house, not far from the lake, a man was lying -asleep upon the ground, a rough felt hat drawn over his eyes. - -Like the house, the man seemed dilapidated also: a slovenly, ill-dressed, -demoralised figure he looked, even with his face covered. He seemed in a -deep sleep. Wild ducks settled on the lake not far from him with a swish -and flutter; a coyote ran past, veering as it saw the recumbent figure; -a prairie hen rustled by with a shrill cluck, but he seemed oblivious to -all. If asleep, he was evidently dreaming, for now and then he started, -or his body twitched, and a muttering came from beneath the hat. - -The battered house, the absence of barn or stable or garden, or any token -of thrift or energy, marked the man as an excrescence in this theatre of -hope and fruitful toil. It all belonged to some degenerate land, some -exhausted civilisation, not to this field of vigour where life rang like -silver. - -So the man lay for hour upon hour. He slept as though he had been upon a -long journey in which the body was worn to helplessness. Or was it that -sleep of the worn-out spirit which, tortured by remembrance and remorse, -at last sinks into the depths where the conscious vexes the unconscious ---a little of fire, a little of ice, and now and then the turn of the -screw? - -The day marched nobly on towards evening, growing out of its blue and -silver into a pervasive golden gleam; the bare, greyish houses on the -prairie were transformed into miniature palaces of light. Presently a -girl came out of the woods behind, looking at the neglected house with a -half-pitying curiosity. She carried in one hand a fishing rod which had -been telescoped till it was no bigger than a cane; in the other she -carried a small fishing basket. Her father's shooting and fishing camp -was a few miles away by a lake of greater size than this which she -approached. She had tired of the gay company in camp, brought up for -sport from beyond the American border where she also belonged, and she -had come to explore the river running into this reedy lake. She turned -from the house and came nearer to the lake, shaking her head, as though -compassionating the poor, folk who lived there. She was beautiful. Her -hair was brown, going to tawny, but in this soft light which enwrapped -her, she was in a sort of topaz flame. As she came on, suddenly she -stopped as though transfixed. She saw the man--and saw also a tragedy -afoot. - -The man stirred violently in his sleep, cried out, and started up. As he -did so, a snake, disturbed in its travel past him, suddenly raised itself -in anger. Startled out of sleep by some inner torture, the man heard the -sinister rattle he knew so well, and gazed paralysed. - -The girl had been but a few feet away when she first saw the man and his -angry foe. An instant, then, with the instinct of the woods and the -plains, and the courage that has habitation everywhere, dropping her -basket she sprang forward noiselessly. The short, telescoped fishing rod -she carried swung round her head and completed its next half-circle at -the head of the reptile, even as it was about to strike. The blow was -sure, and with half-severed head the snake fell dead upon the ground -beside the man. - -He was like one who has been projected from one world to another, dazed, -stricken, fearful. Presently the look of agonised dismay gave way to -such an expression of relief as might come upon the face of a reprieved -victim about to be given to the fire, or to the knife that flays. The -place of dreams from which he had emerged was like hell, and this was -some world of peace that he had not known these many years. Always one -had been at his elbow--"a familiar spirit out of the ground"--whispering -in his ear. He had been down in the abysses of life. - -He glanced again at the girl, and realised what she had done: she had -saved his life. Whether it had been worth saving was another question; -but he had been near to the brink, had looked in, and the animal in him -had shrunk back from the precipice in a confused agony of fear. He -staggered to his feet. - -"Where do you come from?" he said, pulling his coat closer to hide the -ragged waistcoat underneath, and adjusting his worn and dirty hat--in his -youth he had been vain and ambitious and good-looking also. - -He asked his question in no impertinent tone, but in the low voice of one -who "shall whisper out of the dust." He had not yet recovered from the -first impression of his awakening, that the world in which he now stood -was not a real world. - -She understood, and half in pity and half in conquered repugnance said: - -"I come from a camp beyond"--she indicated the direction by a gesture. -"I had been fishing"--she took up the basket--"and chanced on you--then." -She glanced at the snake significantly. - -"You killed it in the nick of time," he said, in a voice that still spoke -of the ground, but with a note of half-shamed gratitude. "I want to -thank you," he added. "You were brave. It would have turned on you if -you had missed. I know them. I've killed five." He spoke very slowly, -huskily. - -"Well, you are safe--that is the chief thing," she rejoined, making as -though to depart. But presently she turned back. "Why are you so -dreadfully poor--and everything?" she asked gently. - -His eye wandered over the lake and back again before he answered her, in -a dull, heavy tone: "I've had bad luck, and, when you get down, there are -plenty to kick you farther." - -"You weren't always poor as you are now--I mean long ago, when you were -young." - -"I'm not so old," he rejoined sluggishly--"only thirty-four." - -She could not suppress her astonishment. She looked at the hair already -grey, the hard, pinched face, the lustreless eyes. - -"Yet it must seem long to you," she said with meaning. Now he laughed ---a laugh sodden and mirthless. He was thinking of his boyhood. -Everything, save one or two spots all fire or all darkness, was dim -in his debilitated mind. - -"Too far to go back," he said, with a gleam of the intelligence which had -been strong in him once. - -She caught the gleam. She had wisdom beyond her years. It was the -greater because her mother was dead, and she had had so much wealth to -dispense, for her father was rich beyond counting, and she controlled his -household, and helped to regulate his charities. She saw that he was not -of the labouring classes, that he had known better days; his speech, if -abrupt and cheerless, was grammatical. - -"If you cannot go back, you can go forwards," she said firmly. "Why -should you be the only man in this beautiful land who lives like this, -who is idle when there is so much to do, who sleeps in the daytime when -there is so much time to sleep at night?" - -A faint flush came on the greyish, colourless face. "I don't sleep at -night," he returned moodily. - -"Why don't you sleep?" she asked. - -He did not answer, but stirred the body of the snake with his foot. The -tail moved; he stamped upon the head with almost frenzied violence, out -of keeping with his sluggishness. - -She turned away, yet looked back once more--she felt tragedy around her. -"It is never too late to mend," she said, and moved on, but stopped; for -a young man came running from the woods towards her. - -"I've had a hunt--such a hunt for you," the young man said eagerly, then -stopped short when he saw to whom she had been talking. A look of -disgust came upon his face as he drew her away, his hand on her arm. - -"In Heaven's name, why did you talk to that man?" he said. "You ought -not to have trusted yourself near him." - -"What has he done?" she asked. "Is he so bad?" - -"I've heard about him. I inquired the other day. He was once in a -better position as a ranchman--ten years ago; but he came into some money -one day, and he changed at once. He never had a good character; even -before he got his money he used to gamble, and was getting a bad name. -Afterwards he began drinking, and he took to gambling harder than ever. -Presently his money all went and he had to work; but his bad habits had -fastened on him, and now he lives from hand to mouth, sometimes working -for a month, sometimes idle for months. There's something sinister about -him, there's some mystery; for poverty or drink even--and he doesn't -drink much now--couldn't make him what he is. He doesn't seek company, -and he walks sometimes endless miles talking to himself, going as hard -as he can. How did you come to speak to him, Grace?" - -She told him all, with a curious abstraction in her voice, for she was -thinking of the man from a standpoint which her companion could not -realise. She was also trying to verify something in her memory. Ten -years ago, so her lover had just said, the poor wretch behind them had -been a different man; and there had shot into her mind the face of a -ranchman she had seen with her father, the railway king, one evening when -his "special" had stopped at a railway station on his tour through -Montana--ten years ago. Why did the face of the ranchman which had fixed -itself on her memory then, because he had come on the evening of her -birthday and had spoiled it for her, having taken her father away from -her for an hour--why did his face come to her now? What had it to do -with the face of this outcast she had just left? - -"What is his name?" she asked at last. - -"Roger Lygon," he answered. - -"Roger Lygon," she repeated mechanically. Something in the man chained -her thought--his face that moment when her hand saved him and the awful -fear left him, and a glimmer of light came into his eyes. - -But her lover beside her broke into song. He was happy with her. -Everything was before him, her beauty, her wealth, herself. He could not -dwell upon dismal things; his voice rang out on the sharp sweet evening -air: - - "'Oh, where did you get them, the bonny, bonny roses - That blossom in your cheeks, and the morning in your eyes?' - 'I got them on the North Trail, the road that never closes, - That widens to the seven gold gates of paradise.' - 'O come, let us camp in the North Trail together, - With the night-fires lit and the tent-pegs down.'" - -Left alone, the man by the reedy lake stood watching them until they were -out of view. The song came back to him, echoing across the waters: - - "O come, let us camp on the North Trail together, - With the night-fires lit and the tent-pegs down." - -The sunset glow, the girl's presence, had given him a moment's illusion, -had absorbed him for a moment, acting on his deadened nature like a -narcotic at once soothing and stimulating. As some wild animal in a -forgotten land, coming upon ruins of a vast civilisation, towers, -temples, and palaces, in the golden glow of an Eastern evening, stands -abashed and vaguely wondering, having neither reason to understand, nor -feeling to enjoy, yet is arrested and abashed, so he stood. He had lived -the last three years so much alone, had been cut off so completely from -his kind--had lived so much alone. Yet to-night, at last, he would not -be alone. - -Some one was coming to-night, some one whom he had not seen for a long -time. Letters had passed, the object of the visit had been defined, and -he had spent the intervening days since the last letter had arrived, now -agitated, now apathetic and sullen, now struggling with some invisible -being that kept whispering in his ear, saying to him, "It was the price -of fire, and blood, and shame. You did it--you--you--you! You are down, -and you will never get up. You can only go lower still--fire, and blood, -and shame!" - -Criminal as he was he had never become hardened, he had only become -degraded. Crime was not his vocation. He had no gift for it; still the -crime he had committed had never been discovered--the crime that he did -with others. There were himself and Dupont and another. Dupont was -coming to-night--Dupont who had profited by the crime, and had not spent -his profits, but had built upon them to further profit; for Dupont was -avaricious and prudent, and a born criminal. Dupont had never had any -compunctions or remorse, had never lost a night's sleep because of what -they two had done, instigated thereto by the other, who had paid them so -well for the dark thing. - -The other was Henderley, the financier. He was worse perhaps than -Dupont, for he was in a different sphere of life, was rich beyond -counting, and had been early nurtured in quiet Christian surroundings. -The spirit of ambition, rivalry, and the methods of a degenerate and -cruel finance had seized him, mastered him; so that, under the cloak of -power--as a toreador hides the blade under the red cloth before his enemy -the toro--he held a sword of capital which did cruel and vicious things, -at last becoming criminal also. Henderley had incited and paid; the -others, Dupont and Lygon, had acted and received. Henderley had had no -remorse, none at any rate that weighed upon him; for he had got used to -ruining rivals, and seeing strong men go down, and those who had fought -him come to beg or borrow of him in the end. He had seen more than one -commit suicide, and those they loved go down and farther down, and he had -helped these up a little, but not enough to put them near his own plane -again; and he could not see--it never occurred to him--that he had done -any evil to them. Dupont thought upon his crimes now and then, and his -heart hardened, for he had no moral feeling; Henderley did not think at -all. It was left to the man of the reedy lake to pay the penalty of -apprehension, to suffer the effects of crime upon a nature not naturally -criminal. - -Again and again, how many hundreds of times, had Roger Lygon seen in his -sleep--had even seen awake so did hallucination possess him--the new -cattle trail he had fired for scores of miles. The fire had destroyed -the grass over millions of acres, two houses had been burned and three -people had lost their lives; all to satisfy the savage desire of one man, -to destroy the chance of a cattle trade over a great section of country -for the railway which was to compete with his own--an act which, in the -end, was futile, failed of its purpose. Dupont and Lygon had been paid -their price, and had disappeared, and been forgotten--they were but pawns -in his game--and there was no proof against Henderley. Henderley had -forgotten. Lygon wished to forget, but Dupont remembered, and meant now -to reap fresh profit by the remembrance. - -Dupont was coming to-night, and the hatchet of crime was to be dug up -again. So it had been planned. As the shadows fell, Lygon roused -himself from his trance with a shiver. It was not cold, but in him there -was a nervous agitation, making him cold from head to foot; his body -seemed as impoverished as his mind. Looking with heavy-lidded eyes -across the prairie, he saw in the distance the barracks of the Riders of -the Plains and the jail near by, and his shuddering ceased. There was -where he belonged, within four stone walls; yet here he was free to go -where he willed, to live as he willed, with no eye upon him. With no eye -upon him? There was no eye, but there was the Whisperer whom he could -never drive away. Morning and night he heard the words, "You--you--you! -Fire, and blood, and shame!" He had snatched sleep when he could find -it, after long, long hours of tramping over the plains, ostensibly to -shoot wild fowl, but in truth to bring on a great bodily fatigue--and -sleep. His sleep only came then in the first watches of the night. As -the night wore on the Whisperer began again, as the cloud of weariness -lifted a little from him, and the senses were released from the heavy -sedative of unnatural exertion. - - ......................... - -The dusk deepened. The moon slowly rose. He cooked his scanty meal, -and took a deep draught from a horn of whiskey from beneath a board in -the flooring. He had not the courage to face Dupont without it, nor yet -to forget what he must forget, if he was to do the work Dupont came to -arrange--he must forget the girl who had saved his life and the influence -of those strange moments in which she had spoken down to him, in the -abyss where he had been lying. - -He sat in the doorway, a fire gleaming behind him; he drank in the good -air as though his lungs were thirsty for it, and saw the silver glitter -of the moon upon the water. Not a breath of wind stirred, and the -shining path the moon made upon the reedy lake fascinated his eye. -Everything was so still except that whisper louder in his ear than it had -ever been before. - -Suddenly, upon the silver path upon the lake there shot a silent canoe, -with a figure as silently paddling towards him. He gazed for a moment -dismayed, and then got to his feet with a jerk. - -"Dupont," he said mechanically. - -The canoe swished among the reeds and rushes, scraped on the shore, and a -tall, burly figure sprang from it, and stood still, looking at the house. - -"Qui reste la--Lygon?" he asked. - -"Dupont," was the nervous, hesitating reply. Dupont came forwards -quickly. "Ah, ben, here we are again--so," he grunted cheerily. - -Entering the house they sat before the fire, holding their hands to the -warmth from force of habit, though the night was not cold. - -"Ben, you will do it to-night--then?" Dupont said. "Sacre, it is time!" - -"Do what?" rejoined the other heavily. - -An angry light leapt into Dupont's eyes. "You not unnerstan' my letters- -bah! You know it all right, so queeck." - -The other remained silent, staring into the fire with wide, searching -eyes. - -Dupont put a hand on him. "You ketch my idee queeck. We mus' have more -money from that Henderley--certainlee. It is ten years, and he t'ink it -is all right. He t'ink we come no more becos' he give five t'ousan' -dollars to us each. That was to do the t'ing, to fire the country. -Now we want another ten t'ousan' to us each, to forget we do it for him ---hein?" - -Still there was no reply. Dupont went on, watching the other furtively, -for he did not like this silence. But he would not resent it till he was -sure there was good cause. - -"It comes to suit us. He is over there at the Old Man Lak', where you -can get at him easy, not like in the city where he lif'. Over in the -States, he laugh mebbe, becos' he is at home, an' can buy off the law. -But here--it is Canadaw, an' they not care eef he have hunder' meellion -dollar. He know that--sure. Eef you say you not care a dam to go to -jail, so you can put him there, too, becos' you have not'ing, an' so dam -seeck of everyt'ing, he will t'ink ten t'ousan' dollar same as one cent -to Nic Dupont--ben sur!" - -Lygon nodded his head, still holding his hands to the blaze. With ten -thousand dollars he could get away into--into another world somewhere, -some world where he could forget; as he forgot for a moment this -afternoon when the girl said to him, "It is never too late to mend." - -Now as he thought of her, he pulled his coat together, and arranged the -rough scarf at his neck involuntarily. Ten thousand dollars--but ten -thousand dollars by blackmail, hush-money, the reward of fire, and blood, -and shame! Was it to go on? Was he to commit a new crime? - -He stirred, as though to shake off the net that he felt twisting round -him, in the hands of the robust and powerful Dupont, on whom crime sat -so lightly, who had flourished while he, Lygon, had gone lower and lower. -Ten years ago he had been the better man, had taken the lead, was the -master, Dupont the obedient confederate, the tool. Now, Dupont, once the -rough river-driver, grown prosperous in a large way for him--who might -yet be mayor of his town in Quebec--he held the rod of rule. Lygon was -conscious that the fifty dollars sent him every New Year for five years -by Dupont had been sent with a purpose, and that he was now Dupont's -tool. Debilitated, demoralised, how could he, even if he wished, -struggle against this powerful confederate, as powerful in will as in -body? Yet if he had his own way he would not go to Henderley. He had -lived with "a familiar spirit" so long, he feared the issue of this next -excursion into the fens of crime. - -Dupont was on his feet now. "He will be here only three days more--I haf -find it so. To-night it mus' be done. As we go I will tell you what to -say. I will wait at the Forks, an' we will come back togedder. His -cheque will do. Eef he gif at all, the cheque is all right. He will not -stop it. Eef he haf the money, it is better--sacre--yes. Eef he not -gif--well, I will tell you, there is the other railway man he try to -hurt, how would he like--But I will tell you on the river. Main'enant-- -queeck, we go." - -Without a word Lygon took down another coat and put it on. Doing so he -concealed a weapon quickly as Dupont stooped to pick a coal for his pipe -from the blaze. Lygon had no fixed purpose in taking a weapon with him; -it was only a vague instinct of caution that moved him. - -In the canoe on the river, in an almost speechless apathy, he heard -Dupont's voice giving him instructions. - - ....................... - -Henderley, the financier, had just finished his game of whist and -dismissed his friends--it was equivalent to dismissal, rough yet genial -as he seemed to be, so did immense wealth and its accompanying power -affect his relations with those about him. In everything he was -"considered." He was in good humour, for he had won all the evening, and -with a smile he rubbed his hands among the notes--three thousand dollars -it was. It was like a man with a pocket full of money, chuckling over a -coin he has found in the street. Presently he heard a rustle of the -inner tent-curtain and swung round. He faced the man from the reedy -lake. - -Instinctively he glanced round for a weapon, mechanically his hands -firmly grasped the chair in front of him. - -He had been in danger of his life many times, and he had no fear. He had -been threatened with assassination more than once, and he had got used to -the idea of danger; life to him was only a game. - -He kept his nerve; he did not call out; he looked his visitor in the -eyes. - -"What are you doing here? Who are you?" he said. - -"Don't you know me?" answered Lygon, gazing intently at him. - -Face to face with the man who had tempted him to crime, Lygon had a new -sense of boldness, a sudden feeling of reprisal, a rushing desire to put -the screw upon him. At sight of this millionaire with the pile of notes -before him there vanished the sickening hesitation of the afternoon, of -the journey with Dupont. The look of the robust, healthy financier was -like acid in a wound; it maddened him. - -"You will know me better soon," Lygon added, his head twitching with -excitement. - -Henderley recognised him now. He gripped the armchair spasmodically, -but presently regained a complete composure. He knew the game that was -forward here; and he also thought that if once he yielded to blackmail -there would never be an end to it. He made no pretence, but came -straight to the point. - -"You can do nothing; there is no proof," he said with firm assurance. - -"There is Dupont," answered Lygon doggedly. - -"Who is Dupont?" - -"The French Canadian who helped me--I divided with him." - -"You said the man who helped you died. You wrote that to me. I suppose -you are lying now." - -Henderley coolly straightened the notes on the table, smoothing out the -wrinkles, arranging them according to their denominations with an -apparently interested eye; yet he was vigilantly watching the outcast -before him. To yield to blackmail would be fatal; not to yield to it-- -he could not see his way. He had long ago forgotten the fire, and blood, -and shame. No Whisperer reminded him of that black page in the history -of his life; he had been immune of conscience. He could not understand -this man before him. It was as bad a case of human degradation as ever -he had seen--he remembered the stalwart, if dissipated, ranchman who had -acted on his instigation. He knew now that he had made a foolish blunder -then, that the scheme had been one of his failures; but he had never -looked on it as with eyes reproving crime. As a hundred thoughts tending -towards the solution of the problem by which he was faced, flashed -through his mind, and he rejected them all, he repeated mechanically the -phrase, "I suppose you are lying now." - -"Dupont is here--not a mile away," was the reply. "He will give proof. -He would go to jail or to the gallows to put you there, if you do not -pay. He is a devil--Dupont." - -Still the great man could not see his way out. He must temporise for a -little longer, for rashness might bring scandal or noise; and near by was -his daughter, the apple of his eye. - -"What do you want? How much did you figure you could get out of me, -if I let you bleed me?" he asked sneeringly and coolly. "Come now, how -much?" - -Lygon, in whom a blind hatred of the man still raged, was about to reply, -when he heard a voice calling, "Daddy, Daddy!" - -Suddenly the red, half-insane light died down in Lygon's eyes. He saw -the snake upon the ground by the reedy lake, the girl standing over it-- -the girl with the tawny hair. This was her voice. - -Henderley had made a step towards a curtain opening into another room of -the great tent, but before he could reach it the curtain was pushed back, -and the girl entered with a smile. - -"May I come in?" she said; then stood still astonished; seeing Lygon. - -"Oh!" she exclaimed. "Oh--you!" - -All at once a look came into her face which stirred it as a flying insect -stirs the water of a pool. On the instant she remembered that she had -seen the man before. - -It was ten years ago in Montana on the night of her birthday. Her father -had been called away to talk with this man, and she had seen him from the -steps of the "special." It was only the caricature of the once strong, -erect ranchman that she saw, but there was no mistake, she recognised him -now. - -Lygon, dumfounded, looked from her to her father, and he saw now in -Henderley's eyes a fear that was not to be misunderstood. - -Here was where Henderley could be smitten, could be brought to his knees. -It was the vulnerable part of him. Lygon could see that he was stunned. -The great financier was in his power. He looked back again to the girl, -and her face was full of trouble. - -A sharp suspicion was in her heart that somehow or other her father was -responsible for this man's degradation and ruin. She looked Lygon in the -eyes. - -"Did you want to see me?" she asked. - -She scarcely knew why she said it; but she was sensible of trouble, maybe -of tragedy, somewhere; and she had a vague dread of she knew not what, -for hide it, avoid it, as she had done so often, there was in her heart -an unhappy doubt concerning her father. - -A great change had come over Lygon. Her presence had altered him. He -was again where she had left him in the afternoon. - -He heard her say to her father, "This was the man I told you of--at the -reedy lake. Did you come to see me?" she repeated. - -"I did not know you were here," he answered. "I came"--he was conscious -of Henderley's staring eyes fixed upon him helplessly--"I came to ask -your father if he would not buy my shack. There is good shooting at the -lake; the ducks come plenty, sometimes. I want to get away, to start -again somewhere. I've been a failure. I want to get away, right away -south. If he would buy it I could start again. I've had no luck." He -had invented it on the moment, but the girl understood better than Lygon -or Henderley could have dreamed. She had seen the change pass over -Lygon. Henderley had a hand on himself again, and the startled look went -out of his eyes. - -"What do you want for your shack and the lake?" he asked with restored -confidence. The fellow no doubt was grateful that his daughter had saved -his life, he thought. - -"Five hundred dollars," answered Lygon quickly. Henderley would have -handed over all that lay on the table before him but that he thought it -better not to do so. "I'll buy it," he said. "You seem to have been hit -hard. Here is the money. Bring me the deed to-morrow--to-morrow." - -"I'll not take the money till I give you the deed," said Lygon. "It will -do to-morrow. It's doing me a good turn. I'll get away and start again -somewhere. I've done no good up here. Thank you, sir--thank you." -Before they realised it, the tent-curtain rose and fell, and he was gone -into the night. - -The trouble was still deep in the girl's eyes as she kissed her father, -and he, with an overdone cheerfulness, wished her a good night. - -The man of iron had been changed into a man of straw once at least in his -lifetime. - -Lygon found Dupont at the Forks. - -"Eh ben, it is all right--yes?" Dupont asked eagerly as Lygon joined -him. - -"Yes, it is all right," answered Lygon. - -With an exulting laugh and an obscene oath, Dupont pushed out the canoe, -and they got away into the moonlight. No word was spoken for some -distance, but Dupont kept giving grunts of satisfaction. - -"You got the ten t'ousan' each--in cash or cheque, eh? The cheque or the -money-hein?" - -"I've got nothing," answered Lygon. Dupont dropped his paddle with a -curse. - -"You got not'ing! You said eet was all right," he growled. - -"It is all right. I got nothing. I asked for nothing. I have had -enough. I have finished." - -With a roar of rage Dupont sprang on him, and caught him by the throat as -the canoe swayed and dipped. He was blind with fury. - -Lygon tried with one hand for his knife, and got it, but the pressure on -his throat was growing terrible. For minutes the struggle continued, for -Lygon was fighting with the desperation of one who makes his last awful -onset against fate and doom. - -Dupont also had his knife at work. At last it drank blood, but as he got -it home, he suddenly reeled blindly, lost his balance, and lurched into -the water with a groan. - -Lygon, weapon in hand, and bleeding freely, waited for him to rise and -make for the canoe again. - -Ten, twenty, fifty seconds passed. Dupont did not rise. A minute went -by, and still there was no stir, no sign. Dupont would never rise again. -In his wild rage he had burst a blood vessel on the brain. - -Lygon bound up his reeking wound as best he could. He did--it calmly, -whispering to himself the while. - -"I must do it. I must get there if I can. I will not be afraid to die -then," he muttered to himself. Presently he grasped an oar and paddled -feebly. - -A slight wind had risen, and, as he turned the boat in to face the Forks -again, it helped to carry the canoe to the landing-place. - -Lygon dragged himself out. He did not try to draw the canoe up, but -began this journey of a mile back to the tent he had left so recently. -First, step by step, leaning against trees, drawing himself forwards, a -journey as long to his determined mind as from youth to age. Would it -never end? It seemed a terrible climbing up the sides of a cliff, and, -as he struggled fainting on, all sorts of sounds were in his ears, but he -realised that the Whisperer was no longer there. The sounds he heard did -not torture, they helped his stumbling feet. They were like the murmur -of waters, like the sounds of the forest and soft, booming bells. But -the bells were only the beatings of his heart-so loud, so swift. - -He was on his knees now crawling on-on-on. At last there came a light, -suddenly bursting on him from a tent, he was so near. Then he called, -and called again, and fell forwards on his face. But now he heard a -voice above him. It was her voice. He had blindly struggled on to die -near her, near where she was, she was so pitiful and good. - -He had accomplished his journey, and her voice was speaking above him. -There were other voices, but it was only hers that he heard. - -"God help him--oh, God help him!" she was saying. He drew a long quiet -breath. "I will sleep now," he said clearly. - -He would hear the Whisperer no more. - - - - - - -AS DEEP AS THE SEA - -"What can I do, Dan? I'm broke, too. My last dollar went to pay my last -debt to-day. I've nothing but what I stand in. I've got prospects, but -I can't discount prospects at the banks." The speaker laughed bitterly. -"I've reaped and I'm sowing, the same as you, Dan." - -The other made a nervous motion of protest. "No; not the same as me, -Flood--not the same. It's sink or swim with me, and if you can't help -me--oh, I'd take my gruel without whining, if it wasn't for Di! It's -that knocks me over. It's the shame to her. Oh, what a cursed ass and -fool--and thief, I've been!" - -"Thief-thief?" - -Flood Rawley dropped the flaming match with which he was about to light a -cheroot, and stood staring, his dark-blue eyes growing wider, his worn, -handsome face becoming drawn, as swift conviction mastered him. He felt -that the black words which had fallen from his friend's lips--from the -lips of Diana Welldon's brother--were the truth. He looked at the plump -face, the full amiable eyes, now misty with fright, at the characterless -hand nervously feeling the golden moustache, at the well-fed, inert body; -and he knew that whatever the trouble or the peril, Dan Welldon could not -surmount it alone. - -"What is it?" Rawley asked rather sharply, his fingers running through -his slightly grizzled, black hair, but not excitedly, for he wanted no -scenes; and if this thing could hurt Di Welldon, and action was -necessary, he must remain cool. What she was to him, Heaven and he only -knew; what she had done for him, perhaps neither understood fully as yet. -"What is it--quick?" he added, and his words were like a sharp grip upon -Dan Welldon's shoulder. "Racing--cards?" - -Dan nodded. "Yes, over at Askatoon; five hundred on Jibway, the -favourite--he fell at the last fence; five hundred at poker with Nick -Fison; and a thousand in land speculation at Edmonton, on margin. -Everything went wrong." - -"And so you put your hand in the railway company's money-chest?" - -"It seemed such a dead certainty--Jibway; and the Edmonton corner-blocks, -too. I'd had luck with Nick before; but--well, there it is, Flood." - -"They know--the railway people--Shaughnessy knows?" - -"Yes, the president knows. He's at Calgary now. They telegraphed him, -and he wired to give me till midnight to pay up, or go to jail. They're -watching me now. I can't stir. There's no escape, and there's no one I -can ask for help but you. That's why I've come, Flood." - -"Lord, what a fool! Couldn't you see what the end would be, if your -plunging didn't come off? You--you oughtn't to bet, or speculate, or -play cards, you're not clever enough. You've got blind rashness, and so -you think you're bold. And Di--oh, you idiot! And on a salary of a -thousand dollars a year!" - -"I suppose Di would help me; but I couldn't explain." The weak face -puckered, a lifeless kind of tear gathered in the ox-like eyes. - -"Yes, she probably would help you. She'd probably give you all she's -saved to go to Europe with and study, saved from her pictures sold at -twenty per cent of their value; and she'd mortgage the little income -she's got to keep her brother out of jail. Of course she would, and of -course you ought to be ashamed of yourself for thinking of it." Rawley -lighted his cigar and smoked fiercely. - -"It would be better for her than my going to jail," stubbornly replied -the other. "But I don't want to tell her, or to ask her for money. -That's why I've come to you. You needn't be so hard, Flood; you've not -been a saint; and Di knows it." - -Rawley took the cheroot from his mouth, threw back his head, and laughed -mirthlessly, ironically. Then suddenly he stopped and looked round the -room till his eyes rested on a portrait-drawing which hung on the wall -opposite the window, through which the sun poured. It was the face of a -girl with beautiful bronzed hair, and full, fine, beautifully modelled -face, with brown eyes deep and brooding, which seemed to have time and -space behind them--not before them. The lips were delicate and full, and -had the look suggesting a smile which the inward thought has stayed. It -was like one of the Titian women--like a Titian that hangs on the wall of -the Gallery at Munich. The head and neck, the whole personality, had an -air of distinction and destiny. The drawing had been done by a wandering -duchess who had seen the girl sketching in the foothills, when on a visit -to that "Wild West" which has such power to refine and inspire minds not -superior to Nature. Its replica was carried to a castle in Scotland. -It had been the gift of Diana Welldon on a certain day not long ago, when -Flood Rawley had made a pledge to her, which was as vital to him and to -his future as two thousand dollars were vital to Dan Welldon now. - -"You've not been a saint, and Di knows it," repeated the weak brother of -a girl whose fame belonged to the West; whose name was a signal for -cheerful looks; whose buoyant humour and impartial friendliness gained -her innumerable friends; and whose talent, understood by few, gave her a -certain protection, lifting her a little away from the outwardly crude -and provincial life around her. - -When Rawley spoke, it was with quiet deliberation, and even gentleness. -"I haven't been a saint, and she knows it, as you say, Dan; but the law -is on my side as yet, and it isn't on yours. There's the difference." - -"You used to gamble yourself; you were pretty tough, and you oughtn't to -walk up my back with hobnailed boots." - -"Yes, I gambled, Dan, and I drank, and I raised a dust out here. My -record was writ pretty big. But I didn't lay my hands on the ark of the -social covenant, whose inscription is, Thou shalt not steal; and that's -why I'm poor but proud, and no one's watching for me round the corner, -same as you." - -Welldon's half-defiant petulance disappeared. "What's done can't be -undone." Then, with a sudden burst of anguish: "Oh, get me out of this -somehow!" - -"How? I've got no money. By speaking to your sister?" - -The other was silent. - -"Shall I do it?" Rawley peered anxiously into the other's face, and he -knew that there was no real security against the shameful trouble being -laid bare to her. - -"I want a chance to start straight again." - -The voice was fluttered, almost whining; it carried no conviction; but -the words had in them a reminder of words that Rawley himself had said to -Diana Welldon but a few months ago, and a new spirit stirred in him. He -stepped forwards and, gripping Dan's shoulder with a hand of steel, said -fiercely: - -"No, Dan. I'd rather take you to her in your coffin. She's never known -you, never seen what most of us have seen, that all you have--or nearly -all--is your lovely looks, and what they call a kind heart. There's only -you two in your family, and she's got to live with you--awhile, anyhow. -She couldn't stand this business. She mustn't stand it. She's had -enough to put up with in me; but at the worst she could pass me by on -the other side, and there would be an end. It would have been said that -Flood Rawley had got his deserts. It's different with you." His voice -changed, softened. "Dan, I made a pledge to her that I'd never play -cards again for money while I lived, and it wasn't a thing to take on -without some cogitation. But I cogitated, and took it on, and started -life over again--me! Began practising law again--barrister, solicitor, -notary public--at forty. And at last I've got my chance in a big case -against the Canadian Pacific. It'll make me or break me, Dan. . . . -There, I wanted you to see where I stand with Di; and now I want you to -promise me that you'll not leave these rooms till I see you again. I'll -get you clear; I'll save you, Dan." - -"Flood! Oh, my God, Flood!" The voice was broken. - -"You've got to stay here, and you're to remember not to get the funk, -even if I don't come before midnight. I'll be here then, if I'm alive. -If you don't keep your word--but, there, you will." Both hands gripped -the graceful shoulders of the miscreant like a vice. - -"So help me, Flood," was the frightened, whispered reply, "I'll make it -up to you somehow, some day. I'll pay you back." - -Rawley caught up his cap from the table. "Steady--steady. Don't go at a -fence till you're sure of your seat, Dan," he said. Then with a long -look at the portrait on the wall, and an exclamation which the other did -not hear, he left the room with a set, determined face. - - ...................... - -"Who told you? What brought you, Flood?" the girl asked, her chin in -her long, white hands, her head turned from the easel to him, a book in -her lap, the sun breaking through the leaves upon her hat, touching the -Titian hair with splendour. - -"Fate brought me, and didn't tell me," he answered, with a whimsical -quirk of the mouth, and his trouble lurking behind the sea-deep eyes. - -"Wouldn't you have come if you knew I was here?" she urged archly. - -"Not for two thousand dollars," he answered, the look of trouble -deepening in his eyes, but his lips were smiling. He had a quaint sense -of humour, and at his last gasp would have noted the ridiculous thing. -And surely it was a droll malignity of Fate to bring him here to her -whom, in this moment of all moments in his life, he wished far away. -Fate meant to try him to the uttermost. This hurdle of trial was high -indeed. - -"Two thousand dollars--nothing less?" she inquired gaily. "You are too -specific for a real lover." - -"Fate fixed the amount," he added drily. "Fate--you talk so much of -Fate," she replied gravely, and her eyes looked into the distance. "You -make me think of it too, and I don't want to do so. I don't want to feel -helpless, to be the child of Accident and Destiny." - -"Oh, you get the same thing in the 'fore-ordination' that old Minister -M'Gregor preaches every Sunday. 'Be elect or be damned,' he says to us -all. Names aren't important; but, anyhow, it was Fate that led me here." - -"Are you sure it wasn't me?" she asked softly. "Are you sure I wasn't -calling you, and you had to come?" - -"Well, it was en route, anyhow; and you are always calling, if I must -tell you," he laughed. Suddenly he became grave. "I hear you call me in -the night sometimes, and I start up and say 'Yes, Di!' out of my sleep. -It's a queer hallucination. I've got you on the brain, certainly." - -"It seems to vex you--certainly," she said, opening the book that lay in -her lap, "and your eyes trouble me to-day. They've got a look that used -to be in them, Flood, before--before you promised; and another look I -don't understand and don't like. I suppose it's always so. The real -business of life is trying to understand each other." - -"You have wonderful thoughts for one that's had so little chance," he -said. "That's because you're a genius, I suppose. Teaching can't give -that sort of thing--the insight." - -"What is the matter, Flood?" she asked suddenly again, her breast -heaving, her delicate, rounded fingers interlacing. "I heard a man say -once that you were 'as deep as the sea.' He did not mean it kindly, but -I do. You are in trouble, and I want to share it if I can. Where were -you going when you came across me here?" - -"To see old Busby, the quack-doctor up there," he answered, nodding -towards a shrubbed and wooded hillock behind them. - -"Old Busby!" she rejoined in amazement. "What do you want with him ---not medicine of that old quack, that dreadful man?" - -"He cures people sometimes. A good many out here owe him more than -they'll ever pay him." - -"Is he as rich an old miser as they say?" - -"He doesn't look rich, does he?" was the enigmatical answer. - -"Does any one know his real history? He didn't come from nowhere. He -must have had friends once. Some one must once have cared for him, -though he seems such a monster now." - -"Yet he cures people sometimes," he rejoined abstractedly. "Probably -there's some good underneath. I'm going to try and see." - -"What is it. What is your business with him? Won't you tell me? Is it -so secret?" - -"I want him to help me in a case I've got in hand. A client of mine is -in trouble--you mustn't ask about it; and he can help, I think--I think -so." He got to his feet. "I must be going, Di," he added. Suddenly a -flush swept over his face, and he reached out and took both her hands. -"Oh, you are a million times too good for me!" he said. "But if all -goes well, I'll do my best to make you forget it." - -"Wait--wait one moment," she answered. "Before you go, I want you to -hear what I've been reading over and over to myself just now. It is from -a book I got from Quebec, called 'When Time Shall Pass'. It is a story -of two like you and me. The man is writing to the woman, and it has -things that you have said to me--in a different way." - -"No, I don't talk like a book, but I know a star in a dark night when I -see it," he answered, with a catch in his throat. - -"Hush," she said, catching his hand in hers, as she read, while all -around them the sounds of summer--the distant clack of a reaper, the -crack of a whip, the locusts droning, the whir of a young partridge, the -squeak of a chipmunk--were tuned to the harmony of the moment and her -voice: - - "'Night and the sombre silence, oh, my love, and one star shining! - First, warm, velvety sleep, and then this quick, quiet waking to - your voice which seems to call me. Is it--is it you that calls? - Do you sometimes, even in your dreams, speak to me? Far beneath - unconsciousness is there the summons of your spirit to me? . . . - I like to think so. I like to think that this thing which has come - to us is deeper, greater than we are. Sometimes day and night there - flash before my eyes--my mind's eyes--pictures of you and me in - places unfamiliar, landscapes never before seen, activities - uncomprehended and unknown, bright, alluring glimpses of some second - being, some possible, maybe never-to-be-realised future, alas! Yet - these swift-moving shutters of the soul, or imagination, or reality - --who shall say which?-give me a joy never before felt in life. If - I am not a better man for this love of mine for you, I am more than - I was, and shall be more than I am. Much of my life in the past was - mean and small, so much that I have said and done has been unworthy - --my love for you is too sharp a light for my gross imperfections of - the past! Come what will, be what must, I stake my life, my heart, - my soul on you--that beautiful, beloved face; those deep eyes in - which my being is drowned; those lucid, perfect hands that have - bound me to the mast of your destiny. I cannot go back, I must go - forwards: now I must keep on loving you or be shipwrecked. I did - not know that this was in me, this tide of love, this current of - devotion. Destiny plays me beyond my ken, beyond my dreams. - "O Cithaeron!" Turn from me now--or never, O my love! Loose me - from the mast, and let the storm and wave wash me out into the sea - of your forgetfulness now--or never! . . . But keep me, keep me, - if your love is great enough, if I bring you any light or joy; for I - am yours to my uttermost note of life.'" - -"He knew--he knew!" Rawley said, catching her wrists in his hands and -drawing her to him. "If I could write, that's what I should have said to -you, beautiful and beloved. How mean and small and ugly my life was till -you made me over. I was a bad lot." - -"So much hung on one little promise," she said, and drew closer to him. -"You were never bad," she added; then, with an arm sweeping the universe, -"Oh, isn't it all good, and isn't it all worth living?" - -His face lost its glow. Over in the town her brother faced a ruined -life, and the girl beside him, a dark humiliation and a shame which would -poison her life hereafter, unless--his look turned to the little house -where the quack-doctor lived. He loosed her hands. - -"Now for Caliban," he said. - -"I shall be Ariel and follow you-in my heart," she said. "Be sure and -make him tell you the story of his life," she added with a laugh, as his -lips swept the hair behind her ears. - -As he moved swiftly away, watching his long strides, she said proudly, -"As deep as the sea." - -After a moment she added: "And he was once a gambler, until, until--" -she glanced at the open book, then with sweet mockery looked at her -hands--"until 'those lucid, perfect hands bound me to the mast of your -destiny.' O vain Diana! But they are rather beautiful," she added -softly, "and I am rather happy." There was something like a gay little -chuckle in her throat. - -"O vain Diana!" she repeated. - - ....................... - -Rawley entered the door of the but on the hill without ceremony. There -was no need for courtesy, and the work he had come to do could be easier -done without it. - -Old Busby was crouched over a table, his mouth lapping milk from a full -bowl on the table. He scarcely raised his head when Rawley entered-- -through the open door he had seen his visitor coming. He sipped on, his -straggling beard dripping. There was silence for a time. - -"What do you want?" he growled at last. - -"Finish your swill, and then we can talk," said Rawley carelessly. He -took a chair near the door, lighted a cheroot and smoked, watching the -old man, as he tipped the great bowl towards his face, as though it were -some wild animal feeding. The clothes were patched and worn, the coat- -front was spattered with stains of all kinds, the hair and beard were -unkempt and long, giving him what would have been the look of a mangy -lion, but that the face had the expression of some beast less honourable. -The eyes, however, were malignantly intelligent, the hands, ill-cared -for, were long, well-shaped and capable, but of a hateful yellow colour -like the face. And through all was a sense of power, dark and almost -mediaeval. Secret, evilly wise and inhuman, he looked a being apart, -whom men might seek for help in dark purposes. - -"What do you want--medicine?" he muttered at last, wiping his beard and -mouth with the palm of his hand, and the palm on his knees. - -Rawley looked at the ominous-looking bottles on the shelves above the old -man's head; at the forceps, knives, and other surgical instruments on the -walls--they at least were bright and clean--and, taking the cheroot -slowly from his mouth, he said: - -"Shin-plasters are what I want. A friend of mine has caught his leg in a -trap." - -The old man gave an evil chuckle at the joke, for a "shin-plaster" was a -money-note worth a quarter of a dollar. - -"I've got some," he growled in reply, "but they cost twenty-five cents -each. You can have them for your friend at the price." - -"I want eight thousand of them from you. He's hurt pretty bad," was the -dogged, dry answer. - -The shaggy eyebrows of the quack drew together, and the eyes peered out -sharply through half-closed lids. "There's plenty of wanting and not -much getting in this world," he rejoined, with a leer of contempt, and -spat on the floor, while yet the furtive watchfulness of the eyes -indicated a mind ill at ease. - -Smoke came in placid puffs from the cheroot--Rawley was smoking very -hard, but with a judicial meditation, as it seemed. - -"Yes, but if you want a thing so bad that, to get it, you'll face the -devil or the Beast of Revelations, it's likely to come to you." - -"You call me a beast?" The reddish-brown face grew black like that of a -Bedouin in his rage. - -"I said the Beast of Revelations--don't you know the Scriptures?" - -"I know that a fool is to be answered according to his folly," was the -hoarse reply, and the great head wagged to and fro in its smarting rage. - -"Well, I'm doing my best; and perhaps when the folly is all out, we'll -come to the revelations of the Beast." There was a silence, in which the -gross impostor shifted heavily in his seat, while a hand twitched across -the mouth, and then caught at the breast of the threadbare black coat -abstractedly. - -Rawley leaned forward, one elbow on a knee, the cheroot in his fingers. -He spoke almost confidentially, as to some ignorant and misguided savage ---as he had talked to Indian chiefs in his time, when searching for the -truth regarding some crime: - -"I've had a lot of revelations in my time. A lawyer and a doctor always -do. And though there are folks who say I'm no lawyer, as there are those -who say with greater truth that you're no doctor, speaking technically, -we've both had 'revelations.' You've seen a lot that's seamy, and so -have I. You're pretty seamy yourself. In fact, you're as bad a man as -ever saved lives--and lost them. You've had a long tether, and you've -swung on it--swung wide. But you've had a lot of luck that you haven't -swung high, too." - -He paused and flicked away the ash from his cheroot, while the figure -before him swayed animal-like from side to side, muttering. - -"You've got brains, a great lot of brains of a kind--however you came by -them," Rawley continued; "and you've kept a lot of people in the West -from passing in their cheques before their time. You've rooked 'em, -chiselled 'em out of a lot of cash, too. There was old Lamson--fifteen -hundred for the goitre on his neck; and Mrs. Gilligan for the cancer--two -thousand, wasn't it? Tincture of Lebanon leaves you called the medicine, -didn't you? You must have made fifty thousand or so in the last ten -years." - -"What I've made I'll keep," was the guttural answer, and the talon-like -fingers clawed the table. - -"You've made people pay high for curing them, saving them sometimes; but -you haven't paid me high for saving you in the courts; and there's one -case that you haven't paid me for at all. That was when the patient -died--and you didn't." - -The face of the old man became mottled with a sudden fear, but he jerked -it forwards once or twice with an effort at self-control. Presently he -steadied to the ordeal of suspense, while he kept saying to himself, -"What does he know--what--which?" - -"Malpractice resulting in death--that was poor Jimmy Tearle; and -something else resulting in death--that was the switchman's wife. And -the law is hard in the West where a woman's in the case--quick and hard. -Yes, you've swung wide on your tether; look out that you don't swing -high, old man." - -"You can prove nothing; it's bluff;" came the reply in a tone of malice -and of fear. - -"You forget. I was your lawyer in Jimmy Tearle's case, and a letter's -been found written by the switchman's wife to her husband. It reached me -the night he was killed by the avalanche. It was handed over to me by -the post-office, as the lawyer acting for the relatives. I've read it. -I've got it. It gives you away." - -"I wasn't alone." Fear had now disappeared, and the old man was -fighting. - -"No, you weren't alone; and if the switchman and the switchman's wife -weren't dead and out of it all; and if the other man that didn't matter -any more than you wasn't alive and hadn't a family that does matter, -I wouldn't be asking you peaceably for two thousand dollars as my fee for -getting you off two cases that might have sent you to prison for twenty -years, or, maybe, hung you to the nearest tree." - -The heavy body pulled itself together, the hands clinched. "Blackmail- -you think I'll stand it?" - -"Yes, I think you will. I want two thousand dollars to help a friend in -a hole, and I mean to have it, if you think your neck's worth it." - -Teeth, wonderfully white, showed through the shaggy beard. "If I had to -go to prison--or swing, as you say, do you think I'd go with my mouth -shut? I'd not pay up alone. The West would crack--holy Heaven, I know -enough to make it sick. Go on and see! I've got the West in my hand." -He opened and shut his fingers with a grimace of cruelty which shook -Rawley in spite of himself. - -Rawley had trusted to the inspiration of the moment; he had had no -clearly defined plan; he had believed that he could frighten the old man, -and by force of will bend him to his purposes. It had all been more -difficult than he had expected. He kept cool, imperturbable, and -determined, however. He knew that what the old quack said was true--the -West might shake with scandal concerning a few who, no doubt, in remorse -and secret fear, had more than paid the penalty of their offences. But -he thought of Di Welldon and of her criminal brother, and every nerve, -every faculty was screwed to its utmost limit of endurance and capacity. - -Suddenly the old man gave a new turn to the event. He got up and, -rummaging in an old box, drew out a dice-box. Rattling the dice, he -threw them out on the table before him, a strange, excited look crossing -his face. - -"Play for it," he said in a harsh, croaking voice. "Play for the two -thousand. Win it if you can. You want it bad. I want to keep it bad. -It's nice to have; it makes a man feel warm--money does. I'd sleep in -ten-dollar bills, I'd have my clothes made of them, if I could; I'd have -my house papered with them; I'd eat 'em. Oh, I know, I know about you-- -and her--Diana Welldon! You've sworn off gambling, and you've kept your -pledge for near a year. Well, it's twenty years since I gambled--twenty -years. I gambled with these then." He shook the dice in the box. "I -gambled everything I had away--more than two thousand dollars, more than -two thousand dollars." He laughed a raw, mirthless laugh. "Well, you're -the greatest gambler in the West. So was I-in the East. It pulverised -me at last, when I'd nothing left--and drink, drink, drink. I gave up -both one night and came out West. - -"I started doctoring here. I've got money, plenty of money--medicine, -mines, land got it for me. I've been lucky. Now you come to bluff me-- -me! You don't know old Busby." He spat on the floor. "I'm not to be -bluffed. I know too much. Before they could lynch me I'd talk. But to -play you, the greatest gambler in the West, for two thousand dollars-- -yes, I'd like the sting of it again. Twos, fours, double-sixes--the -gentleman's game!" He rattled the dice and threw them with a flourish -out on the table, his evil face lighting up. "Come! You can't have -something for nothing," he growled. - -As he spoke, a change came over Rawley's face. It lost its cool -imperturbability, it grew paler, the veins on the fine forehead stood -out, a new, flaring light came into the eyes. The old gambler's spirit -was alive. But even as it rose, sweeping him into that area of fiery -abstraction where every nerve is strung to a fine tension, and the -surrounding world disappears, he saw the face of Diana Welldon, he -remembered her words to him not an hour before, and the issue of the -conflict, other considerations apart, was without doubt. But there was -her brother and his certain fate, if the two thousand dollars were not -paid in by midnight. He was desperate. It was in reality for Diana's -sake. He approached the table, and his old calm returned. - -"I have no money to play with," he said quietly. With a gasp of -satisfaction, the old man fumbled in the inside of his coat and drew out -layers of ten, fifty, and hundred-dollar bills. It was lined with them. -He passed a pile over to Rawley--two thousand dollars. He placed a -similar pile before himself. - -As Rawley laid his hand on the bills, the thought rushed through his -mind, "You have it--keep it!" but he put it away from him. With a -gentleman he might have done it, with this man before him, it was -impossible. He must take his chances; and it was the only chance in -which he had hope now, unless he appealed for humanity's sake, for the -girl's sake, and told the real truth. It might avail. Well, that would -be the last resort. - -"For small stakes?" said the grimy quack in a gloating voice. - -Rawley nodded and then added, "We stop at eleven o'clock, unless I've -lost or won all before that." - -"And stake what's left on the last throw?" - -"Yes." - -There was silence for a moment, in which Rawley seemed to grow older, and -a set look came to his mouth--a broken pledge, no matter what the cause, -brings heavy penalties to the honest mind. He shut his eyes for an -instant, and, when he opened them, he saw that his fellow-gambler was -watching him with an enigmatical and furtive smile. Did this Caliban -have some understanding of what was at stake in his heart and soul? - -"Play!" Rawley said sharply, and was himself again. For hour after hour -there was scarce a sound, save the rattle of the dice and an occasional -exclamation from the old man as he threw a double-six. As dusk fell, the -door had been shut, and a lighted lantern was hung over their heads. - -Fortune had fluctuated. Once the old man's pile had diminished to two -notes, then the luck had changed and his pile grew larger; then fell -again; but, as the hands of the clock on the wall above the blue medicine -bottles reached a quarter to eleven, it increased steadily throw after -throw. - -Now the player's fever was in Rawley's eyes. His face was deadly pale, -but his hand threw steadily, calmly, almost negligently, as it might -seem. All at once, at eight minutes to eleven, the luck turned in his -favour, and his pile mounted again. Time after time he dropped double- -sixes. It was almost uncanny. He seemed to see the dice in the box, and -his hand threw them out with the precision of a machine. Long afterwards -he had this vivid illusion that he could see the dice in the box. As the -clock was about to strike eleven he had before him three thousand eight -hundred dollars. It was his throw. - -"Two hundred," he said in a whisper, and threw. He won. - -With a gasp of relief, he got to his feet, the money in his hand. He -stepped backward from the table, then staggered, and a faintness passed -over him. He had sat so long without moving that his legs bent under -him. There was a pail of water with a dipper in it on a bench. He -caught up a dipperful of water, drank it empty, and let it fall in the -pail again with a clatter. - -"Dan," he said abstractedly, "Dan, you're all safe now." - -Then he seemed to wake, as from a dream, and looked at the man at the -table. Busby was leaning on it with both hands, and staring at Rawley -like some animal jaded and beaten from pursuit. Rawley walked back to -the table and laid down two thousand dollars. - -"I only wanted two thousand," he said, and put the other two thousand in -his pocket. - -The evil eyes gloated, the long fingers clutched the pile, and swept it -into a great inside pocket. Then the shaggy head bent forwards. - -"You said it was for Dan," he said--"Dan Welldon?" - -Rawley hesitated. "What is that to you?" he replied at last. - -With a sudden impulse the old impostor lurched round, opened a box, drew -out a roll, and threw it on the table. - -"It's got to be known sometime," he said, "and you'll be my lawyer when -I'm put into the ground--you're clever. They call me a quack. -Malpractice--bah! There's my diploma--James Clifton Welldon. Right -enough, isn't it?" - -Rawley was petrified. He knew the forgotten story of James Clifton -Welldon, the specialist, turned gambler, who had almost ruined his own -brother--the father of Dan and Diana--at cards and dice, and had then -ruined himself and disappeared. Here, where his brother had died, he had -come years ago, and practised medicine as a quack. - -"Oh, there's plenty of proof, if it's wanted!" he said. "I've got it -here." He tapped the box behind him. "Why did I do it? Because it's my -way. And you're going to marry my niece, and 'll have it all some day. -But not till I've finished with it--not unless you win it from me at dice -or cards. . . . But no"--something human came into the old, -degenerate face--"no more gambling for the man that's to marry Diana. -There's a wonder and a beauty!" He chuckled to himself. "She'll be rich -when I've done with it. You're a lucky man--ay, you're lucky." - -Rawley was about to tell the old man what the two thousand dollars was -for, but a fresh wave of repugnance passed over him, and, hastily -drinking another dipperful of water, he opened the door. He looked back. -The old man was crouching forward, lapping milk from the great bowl, his -beard dripping. In disgust he swung round again. The fresh, clear air -caught his face. - -With a gasp of relief he stepped out into the night, closing the door -behind him. - - - - -ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: - -Don't go at a fence till you're sure of your seat -The real business of life is trying to understand each other -You've got blind rashness, and so you think you're bold - - - - - - -ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS FOR THE ENTIRE "NORTHERN LIGHTS": - -Babbling covers a lot of secrets -Being a man of very few ideas, he cherished those he had -Beneath it all there was a little touch of ridicule -Don't go at a fence till you're sure of your seat -Even bad company's better than no company at all -Future of those who will not see, because to see is to suffer -I like when I like, and I like a lot when I like -I don't think. I'm old enough to know -It ain't for us to say what we're goin' to be, not always -Knew when to shut his eyes, and when to keep them open -Nothing so popular for the moment as the fall of a favourite -Self-will, self-pride, and self-righteousness were big in him -That he will find the room empty where I am not -The temerity and nonchalance of despair -The real business of life is trying to understand each other -Things in life git stronger than we are -Tyranny of the little man, given a power -We don't live in months and years, but just in minutes -What'll be the differ a hundred years from now -You've got blind rashness, and so you think you're bold - - - - - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NORTHERN LIGHTS, ENTIRE, BY PARKER *** - -*********** This file should be named gp19w10.txt or gp19w10.zip ************ - -Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, gp19w11.txt -VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, gp19w10a.txt - -This eBook was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net> - -Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed -editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US -unless a copyright notice is included. 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You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - - -Title: Northern Lights, Complete - -Author: Gilbert Parker - -Release Date: October 17, 2006 [EBook #6191] -Last Updated: August 26, 2016 - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NORTHERN LIGHTS, COMPLETE *** - - - -Produced by David Widger - - - - - -NORTHERN LIGHTS, Complete - -By Gilbert Parker - - - - CONTENTS - - Volume 1. - A LODGE IN THE WILDERNESS - ONCE AT RED MAN’S RIVER - THE STROKE OF THE HOUR - BUCKMASTER’S BOY - - Volume 2. - TO-MORROW - QU’APPELLE - THE STAKE AND THE PLUMB-LINE - - Volume 3. - WHEN THE SWALLOWS HOMEWARD FLY - GEORGE’S WIFE - MARCILE - - Volume 4. - A MAN, A FAMINE, AND A HEATHEN BOY - THE HEALING SPRINGS AND THE PIONEERS - THE LITTLE WIDOW OF JANSEN - WATCHING THE RISE OF ORION - - Volume 5. - THE ERROR OF THE DAY - THE WHISPERER - AS DEEP AS THE SEA - - - - -INTRODUCTION - -This book, Northern Lights, belongs to an epoch which is a generation -later than that in which Pierre and His People moved. The conditions -under which Pierre and Shon McGann lived practically ended with the -advent of the railway. From that time forwards, with the rise of towns -and cities accompanied by an amazing growth of emigration, the whole -life lost much of that character of isolation and pathetic loneliness -which marked the days of Pierre. When, in 1905, I visited the Far West -again after many years, and saw the strange new life with its modern -episode, energy, and push, and realised that even the characteristics -which marked the period just before the advent, and just after the -advent, of the railway were disappearing, I determined to write a series -of stories which would catch the fleeting characteristics and hold -something of the old life, so adventurous, vigorous, and individual, -before it passed entirely and was forgotten. Therefore, from 1905 to -1909, I kept drawing upon all those experiences of others, from the -true tales that had been told me, upon the reminiscences of Hudson’s -Bay trappers and hunters, for those incidents natural to the West which -imagination could make true. Something of the old atmosphere had gone, -and there was a stir and a murmur in all the West which broke that grim -yet fascinating loneliness of the time of Pierre. - -Thus it is that Northern Lights is written in a wholly different style -from that of Pierre and His People, though here and there, as for -instance in A Lodge in the Wilderness, Once at Red Man’s River, The -Stroke of the Hour, Qu’appelle, and Marcile, the old note sounds, and -something of the poignant mystery, solitude, and big primitive incident -of the earlier stories appears. I believe I did well--at any rate for -myself and my purposes--in writing this book, and thus making the human -narrative of the Far West and North continuous from the time of the -sixties onwards. So have I assured myself of the rightness of my -intention, that I shall publish a novel presently which will carry on -this human narrative of the West into still another stage-that of the -present, when railways are intersecting each other, when mills and -factories are being added to the great grain elevators in the West, and -when hundreds and thousands of people every year are moving across the -plains where, within my own living time, the buffalo ranged in their -millions, and the red men, uncontrolled, set up their tepees. - - - - -NOTE - -The tales in this book belong to two different epochs in the life of the -Far West. The first five are reminiscent of “border days and deeds”--of -days before the great railway was built which changed a waste into a -fertile field of civilisation. The remaining stories cover the period -passed since the Royal North-West Mounted Police and the Pullman car -first startled the early pioneer, and sent him into the land of the -farther North, or drew him into the quiet circle of civic routine and -humdrum occupation. - -G. P. - - - - - -A LODGE IN THE WILDERNESS - -“Hai--Yai, so bright a day, so clear!” said Mitiahwe as she entered the -big lodge and laid upon a wide, low couch, covered with soft skins, the -fur of a grizzly which had fallen to her man’s rifle. “Hai-yai, I -wish it would last for ever--so sweet!” she added, smoothing the fur -lingeringly, and showing her teeth in a smile. - -“There will come a great storm, Mitiahwe. See, the birds go south so -soon,” responded a deep voice from a corner by the doorway. - -The young Indian wife turned quickly, and, in a defiant fantastic -mood--or was it the inward cry against an impending fate, the tragic -future of those who will not see, because to see is to suffer?--she -made some quaint, odd motions of the body which belonged to a mysterious -dance of her tribe, and, with flashing eyes, challenged the comely old -woman seated on a pile of deer-skins. - -“It is morning, and the day will last for ever,” she said nonchalantly, -but her eyes suddenly took on a faraway look, half apprehensive, half -wondering. The birds were indeed going south very soon, yet had there -ever been so exquisite an autumn as this, had her man ever had so -wonderful a trade--her man with the brown hair, blue eyes, and fair, -strong face? - -“The birds go south, but the hunters and buffalo still go north,” - Mitiahwe urged searchingly, looking hard at her mother--Oanita, the -Swift Wing. - -“My dream said that the winter will be dark and lonely, that the ice -will be thick, the snow deep, and that many hearts will be sick because -of the black days and the hunger that sickens the heart,” answered Swift -Wing. - -Mitiahwe looked into Swift Wing’s dark eyes, and an anger came upon her. -“The hearts of cowards will freeze,” she rejoined, “and to those that -will not see the sun the world will be dark,” she added. Then suddenly -she remembered to whom she was speaking, and a flood of feeling ran -through her; for Swift Wing had cherished her like a fledgeling in the -nest till her young white man came from “down East.” Her heart had leapt -up at sight of him, and she had turned to him from all the young men of -her tribe, waiting in a kind of mist till he, at last, had spoken to -her mother, and then one evening, her shawl over her head, she had come -along to his lodge. - -A thousand times as the four years passed by she had thought how good -it was that she had become his wife--the young white man’s wife, rather -than the wife of Breaking Rock, son of White Buffalo, the chief, who -had four hundred horses, and a face that would have made winter and -sour days for her. Now and then Breaking Rock came and stood before the -lodge, a distance off, and stayed there hour after hour, and once or -twice he came when her man was with her; but nothing could be done, -for earth and air and space were common to them all, and there was no -offence in Breaking Rock gazing at the lodge where Mitiahwe lived. Yet -it seemed as though Breaking Rock was waiting--waiting and hoping. -That was the impression made upon all who saw him, and even old White -Buffalo, the chief, shook his head gloomily when he saw Breaking Rock, -his son, staring at the big lodge which was so full of happiness, and -so full also of many luxuries never before seen at a trading post on -the Koonce River. The father of Mitiahwe had been chief, but because his -three sons had been killed in battle the chieftainship had come to White -Buffalo, who was of the same blood and family. There were those who said -that Mitiahwe should have been chieftainess; but neither she nor her -mother would ever listen to this, and so White Buffalo, and the tribe -loved Mitiahwe because of her modesty and goodness. She was even more to -White Buffalo than Breaking Rock, and he had been glad that Dingan the -white man--Long Hand he was called--had taken Mitiahwe for his woman. -Yet behind this gladness of White Buffalo, and that of Swift Wing, and -behind the silent watchfulness of Breaking Rock, there was a thought -which must ever come when a white man mates with an Indian maid, without -priest or preacher, or writing, or book, or bond. - -Yet four years had gone; and all the tribe, and all who came and went, -half-breeds, traders, and other tribes, remarked how happy was the white -man with his Indian wife. They never saw anything but light in the eyes -of Mitiahwe, nor did the old women of the tribe who scanned her face as -she came and went, and watched and waited too for what never came--not -even after four years. - -Mitiahwe had been so happy that she had not really missed what never -came; though the desire to have something in her arms which was part of -them both had flushed up in her veins at times, and made her restless -till her man had come home again. Then she had forgotten the unseen for -the seen, and was happy that they two were alone together--that was the -joy of it all, so much alone together; for Swift Wing did not live with -them, and, like Breaking Rock, she watched her daughter’s life, standing -afar off, since it was the unwritten law of the tribe that the wife’s -mother must not cross the path or enter the home of her daughter’s -husband. But at last Dingan had broken through this custom, and insisted -that Swift Wing should be with her daughter when he was away from home, -as now on this wonderful autumn morning, when Mitiahwe had been singing -to the Sun, to which she prayed for her man and for everlasting days -with him. - -She had spoken angrily but now, because her soul sharply resented the -challenge to her happiness which her mother had been making. It was -her own eyes that refused to see the cloud, which the sage and bereaved -woman had seen and conveyed in images and figures of speech natural to -the Indian mind. - -“Hai-yai,” she said now, with a strange touching sigh breathing in the -words, “you are right, my mother, and a dream is a dream; also, if it be -dreamt three times, then is it to be followed, and it is true. You have -lived long, and your dreams are of the Sun and the Spirit.” She shook a -little as she laid her hand on a buckskin coat of her man hanging by the -lodge-door; then she steadied herself again, and gazed earnestly into -her mother’s eyes. “Have all your dreams come true, my mother?” she -asked with a hungering heart. “There was the dream that came out of -the dark five times, when your father went against the Crees, and -was wounded, and crawled away into the hills, and all our warriors -fled--they were but a handful, and the Crees like a young forest in -number! I went with my dream, and found him after many days, and it was -after that you were born, my youngest and my last. There was also”--her -eyes almost closed, and the needle and thread she held lay still in her -lap--“when two of your brothers were killed in the drive of the buffalo. -Did I not see it all in my dream, and follow after them to take them -to my heart? And when your sister was carried off, was it not my dream -which saw the trail, so that we brought her back again to die in peace, -her eyes seeing the Lodge whither she was going, open to her, and the -Sun, the Father, giving her light and promise--for she had wounded -herself to die that the thief who stole her should leave her to herself. -Behold, my daughter, these dreams have I had, and others; and I have -lived long and have seen the bright day break into storm, and the herds -flee into the far hills where none could follow, and hunger come, and--” - -“Hai-yo, see, the birds flying south,” said the girl with a gesture -towards the cloudless sky. “Never since I lived have they gone south so -soon.” Again she shuddered slightly, then she spoke slowly: “I also have -dreamed, and I will follow my dream. I dreamed”--she knelt down beside -her mother, and rested her hands in her mother’s lap--“I dreamed that -there was a wall of hills dark and heavy and far away, and that whenever -my eyes looked at them they burned with tears; and yet I looked and -looked, till my heart was like lead in my breast; and I turned from them -to the rivers and the plains that I loved. But a voice kept calling to -me, ‘Come, come! Beyond the hills is a happy land. The trail is hard, -and your feet will bleed, but beyond is the happy land.’ And I would -not go for the voice that spoke, and at last there came an old man in my -dream and spoke to me kindly, and said, ‘Come with me, and I will show -thee the way over the hills to the Lodge where thou shalt find what thou -hast lost.’ And I said to him, ‘I have lost nothing;’ and I would not -go. Twice I dreamed this dream, and twice the old man came, and three -times I dreamed it; and then I spoke angrily to him, as but now I did -to thee; and behold he changed before my eyes, and I saw that he was -now become--” she stopped short, and buried her face in her hands for a -moment, then recovered herself--“Breaking Rock it was, I saw before me, -and I cried out and fled. Then I waked with a cry, but my man was beside -me, and his arm was round my neck; and this dream, is it not a foolish -dream, my mother?” - -The old woman sat silent, clasping the hands of her daughter firmly, -and looking out of the wide doorway towards the trees that fringed the -river; and presently, as she looked, her face changed and grew pinched -all at once, and Mitiahwe, looking at her, turned a startled face -towards the river also. - -“Breaking Rock!” she said in alarm, and got to her feet quickly. - -Breaking Rock stood for a moment looking towards the lodge, then came -slowly forward to them. Never in all the four years had he approached -this lodge of Mitiahwe, who, the daughter of a chief, should have -married himself, the son of a chief! Slowly but with long slouching -stride Breaking Rock came nearer. The two women watched him without -speaking. Instinctively they knew that he brought news, that something -had happened; yet Mitiahwe felt at her belt for what no Indian -girl would be without; and this one was a gift from her man, on the -anniversary of the day she first came to his lodge. - -Breaking Rock was at the door now, his beady eyes fixed on Mitiahwe’s, -his figure jerked to its full height, which made him, even then, two -inches less than Long Hand. He spoke in a loud voice: - -“The last boat this year goes down the river tomorrow. Long Hand, your -man, is going to his people. He will not come back. He has had enough of -the Blackfoot woman. You will see him no more.” He waved a hand to the -sky. “The birds are going south. A hard winter is coming quick. You will -be alone. Breaking Rock is rich. He has five hundred horses. Your man is -going to his own people. Let him go. He is no man. It is four years, and -still there are but two in your lodge. How!” - -He swung on his heel with a chuckle in his throat, for he thought he had -said a good thing, and that in truth he was worth twenty white men. His -quick ear caught a movement behind him, however, and he saw the girl -spring from the lodge door, something flashing from her belt. But now -the mother’s arms were round her, with cries of protest, and Breaking -Rock, with another laugh, slipped away swiftly toward the river. - -“That is good,” he muttered. “She will kill him perhaps, when she goes -to him. She will go, but he will not stay. I have heard.” - -As he disappeared among the trees Mitiahwe disengaged herself from her -mother’s arms, went slowly back into the lodge, and sat down on the -great couch where, for so many moons, she had lain with her man beside -her. - -Her mother watched her closely, though she moved about doing little -things. She was trying to think what she would have done if such a thing -had happened to her, if her man had been going to leave her. She assumed -that Dingan would leave Mitiahwe, for he would hear the voices of his -people calling far away, even as the red man who went East into the -great cities heard the prairies and the mountains and the rivers and -his own people calling, and came back, and put off the clothes of -civilisation, and donned his buckskins again, and sat in the Medicine -Man’s tent, and heard the spirits speak to him through the mist and -smoke of the sacred fire. When Swift Wing first gave her daughter to the -white man she foresaw the danger now at hand, but this was the tribute -of the lower race to the higher, and--who could tell! White men had left -their Indian wives, but had come back again, and for ever renounced -the life of their own nations, and become great chiefs, teaching -useful things to their adopted people, bringing up their children as -tribesmen--bringing up their children! There it was, the thing which -called them back, the bright-eyed children with the colour of the brown -prairie in their faces, and their brains so sharp and strong. But here -was no child to call Dingan back, only the eloquent, brave, sweet face -of Mitiahwe.... If he went! Would he go? Was he going? And now that -Mitiahwe had been told that he would go, what would she do? In her belt -was--but, no, that would be worse than all, and she would lose Mitiahwe, -her last child, as she had lost so many others. What would she herself -do if she were in Mitiahwe’s place? Ah, she would make him stay -somehow--by truth or by falsehood; by the whispered story in the long -night, by her head upon his knee before the lodge-fire, and her eyes -fixed on his, luring him, as the Dream lures the dreamer into the far -trail, to find the Sun’s hunting-ground where the plains are filled -with the deer and the buffalo and the wild horse; by the smell of the -cooking-pot and the favourite spiced drink in the morning; by the child -that ran to him with his bow and arrows and the cry of the hunter--but -there was no child; she had forgotten. She was always recalling her own -happy early life with her man, and the clean-faced papooses that crowded -round his knee--one wife and many children, and the old Harvester of the -Years reaping them so fast, till the children stood up as tall as -their father and chief. That was long ago, and she had had her -share--twenty-five years of happiness; but Mitiahwe had had only four. -She looked at Mitiahwe, standing still for a moment like one rapt, then -suddenly she gave a little cry. Something had come into her mind, some -solution of the problem, and she ran and stooped over the girl and put -both hands on her head. - -“Mitiahwe, heart’s blood of mine,” she said, “the birds go south, but -they return. What matter if they go so soon, if they return soon. If the -Sun wills that the winter be dark, and he sends the Coldmaker to close -the rivers and drive the wild ones far from the arrow and the gun, -yet he may be sorry, and send a second summer--has it not been so, and -Coldmaker has hurried away--away! The birds go south, but they will -return, Mitiahwe.” - -“I heard a cry in the night while my man slept,” Mitiahwe answered, -looking straight before her, “and it was like the cry of a bird-calling, -calling, calling.” - -“But he did not hear--he was asleep beside Mitiahwe. If he did not wake, -surely it was good luck. Thy breath upon his face kept him sleeping. -Surely it was good luck to Mitiahwe that he did not hear.” - -She was smiling a little now, for she had thought of a thing which -would, perhaps, keep the man here in this lodge in the wilderness; but -the time to speak of it was not yet. She must wait and see. - -Suddenly Mitiahwe got to her feet with a spring, and a light in her -eyes. “Hai-yai!” she said with plaintive smiling, ran to a corner of the -lodge, and from a leather bag drew forth a horse-shoe and looked at it, -murmuring to herself. - -The old woman gazed at her wonderingly. “What is it, Mitiahwe?” she -asked. - -“It is good-luck. So my man has said. It is the way of his people. It is -put over the door, and if a dream come it is a good dream; and if a bad -thing come, it will not enter; and if the heart prays for a thing hid -from all the world, then it brings good-luck. Hai-yai! I will put it -over the door, and then--” All at once her hand dropped to her side, as -though some terrible thought had come to her, and, sinking to the -floor, she rocked her body backward and forward for a time, sobbing. -But presently she got to her feet again, and, going to the door of the -lodge, fastened the horseshoe above it with a great needle and a string -of buckskin. - -“Oh great Sun,” she prayed, “have pity on me and save me! I cannot live -alone. I am only a Blackfoot wife; I am not blood of his blood. Give, O -great one, blood of his blood, bone of his bone, soul of his soul, that -he will say, This is mine, body of my body, and he will hear the cry and -will stay. O great Sun, pity me!” The old woman’s heart beat faster as -she listened. The same thought was in the mind of both. If there were -but a child, bone of his bone, then perhaps he would not go; or, if he -went, then surely he would return, when he heard his papoose calling in -the lodge in the wilderness. - -As Mitiahwe turned to her, a strange burning light in her eyes, Swift -Wing said: “It is good. The white man’s Medicine for a white man’s wife. -But if there were the red man’s Medicine too--” - -“What is the red man’s Medicine?” asked the young wife, as she smoothed -her hair, put a string of bright beads around her neck, and wound a red -sash round her waist. - -The old woman shook her head, a curious half-mystic light in her eyes, -her body drawn up to its full height, as though waiting for something. -“It is an old Medicine. It is of winters ago as many as the hairs of the -head. I have forgotten almost, but it was a great Medicine when there -were no white men in the land. And so it was that to every woman’s -breast there hung a papoose, and every woman had her man, and the red -men were like leaves in the forest--but it was a winter of winters ago, -and the Medicine Men have forgotten; and thou hast no child! When Long -Hand comes, what will Mitiahwe say to him?” - -Mitiahwe’s eyes were determined, her face was set, she flushed deeply, -then the colour fled. “What my mother would say, I will say. Shall the -white man’s Medicine fail? If I wish it, then it will be so: and I will -say so.” - -“But if the white man’s Medicine fail?”--Swift Wing made a gesture -toward the door where the horse-shoe hung. “It is Medicine for a white -man, will it be Medicine for an Indian?” - -“Am I not a white man’s wife?” - -“But if there were the Sun Medicine also, the Medicine of the days long -ago?” - -“Tell me. If you remember--Kai! but you do remember--I see it in your -face. Tell me, and I will make that Medicine also, my mother.” - -“To-morrow, if I remember it--I will think, and if I remember it, -to-morrow I will tell you, my heart’s blood. Maybe my dream will come to -me and tell me. Then, even after all these years, a papoose--” - -“But the boat will go at dawn to-morrow, and if he go also--” - -“Mitiahwe is young, her body is warm, her eyes are bright, the songs she -sings, her tongue--if these keep him not, and the Voice calls him still -to go, then still Mitiahwe shall whisper, and tell him--” - -“Hai-yo-hush,” said the girl, and trembled a little, and put both hands -on her mother’s mouth. - -For a moment she stood so, then with an exclamation suddenly turned and -ran through the doorway, and sped toward the river, and into the path -which would take her to the post, where her man traded with the Indians -and had made much money during the past six years, so that he could have -had a thousand horses and ten lodges like that she had just left. The -distance between the lodge and the post was no more than a mile, but -Mitiahwe made a detour, and approached it from behind, where she could -not be seen. Darkness was gathering now, and she could see the glimmer -of the light of lamps through the windows, and as the doors opened and -shut. No one had seen her approach, and she stole through a door which -was open at the rear of the warehousing room, and went quickly to -another door leading into the shop. There was a crack through which she -could see, and she could hear all that was said. As she came she had -seen Indians gliding through the woods with their purchases, and now -the shop was clearing fast, in response to the urging of Dingan and his -partner, a Scotch half-breed. It was evident that Dingan was at once -abstracted and excited. - -Presently only two visitors were left, a French halfbreed call Lablache, -a swaggering, vicious fellow, and the captain of the steamer, Ste. Anne, -which was to make its last trip south in the morning--even now it would -have to break its way through the young ice. Dingan’s partner dropped -a bar across the door of the shop, and the four men gathered about the -fire. For a time no one spoke. At last the captain of the Ste. Anne -said: “It’s a great chance, Dingan. You’ll be in civilisation again, and -in a rising town of white people--Groise ‘ll be a city in five years, -and you can grow up and grow rich with the place. The Company asked me -to lay it all before you, and Lablache here will buy out your share of -the business, at whatever your partner and you prove its worth. You’re -young; you’ve got everything before you. You’ve made a name out here for -being the best trader west of the Great Lakes, and now’s your time. It’s -none of my affair, of course, but I like to carry through what I’m set -to do, and the Company said, ‘You bring Dingan back with you. The place -is waiting for him, and it can’t wait longer than the last boat down.’ -You’re ready to step in when he steps out, ain’t you, Lablache?” - -Lablache shook back his long hair, and rolled about in his pride. “I -give him cash for his share to-night someone is behin’ me, share, yes! -It is worth so much, I pay and step in--I take the place over. I take -half the business here, and I work with Dingan’s partner. I take your -horses, Dingan, I take you lodge, I take all in your lodge--everyt’ing.” - -His eyes glistened, and a red spot came to each cheek as he leaned -forward. At his last word Dingan, who had been standing abstractedly -listening, as it were, swung round on him with a muttered oath, and the -skin of his face appeared to tighten. Watching through the crack of -the door, Mitiahwe saw the look she knew well, though it had never been -turned on her, and her heart beat faster. It was a look that came into -Dingan’s face whenever Breaking Rock crossed his path, or when one or -two other names were mentioned in his presence, for they were names of -men who had spoken of Mitiahwe lightly, and had attempted to be jocular -about her. - -As Mitiahwe looked at him, now unknown to himself, she was conscious -of what that last word of Lablache’s meant. Everyt’ing meant herself. -Lablache--who had neither the good qualities of the white man nor the -Indian, but who had the brains of the one and the subtilty of the other, -and whose only virtue was that he was a successful trader, though he -looked like a mere woodsman, with rings in his ears, gaily decorated -buckskin coat and moccasins, and a furtive smile always on his -lips! Everyt’ing!--Her blood ran cold at the thought of dropping the -lodge-curtain upon this man and herself alone. For no other man than -Dingan had her blood run faster, and he had made her life blossom. She -had seen in many a half-breed’s and in many an Indian’s face the look -which was now in that of Lablache, and her fingers gripped softly the -thing in her belt that had flashed out on Breaking Rock such a short -while ago. As she looked, it seemed for a moment as though Dingan would -open the door and throw Lablache out, for in quick reflection his eyes -ran from the man to the wooden bar across the door. - -“You’ll talk of the shop, and the shop only, Lablache,” Dingan said -grimly. “I’m not huckstering my home, and I’d choose the buyer if I was -selling. My lodge ain’t to be bought, nor anything in it--not even -the broom to keep it clean of any half-breeds that’d enter it without -leave.” - -There was malice in the words, but there was greater malice in the tone, -and Lablache, who was bent on getting the business, swallowed his ugly -wrath, and determined that, if he got the business, he would get the -lodge also in due time; for Dingan, if he went, would not take the -lodge-or the woman with him; and Dingan was not fool enough to stay when -he could go to Groise to a sure fortune. - -The captain of the Ste. Anne again spoke. “There’s another thing the -Company said, Dingan. You needn’t go to Groise, not at once. You can -take a month and visit your folks down East, and lay in a stock of -home-feelings before you settle down at Groise for good. They was -fair when I put it to them that you’d mebbe want to do that. ‘You tell -Dingan,’ they said, ‘that he can have the month glad and grateful, and a -free ticket on the railway back and forth. He can have it at once,’ they -said.” - -Watching, Mitiahwe could see her man’s face brighten, and take on a look -of longing at this suggestion; and it seemed to her that the bird she -heard in the night was calling in his ears now. Her eyes went blind a -moment. - -“The game is with you, Dingan. All the cards are in your hands; you’ll -never get such another chance again; and you’re only thirty,” said the -captain. - -“I wish they’d ask me,” said Dingan’s partner with a sigh, as he looked -at Lablache. “I want my chance bad, though we’ve done well here--good -gosh, yes, all through Dingan.” - -“The winters, they go queeck in Groise,” said Lablache. “It is life all -the time, trade all the time, plenty to do and see--and a bon fortune to -make, bagosh!” - -“Your old home was in Nove Scotia, wasn’t it, Dingan?” asked the captain -in a low voice. “I kem from Connecticut, and I was East to my village -las’ year. It was good seein’ all my old friends again; but I kem back -content, I kem back full of home-feelin’s and content. You’ll like the -trip, Dingan. It’ll do you good.” Dingan drew himself up with a start. -“All right. I guess I’ll do it. Let’s figure up again,” he said to his -partner with a reckless air. - -With a smothered cry Mitiahwe turned and fled into the darkness, and -back to the lodge. The lodge was empty. She threw herself upon the great -couch in an agony of despair. - -A half-hour went by. Then she rose, and began to prepare supper. Her -face was aflame, her manner was determined, and once or twice her hand -went to her belt, as though to assure herself of something. - -Never had the lodge looked so bright and cheerful; never had she -prepared so appetising a supper; never had the great couch seemed so -soft and rich with furs, so homelike and so inviting after a long day’s -work. Never had Mitiahwe seemed so good to look at, so graceful and -alert and refined--suffering does its work even in the wild woods, with -“wild people.” Never had the lodge such an air of welcome and peace -and home as to-night; and so Dingan thought as he drew aside the wide -curtains of deerskin and entered. - -Mitiahwe was bending over the fire and appeared not to hear him. -“Mitiahwe,” he said gently. - -She was singing to herself to an Indian air the words of a song Dingan -had taught her: - - “Open the door: cold is the night, and my feet are heavy, - Heap up the fire, scatter upon it the cones and the scented leaves; - Spread the soft robe on the couch for the chief that returns, - Bring forth the cup of remembrance--” - -It was like a low recitative, and it had a plaintive cadence, as of a -dove that mourned. - -“Mitiahwe,” he said in a louder voice, but with a break in it too; for -it all rushed upon him, all that she had been to him--all that had made -the great West glow with life, made the air sweeter, the grass greener, -the trees more companionable and human: who it was that had given the -waste places a voice. Yet--yet, there were his own people in the East, -there was another life waiting for him, there was the life of ambition -and wealth, and, and home--and children. - -His eyes were misty as she turned to him with a little cry of surprise, -how much natural and how much assumed--for she had heard him enter--it -would have been hard to say. She was a woman, and therefore the daughter -of pretence even when most real. He caught her by both arms as she shyly -but eagerly came to him. “Good girl, good little girl,” he said. He -looked round him. “Well, I’ve never seen our lodge look nicer than it -does to-night; and the fire, and the pot on the fire, and the smell of -the pine-cones, and the cedar-boughs, and the skins, and--” - -“And everything,” she said, with a queer little laugh, as she moved -away again to turn the steaks on the fire. Everything! He started at the -word. It was so strange that she should use it by accident, when but a -little while ago he had been ready to choke the wind out of a man’s body -for using it concerning herself. - -It stunned him for a moment, for the West, and the life apart from the -world of cities, had given him superstition, like that of the Indians, -whose life he had made his own. - -Herself--to leave her here, who had been so much to him? As true as the -sun she worshipped, her eyes had never lingered on another man since she -came to his lodge; and, to her mind, she was as truly sacredly married -to him as though a thousand priests had spoken, or a thousand Medicine -Men had made their incantations. She was his woman and he was her man. -As he chatted to her, telling her of much that he had done that day, -and wondering how he could tell her of all he had done, he kept looking -round the lodge, his eye resting on this or that; and everything had its -own personal history, had become part of their lodge-life, because it -had a use as between him and her, and not a conventional domestic place. -Every skin, every utensil, every pitcher and bowl and pot and curtain, -had been with them at one time or another, when it became of importance -and renowned in the story of their days and deeds. - -How could he break it to her--that he was going to visit his own people, -and that she must be alone with her mother all winter, to await his -return in the spring? His return? As he watched her sitting beside him, -helping him to his favourite dish, the close, companionable trust and -gentleness of her, her exquisite cleanness and grace in his eyes, he -asked himself if, after all, it was not true that he would return in -the spring. The years had passed without his seriously thinking of this -inevitable day. He had put it off and off, content to live each hour as -it came and take no real thought for the future; and yet, behind all was -the warning fact that he must go one day, and that Mitiahwe could not go -with him. Her mother must have known that when she let Mitiahwe come to -him. Of course; and, after all, she would find another mate, a better -mate, one of her own people. - -But her hand was in his now, and it was small and very warm, and -suddenly he shook with anger at the thought of one like Breaking Rock -taking her to his wigwam; or Lablache--this roused him to an inward -fury; and Mitiahwe saw and guessed the struggle that was going on in -him, and she leaned her head against his shoulder, and once she raised -his hand to her lips, and said, “My chief!” - -Then his face cleared again, and she got him his pipe and filled it, and -held a coal to light it; and, as the smoke curled up, and he leaned -back contentedly for the moment, she went to the door, drew open the -curtains, and, stepping outside, raised her eyes to the horseshoe. Then -she said softly to the sky: “O Sun, great Father, have pity on me, for -I love him, and would keep him. And give me bone of his bone, and one -to nurse at my breast that is of him. O Sun, pity me this night, and be -near me when I speak to him, and hear what I say!” - -“What are you doing out there, Mitiahwe?” Dingan cried; and when she -entered again he beckoned her to him. “What was it you were saying? Who -were you speaking to?” he asked. “I heard your voice.” - -“I was thanking the Sun for his goodness to me. I was speaking for the -thing that is in my heart, that is life of my life,” she added vaguely. - -“Well, I have something to say to you, little girl,” he said, with an -effort. - -She remained erect before him waiting for the blow--outwardly calm, -inwardly crying out in pain. “Do you think you could stand a little -parting?” he asked, reaching out and touching her shoulder. - -“I have been alone before--for five days,” she answered quietly. - -“But it must be longer this time.” - -“How long?” she asked, with eyes fixed on his. “If it is more than a -week I will go too.” - -“It is longer than a month,” he said. “Then I will go.” - -“I am going to see my people,” he faltered. - -“By the Ste. Anne?” - -He nodded. “It is the last chance this year; but I will come back--in -the spring.” - -As he said it he saw her shrink, and his heart smote him. Four years -such as few men ever spent, and all the luck had been with him, and the -West had got into his bones! The quiet, starry nights, the wonderful -days, the hunt, the long journeys, the life free of care, and the warm -lodge; and, here, the great couch--ah, the cheek pressed to his, the -lips that whispered at his ear, the smooth arm round his neck. It -all rushed upon him now. His people? His people in the East, who had -thwarted his youth, vexed and cramped him, saw only evil in his widening -desires, and threw him over when he came out West--the scallywag, -they called him, who had never wronged a man or-or a woman! -Never--wronged-a-woman? The question sprang to his lips now. Suddenly -he saw it all in a new light. White or brown or red, this heart and soul -and body before him were all his, sacred to him; he was in very truth -her “Chief.” - -Untutored as she was, she read him, felt what was going on in him. She -saw the tears spring to his eyes. Then, coming close to him she said -softly, slowly: “I must go with you if you go, because you must be with -me when--oh, hai-yai, my chief, shall we go from here? Here in this -lodge wilt thou be with thine own people--thine own, thou and I--and -thine to come.” The great passion in her heart made the lie seem very -truth. - -With a cry he got to his feet, and stood staring at her for a moment, -scarcely comprehending; then suddenly he clasped her in his arms. - -“Mitiahwe--Mitiahwe, oh, my little girl!” he cried. “You and me--and our -own--our own people!” Kissing her, he drew her down beside him on the -couch. “Tell me again--it is so at last?” he said, and she whispered in -his ear once more. - -In the middle of the night he said to her, “Some day, perhaps, we will -go East--some day, perhaps.” - -“But now?” she asked softly. - -“Not now--not if I know it,” he answered. “I’ve got my heart nailed to -the door of this lodge.” - -As he slept she got quietly out, and, going to the door of the lodge, -reached up a hand and touched the horse-shoe. - -“Be good Medicine to me,” she said. Then she prayed. “O Sun, pity me -that it may be as I have said to him. O pity me, great Father!” - -In the days to come Swift Wing said that it was her Medicine; when her -hand was burned to the wrist in the dark ritual she had performed -with the Medicine Man the night that Mitiahwe fought for her man--but -Mitiahwe said it was her Medicine, the horse-shoe, which brought one of -Dingan’s own people to the lodge, a little girl with Mitiahwe’s eyes and -form and her father’s face. Truth has many mysteries, and the faith of -the woman was great; and so it was that, to the long end, Mitiahwe kept -her man. But truly she was altogether a woman, and had good fortune. - - - - -ONCE AT RED MAN’S RIVER - -“It’s got to be settled to-night, Nance. This game is up here, up for -ever. The redcoat police from Ottawa are coming, and they’ll soon be -roostin’ in this post; the Injuns are goin’, the buffaloes are most -gone, and the fur trade’s dead in these parts. D’ye see?” - -The woman did not answer the big, broad-shouldered man bending over her, -but remained looking into the fire with wide, abstracted eyes and a face -somewhat set. - -“You and your brother Bantry’s got to go. This store ain’t worth a -cent now. The Hudson’s Bay Company’ll come along with the redcoats, and -they’ll set up a nice little Sunday-school business here for what they -call ‘agricultural settlers.’ There’ll be a railway, and the Yankees’ll -send up their marshals to work with the redcoats on the border, and--” - -“And the days of smuggling will be over,” put in the girl in a low -voice. “No more bull-wackers and muleskinners ‘whooping it up’; no -more Blackfeet and Piegans drinking alcohol and water, and cutting each -others’ throats. A nice quiet time coming on the border, Abe, eh?” - -The man looked at her queerly. She was not prone to sarcasm, she had not -been given to sentimentalism in the past; she had taken the border-life -as it was, had looked it straight between the eyes. She had lived up to -it, or down to it, without any fuss, as good as any man in any phase of -the life, and the only white woman in this whole West country. It was -not in the words, but in the tone, that Abe Hawley found something -unusual and defamatory. - -“Why, gol darn it, Nance, what’s got into you? You bin a man out West, -as good a pioneer as ever was on the border. But now you don’t sound -friendly to what’s been the game out here, and to all of us that’ve been -risking our lives to get a livin’.” - -“What did I say?” asked the girl, unmoved. - -“It ain’t what you said, it’s the sound o’ your voice.” - -“You don’t know my voice, Abe. It ain’t always the same. You ain’t -always about; you don’t always hear it.” - -He caught her arm suddenly. “No, but I want to hear it always. I want -to be always where you are, Nance. That’s what’s got to be settled -to-day--to-night.” - -“Oh, it’s got to be settled to-night!” said the girl meditatively, -kicking nervously at a log on the fire. “It takes two to settle a thing -like that, and there’s only one says it’s got to be settled. Maybe it -takes more than two--or three--to settle a thing like that.” Now she -laughed mirthlessly. - -The man started, and his face flushed with anger; then he put a hand on -himself, drew a step back, and watched her. - -“One can settle a thing, if there’s a dozen in it. You see, Nance, -you and Bantry’s got to close out. He’s fixing it up to-night over at -Dingan’s Drive, and you can’t go it alone when you quit this place. Now, -it’s this way: you can go West with Bantry, or you can go North with -me. Away North there’s buffalo and deer, and game aplenty, up along the -Saskatchewan, and farther up on the Peace River. It’s going to be all -right up there for half a lifetime, and we can have it in our own way -yet. There’ll be no smuggling, but there’ll be trading, and land to get; -and, mebbe, there’d be no need of smuggling, for we can make it, I know -how--good white whiskey--and we’ll still have this free life for our -own. I can’t make up my mind to settle down to a clean collar and going -to church on Sundays, and all that. And the West’s in your bones too. -You look like the West--” - -The girl’s face brightened with pleasure, and she gazed at him steadily. - -“You got its beauty and its freshness, and you got its heat and cold--” - -She saw the tobacco-juice stain at the corners of his mouth, she became -conscious of the slight odour of spirits in the air, and the light in -her face lowered in intensity. - -“You got the ways of the deer in your walk, the song o’ the birds in -your voice; and you’re going North with me, Nance, for I bin talkin’ -to you stiddy four years. It’s a long time to wait on the chance, for -there’s always women to be got, same as others have done--men like -Dingan with Injun girls, and men like Tobey with half-breeds. But I -ain’t bin lookin’ that way. I bin lookin’ only towards you.” He laughed -eagerly, and lifted a tin cup of whiskey standing on a table near. “I’m -lookin’ towards you now, Nance. Your health and mine together. It’s got -to be settled now. You got to go to the ‘Cific Coast with Bantry, or -North with me.” - -The girl jerked a shoulder and frowned a little. He seemed so sure of -himself. - -“Or South with Nick Pringle, or East with someone else,” she said -quizzically. “There’s always four quarters to the compass, even when Abe -Hawley thinks he owns the world and has a mortgage on eternity. I’m not -going West with Bantry, but there’s three other points that’s open.” - -With an oath the man caught her by the shoulders, and swung her round to -face him. He was swelling with anger. “You--Nick Pringle, that trading -cheat, that gambler! After four years, I--” - -“Let go my shoulders,” she said quietly. “I’m not your property. Go and -get some Piegan girl to bully. Keep your hands off. I’m not a bronco -for you to bit and bridle. You’ve got no rights. You--” Suddenly she -relented, seeing the look in his face, and realising that, after all, -it was a tribute to herself that she could keep him for four years -and rouse him to such fury--“but yes, Abe,” she added, “you have some -rights. We’ve been good friends all these years, and you’ve been all -right out here. You said some nice things about me just now, and I -liked it, even if it was as if you learned it out of a book. I’ve got -no po’try in me; I’m plain homespun. I’m a sapling, I’m not any -prairie-flower, but I like when I like, and I like a lot when I like. -I’m a bit of hickory, I’m not a prairie-flower--” - -“Who said you was a prairie-flower? Did I? Who’s talking about -prairie-flowers--” - -He stopped suddenly, turned round at the sound of a footstep behind him, -and saw, standing in a doorway leading to another room, a man who -was digging his knuckles into his eyes and stifling a yawn. He was a -refined-looking stripling of not more than twenty-four, not tall, but -well made, and with an air of breeding, intensified rather than hidden -by his rough clothes. - -“Je-rick-ety! How long have I slept?” he said, blinking at the two -beside the fire. “How long?” he added, with a flutter of anxiety in his -tone. - -“I said I’d wake you,” said the girl, coming forwards. “You needn’t have -worried.” - -“I don’t worry,” answered the young man. “I dreamed myself awake, I -suppose. I got dreaming of redcoats and U. S. marshals, and an ambush -in the Barfleur Coulee, and--” He saw a secret, warning gesture from the -girl, and laughed, then turned to Abe and looked him in the face. “Oh, I -know him! Abe Hawley’s all O. K.--I’ve seen him over at Dingan’s Drive. -Honour among rogues. We’re all in it. How goes it--all right?” he added -carelessly to Hawley, and took a step forwards, as though to shake -hands. Seeing the forbidding look by which he was met, however, he -turned to the girl again, as Hawley muttered something they could not -hear. - -“What time is it?” he asked. - -“It’s nine o’clock,” answered the girl, her eyes watching his every -movement, her face alive. - -“Then the moon’s up almost?” - -“It’ll be up in an hour.” - -“Jerickety! Then I’ve got to get ready.” He turned to the other room -again and entered. - -“College pup!” said Hawley under his breath savagely. “Why didn’t you -tell me he was here?” - -“Was it any of your business, Abe?” she rejoined quietly. - -“Hiding him away here--” - -“Hiding? Who’s been hiding him? He’s doing what you’ve done. He’s -smuggling--the last lot for the traders over by Dingan’s Drive. He’ll -get it there by morning. He has as much right here as you. What’s got -into you, Abe?” - -“What does he know about the business? Why, he’s a college man from the -East. I’ve heard o’ him. Ain’t got no more sense for this life than a -dicky-bird. White-faced college pup! What’s he doing out here? If you’re -a friend o’ his, you’d better look after him. He’s green.” - -“He’s going East again,” she said, “and if I don’t go West with Bantry, -or South over to Montana with Nick Pringle, or North--” - -“Nancy--” His eyes burned, his lips quivered. - -She looked at him and wondered at the power she had over this bully of -the border, who had his own way with most people, and was one of the -most daring fighters, hunters, and smugglers in the country. He was -cool, hard, and well-in-hand in his daily life, and yet, where she was -concerned, “went all to pieces,” as someone else had said about himself -to her. - -She was not without the wiles and tact of her sex. “You go now, and come -back, Abe,” she said in a soft voice. “Come back in an hour. Come back -then, and I’ll tell you which way I’m going from here.” - -He was all right again. “It’s with you, Nancy,” he said eagerly. “I bin -waiting four years.” - -As he closed the door behind him the “college pup” entered the room -again. “Oh, Abe’s gone!” he said excitedly. “I hoped you’d get rid of -the old rip-roarer. I wanted to be alone with you for a while. I -don’t really need to start yet. With the full moon I can do it before -daylight.” Then, with quick warmth, “Ah, Nancy, Nancy, you’re a -flower--the flower of all the prairies,” he added, catching her hand and -laughing into her eyes. - -She flushed, and for a moment seemed almost bewildered. His boldness, -joined to an air of insinuation and understanding, had influenced her -greatly from the first moment they had met two months ago, as he was -going South on his smuggling enterprise. The easy way in which he had -talked to her, the extraordinary sense he seemed to have of what was -going on in her mind, the confidential meaning in voice and tone and -words had, somehow, opened up a side of her nature hitherto unexplored. -She had talked with him freely then, for it was only when he left her -that he said what he instinctively knew she would remember till they -met again. His quick comments, his indirect but acute questions, -his exciting and alluring reminiscences of the East, his subtle yet -seemingly frank compliments, had only stimulated a new capacity in her, -evoked comparisons of this delicate-looking, fine-faced gentleman with -the men of the West by whom she was surrounded. But later he appeared to -stumble into expressions of admiration for her, as though he was carried -off his feet and had been stunned by her charm. He had done it all -like a master. He had not said that she was beautiful--she knew she was -not--but that she was wonderful, and fascinating, and with “something -about her” he had never seen in all his life, like her own prairies, -thrilling, inspiring, and adorable. His first look at her had seemed -full of amazement. She had noticed that, and thought it meant only that -he was surprised to find a white girl out here among smugglers, hunters, -squaw-men, and Indians. But he said that the first look at her had made -him feel things-feel life and women different from ever before; and he -had never seen anyone like her, nor a face with so much in it. It was -all very brilliantly done. - -“You make me want to live,” he had said, and she, with no knowledge of -the nuances of language, had taken it literally, and had asked him if -it had been his wish to die; and he had responded to her mistaken -interpretation of his meaning, saying that he had had such sorrow he had -not wanted to live. As he said it his face looked, in truth, overcome -by some deep inward care; so that there came a sort of feeling she had -never had so far for any man--that he ought to have someone to look -after him. This was the first real stirring of the maternal and -protective spirit in her towards men, though it had shown itself amply -enough regarding animals and birds. He had said he had not wanted to -live, and yet he had come out West in order to try and live, to cure the -trouble that had started in his lungs. The Eastern doctors had told him -that the rough outdoor life would cure him, or nothing would, and he had -vanished from the college walls and the pleasant purlieus of learning -and fashion into the wilds. He had not lied directly to her when he said -that he had had deep trouble; but he had given the impression that he -was suffering from wrongs which had broken his spirit and ruined -his health. Wrongs there certainly had been in his life, by whomever -committed. - -Two months ago he had left this girl with her mind full of memories of -what he had said to her, and there was something in the sound of the -slight cough following his farewell words which had haunted her ever -since. Her tremendous health and energy, the fire of life burning so -brightly in her, reached out towards this man living on so narrow a -margin of force, with no reserve for any extra strain, with just enough -for each day’s use and no more. Four hours before he had come again with -his team of four mules and an Indian youth, having covered forty miles -since his last stage. She was at the door and saw him coming while he -was yet along distance off. Some instinct had told her to watch that -afternoon, for she knew of his intended return and of his dangerous -enterprise. The Indians had trailed south and east, the traders had -disappeared with them, her brother Bantry had gone up and over to -Dingan’s Drive, and, save for a few loiterers and last hangers-on, she -was alone with what must soon be a deserted post; its walls, its great -enclosed yard, and its gun-platforms (for it had been fortified) left -for law and order to enter upon, in the persons of the red-coated -watchmen of the law. - -Out of the South, from over the border, bringing the last great smuggled -load of whiskey which was to be handed over at Dingan’s Drive, and then -floated on Red Man’s River to settlements up North, came the “college -pup,” Kelly Lambton, worn out, dazed with fatigue, but smiling too, for -a woman’s face was ever a tonic to his blood since he was big enough to -move in life for himself. It needed courage--or recklessness--to run the -border now; for, as Abe Hawley had said, the American marshals were on -the pounce, the red-coated mounted police were coming west from Ottawa, -and word had winged its way along the prairie that these redcoats were -only a few score miles away, and might be at Fort Fair Desire at any -moment. The trail to Dingan’s Drive lay past it. Through Barfleur -Coulee, athwart a great open stretch of country, along a wooded belt, -and then, suddenly, over a ridge, Dingan’s Drive and Red Man’s River -would be reached. - -The Government had a mind to make an example, if necessary, by killing -some smugglers in conflict, and the United States marshals had been -goaded by vanity and anger at one or two escapes “to have something for -their money,” as they said. That, in their language, meant, “to let the -red run,” and Kelly Lambton had none too much blood to lose. - -He looked very pale and beaten as he held Nance Machell’s hands now, and -called her a prairie-flower, as he had done when he left her two months -before. On his arrival but now he had said little, for he saw that she -was glad to see him, and he was dead for sleep, after thirty-six hours -of ceaseless travel and watching and danger. Now, with the most perilous -part of his journey still before him, and worn physically as he was, -his blood was running faster as he looked into the girl’s face, and -something in her abundant force and bounding life drew him to her. Such -vitality in a man like Abe Hawley would have angered him almost, as it -did a little time ago, when Abe was there; but possessed by the girl, it -roused in him a hunger to draw from the well of her perfect health, from -the unused vigour of her being, something for himself. The touch of her -hands warmed him, in the fulness of her life, in the strong eloquence -of face and form, he forgot she was not beautiful. The lightness passed -from his words, and his face became eager. - -“Flower, yes, the flower of the life of the West--that’s what I mean,” - he said. “You are like an army marching. When I look at you, my blood -runs faster. I want to march too. When I hold your hand I feel that -life’s worth living--I want to do things.” - -She drew her hand away rather awkwardly. She had not now that command -of herself which had ever been easy with the men of the West, except, -perhaps, with Abe Hawley when-- - -But with an attempt, only half-meant, to turn the topic, she said: “You -must be starting if you want to get through to-night. If the redcoats -catch you this side of Barfleur Coulee, or in the Coulee itself, -you’ll stand no chance. I heard they was only thirty miles north this -afternoon. Maybe they’ll come straight on here to-night, instead of -camping. If they have news of your coming, they might. You can’t tell.” - -“You’re right.” He caught her hand again. “I’ve got to be going now. But -Nance--Nance--Nancy, I want to stay here, here with you; or to take you -with me.” - -She drew back. “What do you mean?” she asked. “Take me with -you--me--where?” - -“East--away down East.” - -Her brain throbbed, her pulses beat so hard. She scarcely knew what to -say, did not know what she said. “Why do you do this kind of thing? Why -do you smuggle?” she asked. “You wasn’t brought up to this.” - -“To get this load of stuff through is life and death to me,” he -answered. “I’ve made six thousand dollars out here. That’s enough to -start me again in the East, where I lost everything. But I’ve got to -have six hundred dollars clear for the travel--railways and things; and -I’m having this last run to get it. Then I’ve finished with the West, I -guess. My health’s better; the lung is closed up, I’ve only got a little -cough now and again; and I’m off East. I don’t want to go alone.” - He suddenly caught her in his arms. “I want you--you, to go with me, -Nancy--Nance!” - -Her brain swam. To leave the West behind, to go East to a new life -full of pleasant things, as this man’s wife! Her great heart rose, and -suddenly the mother in her as well as the woman in her was captured by -his wooing. She had never known what it was to be wooed like this. - -She was about to answer, when there came a sharp knock at the door -leading from the backyard, and Lambton’s Indian lad entered. “The -soldier--he come--many. I go over the ridge; I see. They come quick -here,” he said. - -Nance gave a startled cry, and Lambton turned to the other room for his -pistols, overcoat, and cap, when there was the sound of horses’ hoofs, -the door suddenly opened, and an officer stepped inside. - -“You’re wanted for smuggling, Lambton,” he said brusquely. “Don’t stir!” - In his hand was a revolver. - -“Oh, bosh! Prove it,” answered the young man, pale and startled, but -cool in speech and action. “We’ll prove it all right. The stuff is -hereabouts.” The girl said something to the officer in the Chinook -language. She saw he did not understand. Then she spoke quickly to -Lambton in the same tongue. - -“Keep him here a bit,” she said. “His men haven’t come yet. Your outfit -is well hid. I’ll see if I can get away with it before they find it. -They’ll follow, and bring you with them, that’s sure. So if I have luck -and get through, we’ll meet at Dingan’s Drive.” - -Lambton’s face brightened. He quickly gave her a few directions in -Chinook, and told her what to do at Dingan’s if she got there first. -Then she was gone. The officer did not understand what Nance had said, -but he realised that, whatever she intended to do, she had an advantage -over him. With an unnecessary courage he had ridden on alone to make his -capture, and, as it proved, without prudence. He had got his man, but he -had not got the smuggled whiskey and alcohol he had come to seize. There -was no time to be lost. The girl had gone before he realised it. What -had she said to the prisoner? He was foolish enough to ask Lambton, and -Lambton replied coolly: “She said she’d get you some supper, but she -guessed it would have to be cold--What’s your name? Are you a colonel, -or a captain, or only a principal private?” - -“I am Captain MacFee, Lambton. And you’ll now bring me where your outfit -is. March!” - -The pistol was still in his hand, and he had a determined look in -his eye. Lambton saw it. He was aware of how much power lay in the -threatening face before him, and how eager that power was to make itself -felt, and provide “Examples”; but he took his chances. - -“I’ll march all right,” he answered, “but I’ll march to where you tell -me. You can’t have it both ways. You can take me, because you’ve found -me, and you can take my outfit too when you’ve found it; but I’m not -doing your work, not if I know it.” - -There was a blaze of anger in the eyes of the officer, and it looked -for an instant as though something of the lawlessness of the border -was going to mark the first step of the Law in the Wilderness, but -he bethought himself in time, and said quietly, yet in a voice which -Lambton knew he must heed: - -“Put on your things-quick.” - -When this was accomplished, and MacFee had secured the smuggler’s -pistols, he said again, “March, Lambton.” - -Lambton marched through the moonlit night towards the troop of men who -had come to set up the flag of order in the plains and hills, and as he -went his keen ear heard his own mules galloping away down towards -the Barfleur Coulee. His heart thumped in his breast. This girl, this -prairie-flower, was doing this for him, was risking her life, was -breaking the law for him. If she got through, and handed over the -whiskey to those who were waiting for it, and it got bundled into the -boats going North before the redcoats reached Dingan’s Drive, it would -be as fine a performance as the West had ever seen; and he would be six -hundred dollars to the good. He listened to the mules galloping, till -the sounds had died into the distance, but he saw now that his captor -had heard too, and that the pursuit would be desperate. - -A half-hour later it began, with MacFee at the head, and a dozen -troopers pounding behind, weary, hungry, bad-tempered, ready to exact -payment for their hardships and discouragement. - -They had not gone a dozen miles when a shouting horseman rode furiously -on them from behind. They turned with carbines cocked, but it was Abe -Hawley who cursed them, flung his fingers in their faces, and rode on -harder and harder. Abe had got the news from one of Nancy’s half-breeds, -and, with the devil raging in his heart, had entered on the chase. -His spirit was up against them all; against the Law represented by the -troopers camped at Fort Fair Desire, against the troopers and their -captain speeding after Nancy Machell--his Nonce, who was risking her -life and freedom for the hated, pale-faced smuggler riding between the -troopers; and his spirit was up against Nance herself. - -Nance had said to him, “Come back in an hour,” and he had come back to -find her gone. She had broken her word. She had deceived him. She had -thrown the four years of his waiting to the winds, and a savage lust -was in his heart, which would not be appeased till he had done some evil -thing to someone. - -The girl and the Indian lad were pounding through the night with ears -strained to listen for hoof-beats coming after, with eyes searching -forward into the trail for swollen creeks and direful obstructions. -Through Barfleur Coulee it was a terrible march, for there was no road, -and again and again they were nearly overturned, while wolves hovered -in their path, ready to reap a midnight harvest. But once in the open -again, with the full moonlight on their trail, the girl’s spirits rose. -If she could do this thing for the man who had looked into her eyes as -no one had ever done, what a finish to her days in the West! For they -were finished, finished for ever, and she was going--she was going East; -not West with Bantry, nor South with Nick Pringle, nor North with Abe -Hawley, ah, Abe Hawley, he had been a good friend, he had a great heart, -he was the best man of all the western men she had known; but another -man had come from the East, a man who had roused something in her never -felt before, a man who had said she was wonderful; and he needed someone -to take good care of him, to make him love life again. Abe would have -been all right if Lambton had never come, and she had meant to marry Abe -in the end; but it was different now, and Abe must get over it. Yet she -had told Abe to come back in an hour. He was sure to do it; and, when -he had done it, and found her gone on this errand, what would he do? She -knew what he would do. He would hurt someone. He would follow too. But -at Dingan’s Drive, if she reached it before the troopers and before Abe, -and did the thing she had set out to do; and, because no whiskey could -be found, Lambton must go free; and they all stood there together, what -would be the end? Abe would be terrible; but she was going East, not -North, and when the time came she would face it and put things right -somehow. - -The night seemed endless to her fixed and anxious eyes and mind, yet -dawn came, and there had fallen no sound of hoof-beats on her ear. The -ridge above Dingan’s Drive was reached and covered, but yet there was -no sign of her pursuers. At Red Man’s River she delivered her load of -contraband to the traders waiting for it, and saw it loaded into the -boats and disappear beyond the wooded bend above Dingan’s. - -Then she collapsed into the arms of her brother Bantry, and was carried, -fainting, into Dingan’s Lodge. A half-hour later MacFee and his troopers -and Lambton came. MacFee grimly searched the post and the shore, but -he saw by the looks of all that he had been foiled. He had no proof of -anything, and Lambton must go free. - -“You’ve fooled us,” he said to Nance sourly, yet with a kind of -admiration too. “Through you they got away with it. But I wouldn’t try -it again, if I were you.” - -“Once is enough,” answered the girl laconically, as Lambton, set free, -caught both her hands in his and whispered in her ear. - -MacFee turned to the others. “You’d better drop this kind of thing,” - he said. “I mean business.” They saw the troopers by the horses, and -nodded. - -“Well, we was about quit of it anyhow,” said Bantry. “We’ve had all we -want out here.” - -A loud laugh went up, and it was still ringing when there burst into the -group, out of the trail, Abe Hawley, on foot. - -He looked round the group savagely till his eyes rested on Nance and -Lambton. “I’m last in,” he said in a hoarse voice. “My horse broke its -leg cutting across to get here before her--” He waved a hand towards -Nance. “It’s best stickin’ to old trails, not tryin’ new ones.” His eyes -were full of hate as he looked at Lambton. “I’m keeping to old -trails. I’m for goin’ North, far up, where these two-dollar-a-day and -hash-and-clothes people ain’t come yet.” He made a contemptuous gesture -toward MacFee and his troopers. “I’m goin’ North--” He took a step -forward and fixed his bloodshot eyes on Nance. “I say I’m goin’ North. -You comin’ with me, Nance?” He took off his cap to her. - -He was haggard, his buckskins were torn, his hair was dishevelled, and -he limped a little; but he was a massive and striking figure, and MacFee -watched him closely, for there was that in his eyes which meant trouble. -“You said, ‘Come back in an hour,’ Nance, and I come back, as I said I -would,” he went on. “You didn’t stand to your word. I’ve come to git it. -I’m goin’ North, Nance, and I bin waitin’ for four years for you to go -with me. Are you comin’?” - -His voice was quiet, but it had a choking kind of sound, and it struck -strangely in the ears of all. MacFee came nearer. - -“Are you comin’ with me, Nance, dear?” - -She reached a hand towards Lambton, and he took it, but she did not -speak. Something in Abe’s eyes overwhelmed her--something she had -never seen before, and it seemed to stifle speech in her. Lambton spoke -instead. - -“She’s going East with me,” he said. “That’s settled.” - -MacFee started. Then he caught Abe’s arm. “Wait!” he said peremptorily. -“Wait one minute.” There was something in his voice which held Abe back -for the instant. - -“You say she is going East with you,” MacFee said sharply to Lambton. -“What for?” He fastened Lambton with his eyes, and Lambton quailed. -“Have you told her you’ve got a wife--down East? I’ve got your history, -Lambton. Have you told her that you’ve got a wife you married when you -were at college--and as good a girl as ever lived?” - -It had come with terrible suddenness even to Lambton, and he was too -dazed to make any reply. With a cry of shame and anger Nancy started -back. Growling with rage and hate, Abe Hawley sprang toward Lambton, but -the master of the troopers stepped between. - -No one could tell who moved first, or who first made the suggestion, -for the minds of all were the same, and the general purpose was -instantaneous; but in the fraction of a minute Lambton, under menace, -was on his hands and knees crawling to the riverside. Watchful, but not -interfering, the master of the troopers saw him set adrift in a canoe -without a paddle, while he was pelted with mud from the shore. - -The next morning at sunrise Abe Hawley and the girl he had waited for so -long started on the North trail together, MacFee, master of the troopers -and justice of the peace, handing over the marriage lines. - - - - -THE STROBE OF THE HOUR - -“They won’t come to-night--sure.” - -The girl looked again towards the west, where, here and there, bare -poles, or branches of trees, or slips of underbrush marked a road made -across the plains through the snow. The sun was going down golden red, -folding up the sky a wide soft curtain of pink and mauve and deep purple -merging into the fathomless blue, where already the stars were beginning -to quiver. The house stood on the edge of a little forest, which had -boldly asserted itself in the wide flatness. At this point in the west -the prairie merged into an undulating territory, where hill and wood -rolled away from the banks of the Saskatchewan, making another England -in beauty. The forest was a sort of advance-post of that land of beauty. - -Yet there was beauty too on this prairie, though there was nothing to -the east but snow and the forest so far as eye could see. Nobility and -peace and power brooded over the white world. - -As the girl looked, it seemed as though the bosom of the land rose and -fell. She had felt this vibrating life beat beneath the frozen surface. -Now, as she gazed, she smiled sadly to herself, with drooping eyelids -looking out from beneath strong brows. - -“I know you--I know you,” she said aloud. “You’ve got to take your toll. -And when you’re lying asleep like that, or pretending to, you reach -up-and kill. And yet you can be kind-ah, but you can be kind and -beautiful! But you must have your toll one way or t’other.” She sighed -and paused; then, after a moment, looking along the trail--“I don’t -expect they’ll come to-night, and mebbe not to-morrow, if--if they stay -for THAT.” - -Her eyes closed, she shivered a little. Her lips drew tight, and her -face seemed suddenly to get thinner. “But dad wouldn’t--no, he couldn’t, -not considerin’--” Again she shut her eyes in pain. - -Her face was now turned from the western road by which she had expected -her travellers, and towards the east, where already the snow was taking -on a faint bluish tint, a reflection of the sky deepening nightwards -in that half-circle of the horizon. Distant and a little bleak and -cheerless the half-circle was looking now. - -“No one--not for two weeks,” she said, in comment on the eastern trail, -which was so little frequented in winter, and this year had been less -travelled than ever. “It would be nice to have a neighbour,” she added, -as she faced the west and the sinking sun again. “I get so lonely--just -minutes I get lonely. But it’s them minutes that seem to count more than -all the rest when they come. I expect that’s it--we don’t live in months -and years, but just in minutes. It doesn’t take long for an earthquake -to do its work--it’s seconds then.... P’r’aps dad won’t even come -to-morrow,” she added, as she laid her hand on the latch. “It never -seemed so long before, not even when he’s been away a week.” She laughed -bitterly. “Even bad company’s better than no company at all. Sure. And -Mickey has been here always when dad’s been away past times. Mickey was -a fool, but he was company; and mebbe he’d have been better company if -he’d been more of a scamp and less a fool. I dunno, but I really think -he would. Bad company doesn’t put you off so.” - -There was a scratching at the inside of the door. “My, if I didn’t -forget Shako,” she said, “and he dying for a run!” - -She opened the door quickly, and out jumped a Russian dog of almost full -breed, with big, soft eyes like those of his mistress, and with the air -of the north in every motion--like his mistress also. - -“Come, Shako, a run--a run!” - -An instant after she was flying off on a path towards the woods, her -short skirts flying and showing limbs as graceful and shapely as those -of any woman of that world of social grace which she had never seen; for -she was a prairie girl through and through, born on the plains and -fed on its scanty fare--scanty as to variety, at least. Backwards and -forwards they ran, the girl shouting like a child of ten,--she was -twenty-three, her eyes flashing, her fine white teeth showing, her hands -thrown up in sheer excess of animal life, her hair blowing about her -face-brown, strong hair, wavy and plentiful. - -Fine creature as she was, her finest features were her eyes and her -hands. The eyes might have been found in the most savage places; the -hands, however, only could have come through breeding. She had got them -honestly; for her mother was descended from an old family of the French -province. That was why she had the name of Loisette--and had a touch of -distinction. It was the strain of the patrician in the full blood of the -peasant; but it gave her something which made her what she was--what she -had been since a child, noticeable and besought, sometimes beloved. It -was too strong a nature to compel love often, but it never failed to -compel admiration. Not greatly a creature of words, she had become moody -of late; and even now, alive with light and feeling and animal life, she -suddenly stopped her romp and run, and called the dog to her. - -“Heel, Shako!” she said, and made for the door of the little house, -which looked so snug and home-like. She paused before she came to the -door, to watch the smoke curling up from the chimney straight as a -column, for there was not a breath of air stirring. The sun was almost -gone and the strong bluish light was settling on everything, giving even -the green spruce trees a curious burnished tone. - -Swish! Thud! She faced the woods quickly. It was only a sound that she -had heard how many hundreds of times! It was the snow slipping from -some broad branch of the fir trees to the ground. Yet she started -now. Something was on her mind, agitating her senses, affecting her -self-control. - -“I’ll be jumping out of my boots when the fire snaps, or the frost -cracks the ice, next,” she said aloud contemptuously. “I dunno what’s -the matter with me. I feel as if someone was hiding somewhere ready to -pop out on me. I haven’t never felt like that before.” - -She had formed the habit of talking to herself, for it had seemed at -first, as she was left alone when her father went trapping or upon -journeys for the Government, that by and by she would start at the -sound of her own voice, if she didn’t think aloud. So she was given to -soliloquy, defying the old belief that people who talked to themselves -were going mad. She laughed at that. She said that birds sang to -themselves and didn’t go mad, and crickets chirruped, and frogs croaked, -and owls hooted, and she would talk and not go crazy either. So she -talked to herself and to Shako when she was alone. - -How quiet it was inside when her light supper was eaten, bread and beans -and pea-soup--she had got this from her French mother. Now she sat, her -elbows on her knees, her chin on her hands, looking into the fire. Shako -was at her feet upon the great musk-ox rug, which her father had got on -one of his hunting trips in the Athabasca country years ago. It belonged -as she belonged. It breathed of the life of the north-land, for the -timbers of the hut were hewn cedar; the rough chimney, the seats, and -the shelves on which a few books made a fair show beside the bright tins -and the scanty crockery, were of pine; and the horned heads of deer and -wapiti made pegs for coats and caps, and rests for guns and rifles. It -was a place of comfort; it had an air of well-to-do thrift, even as the -girl’s dress, though plain, was made of good sound stuff, grey, with a -touch of dark red to match the auburn of her hair. - -A book lay open in her lap, but she had scarcely tried to read it. -She had put it down after a few moments fixed upon it. It had sent her -thoughts off into a world where her life had played a part too big for -books, too deep for the plummet of any save those who had lived through -the storm of life’s trials; and life when it is bitter to the young is -bitter with an agony the old never know. At last she spoke to herself. - -“She knows now. Now she knows what it is, how it feels--your heart like -red-hot coals, and something in your head that’s like a turnscrew, and -you want to die and can’t, for you’ve got to live and suffer.” - -Again she was quiet, and only the dog’s heavy breathing, the snap of the -fire, or the crack of a timber in the deadly frost broke the silence. -Inside it was warm and bright and home-like; outside it was twenty -degrees below zero, and like some vast tomb where life itself was -congealed, and only the white stars, low, twinkling, and quizzical, -lived-a life of sharp corrosion, not of fire. - -Suddenly she raised her head and listened. The dog did the same. None -but those whose lives are lived in lonely places can be so acute, so -sensitive to sound. It was a feeling delicate and intense, the whole -nature getting the vibration. You could have heard nothing had you been -there; none but one who was of the wide spaces could have done so. But -the dog and the woman felt, and both strained towards the window. Again -they heard, and started to their feet. It was far, far away, and still -you could not have heard; but now they heard clearly--a cry in the -night, a cry of pain and despair. The girl ran to the window and pulled -aside the bearskin curtain which had completely shut out the light. Then -she stirred the fire, threw a log upon it, snuffed the candles, hastily -put on her moccasins, fur coat, wool cap, and gloves, and went to the -door quickly, the dog at her heels. Opening it, she stepped out into the -night. - -“Qui va la? Who is it? Where?” she called, and strained towards the -west. She thought it might be her father or Mickey the hired man, or -both. - -The answer came from the east, out of the homeless, neighbourless, empty -east--a cry, louder now. There were only stars, and the night was dark, -though not deep dark. She sped along the prairie road as fast as she -could, once or twice stopping to call aloud. In answer to her calls the -voice sounded nearer and nearer. Now suddenly she left the trail and -bore away northward. At last the voice was very near. Presently a figure -appeared ahead, staggering towards her. - -“Qui va la? Who is it?” she asked. - -“Ba’tiste Caron,” was the reply in English, in a faint voice. She was -beside him in an instant. - -“What has happened? Why are you off the trail?” she said, and supported -him. - -“My Injun stoled my dogs and run off,” he replied. “I run after. Then, -when I am to come to the trail”--he paused to find the English word, and -could not--“encore to this trail I no can. So. Ah, bon Dieu, it has so -awful!” He swayed and would have fallen, but she caught him, bore him -up. She was so strong, and he was as slight as a girl, though tall. - -“When was that?” she asked. - -“Two nights ago,” he answered, and swayed. “Wait,” she said, and pulled -a flask from her pocket. “Drink this-quick.” - -He raised it to his lips, but her hand was still on it, and she only let -him take a little. Then she drew it away, though she had almost to use -force, he was so eager for it. Now she took a biscuit from her pocket. - -“Eat; then some more brandy after,” she urged. “Come on; it’s not far. -See, there’s the light,” she added cheerily, raising her head towards -the hut. - -“I saw it just when I have fall down--it safe me. I sit down to -die--like that! But it safe me, that light--so. Ah, bon Dieu, it was so -far, and I want eat so!” Already he had swallowed the biscuit. - -“When did you eat last?” she asked, as she urged him on. - -“Two nights--except for one leetla piece of bread--O--O--I fin’ it in my -pocket. Grace! I have travel so far. Jesu, I think it ees ten thousan’ -miles I go. But I mus’ go on, I mus’ go--O--certainement.” - -The light came nearer and nearer. His footsteps quickened, though he -staggered now and then, and went like a horse that has run its race, but -is driven upon its course again, going heavily with mouth open and head -thrown forwards and down. - -“But I mus’ to get there, an’ you-you will to help me, eh?” - -Again he swayed, but her strong arm held him up. As they ran on, in a -kind of dog-trot, her hand firm upon his arm--he seemed not to notice -it--she became conscious, though it was half dark, of what sort of man -she had saved. He was about her own age, perhaps a year or two older, -with little, if any, hair upon his face, save a slight moustache. His -eyes, deep sunken as they were, she made out were black, and the face, -though drawn and famished, had a handsome look. Presently she gave him -another sip of brandy, and he quickened his steps, speaking to himself -the while. - -“I haf to do it--if I lif. It is to go, go, go, till I get.” - -Now they came to the hut where the firelight flickered on the -window-pane; the door was flung open, and, as he stumbled on the -threshold, she helped him into the warm room. She almost pushed him over -to the fire. - -Divested of his outer coat, muffler, cap, and leggings, he sat on a -bench before the fire, his eyes wandering from the girl to the flames, -and his hands clasping and unclasping between his knees. His eyes -dilating with hunger, he watched her preparations for his supper; and -when at last--and she had been but a moment--it was placed before him, -his head swam, and he turned faint with the stress of his longing. He -would have swallowed a basin of pea-soup at a draught, but she stopped -him, holding the basin till she thought he might venture again. Then -came cold beans, and some meat which she toasted at the fire and laid -upon his plate. They had not spoken since first entering the house, when -tears had shone in his eyes, and he had said: - -“You have safe--ah, you have safe me, and so I will do it yet by help -bon Dieu--yes.” - -The meat was done at last, and he sat with a great dish of tea beside -him, and his pipe alight. - -“What time, if please?” he asked. “I t’ink nine hour, but no sure.” - -“It is near nine,” she said. She hastily tidied up the table after his -meal, and then came and sat in her chair over against the wall of the -rude fireplace. “Nine--dat is good. The moon rise at ‘leven; den I go. I -go on,” he said, “if you show me de queeck way.” - -“You go on--how can you go on?” she asked, almost sharply. - -“Will you not to show me?” he asked. “Show you what?” she asked -abruptly. - -“The queeck way to Askatoon,” he said, as though surprised that she -should ask. “They say me if I get here you will tell me queeck way to -Askatoon. Time, he go so fas’, an’ I have loose a day an’ a night, an’ -I mus’ get Askatoon if I lif--I mus’ get dere in time. It is all safe to -de stroke of de hour, mais, after, it is--bon Dieu--it is hell then. Who -shall forgif me--no!” - -“The stroke of the hour--the stroke of the hour!” It beat into her -brain. Were they both thinking of the same thing now? - -“You will show me queeck way. I mus’ be Askatoon in two days, or it is -all over,” he almost moaned. “Is no man here--I forget dat name, my head -go round like a wheel; but I know dis place, an’ de good God He help -me fin’ my way to where I call out, bien sur. Dat man’s name I have -forget.” - -“My father’s name is John Alroyd,” she answered absently, for there were -hammering at her brain the words, “The stroke of the hour.” - -“Ah, now I get--yes. An’ your name, it is Loisette Alroy’--ah, I have it -in my mind now--Loisette. I not forget dat name, I not forget you--no.” - -“Why do you want to go the ‘quick’ way to Askatoon?” she asked. - -He puffed a moment at his pipe before he answered her. Presently he -said, holding out his pipe, “You not like smoke, mebbe?” - -She shook her head in negation, making an impatient gesture. - -“I forget ask you,” he said. “Dat journee make me forget. When Injun -Jo, he leave me with the dogs, an’ I wake up all alone, an’ not know my -way--not like Jo, I think I die, it is so bad, so terrible in my head. -Not’ing but snow, not’ing. But dere is de sun; it shine. It say to me, -‘Wake up, Ba’tiste; it will be all right bime-bye.’ But all time I t’ink -I go mad, for I mus’ get Askatoon before--dat.” - -She started. Had she not used the same word in thinking of Askatoon. -“That,” she had said. - -“Why do you want to go the ‘quick’ way to Askatoon?” she asked again, -her face pale, her foot beating the floor impatiently. - -“To save him before dat!” he answered, as though she knew of what he was -speaking and thinking. “What is that?” she asked. She knew now, surely, -but she must ask it nevertheless. - -“Dat hanging--of Haman,” he answered. He nodded to himself. Then he took -to gazing into the fire. His lips moved as though talking to himself, -and the hand that held the pipe lay forgotten on his knee. “What have -you to do with Haman?” she asked slowly, her eyes burning. - -“I want safe him--I mus’ give him free.” He tapped his breast. “It is -hereto mak’ him free.” He still tapped his breast. - -For a moment she stood frozen still, her face thin and drawn and white; -then suddenly the blood rushed back into her face, and a red storm raged -in her eyes. - -She thought of the sister, younger than herself, whom Rube Haman had -married and driven to her grave within a year--the sweet Lucy, with -the name of her father’s mother. Lucy had been all English in face and -tongue, a flower of the west, driven to darkness by this horse-dealing -brute, who, before he was arrested and tried for murder, was about to -marry Kate Wimper. Kate Wimper had stolen him from Lucy before Lucy’s -first and only child was born, the child that could not survive the -warm mother-life withdrawn, and so had gone down the valley whither the -broken-hearted mother had fled. It was Kate Wimper, who, before that, -had waylaid the one man for whom she herself had ever cared, and drawn -him from her side by such attractions as she herself would keep for an -honest wife, if such she ever chanced to be. An honest wife she would -have been had Kate Wimper not crossed the straight path of her life. The -man she had loved was gone to his end also, reckless and hopeless, after -he had thrown away his chance of a lifetime with Loisette Alroyd. There -had been left behind this girl, to whom tragedy had come too young, -who drank humiliation with a heart as proud as ever straightly set its -course through crooked ways. - -It had hurt her, twisted her nature a little, given a fountain of -bitterness to her soul, which welled up and flooded her life sometimes. -It had given her face no sourness, but it put a shadow into her eyes. - -She had been glad when Haman was condemned for murder, for she believed -he had committed it, and ten times hanging could not compensate for that -dear life gone from their sight--Lucy, the pride of her father’s heart. -She was glad when Haman was condemned, because of the woman who had -stolen him from Lucy, because of that other man, her lover, gone out of -her own life. The new hardness in her rejoiced that now the woman, -if she had any heart at all, must have it bowed down by this supreme -humiliation and wrung by the ugly tragedy of the hempen rope. - -And now this man before her, this man with a boy’s face, with the dark -luminous eyes, whom she had saved from the frozen plains, he had that in -his breast which would free Haman, so he had said. A fury had its birth -in her at that moment. Something seemed to seize her brain and master -it, something so big that it held all her faculties in perfect control, -and she felt herself in an atmosphere where all life moved round her -mechanically, she herself the only sentient thing, so much greater -than all she saw, or all that she realised by her subconscious self. -Everything in the world seemed small. How calm it was even with the fury -within! - -“Tell me,” she said quietly--“tell me how you are able to save Haman?” - -“He not kill Wakely. It is my brudder Fadette dat kill and get away. -Haman he is drunk, and everyt’ing seem to say Haman he did it, an’ -everyone know Haman is not friend to Wakely. So the juree say he must be -hanging. But my brudder he go to die with hawful bad cold queeck, an’ he -send for the priest an’ for me, an’ tell all. I go to Governor with the -priest, an’ Governor gif me dat writing here.” He tapped his breast, -then took out a wallet and showed the paper to her. “It is life of -dat Haman, voici! And so I safe him for my brudder. Dat was a bad boy, -Fadette. He was bad all time since he was a baby, an’ I t’ink him pretty -lucky to die on his bed, an’ get absolve, and go to purgatore. If he not -have luck like dat he go to hell, an’ stay there.” - -He sighed, and put the wallet back in his breast carefully, his eyes -half-shut with weariness, his handsome face drawn and thin, his limbs -lax with fatigue. - -“If I get Askatoon before de time for dat, I be happy in my heart, for -dat brudder off mine he get out of purgatore bime-bye, I t’ink.” - -His eyes were almost shut, but he drew himself together with a great -effort, and added desperately, “No sleep. If I sleep it is all smash. -Man say me I can get Askatoon by dat time from here, if I go queeck way -across lak’--it is all froze now, dat lak’--an’ down dat Foxtail Hills. -Is it so, ma’m’selle?” - -“By the ‘quick’ way if you can make it in time,” she said; “but it is no -way for the stranger to go. There are always bad spots on the ice--it is -not safe. You could not find your way.” - -“I mus’ get dere in time,” he said desperately. “You can’t do -it--alone,” she said. “Do you want to risk all and lose?” - -He frowned in self-suppression. “Long way, I no can get dere in time?” - he asked. - -She thought a moment. “No; it can’t be done by the long way. But there -is another way--a third trail, the trail the Gover’ment men made a year -ago when they came to survey. It is a good trail. It is blazed in the -woods and staked on the plains. You cannot miss. But--but there is so -little time.” She looked at the clock on the wall. “You cannot leave -here much before sunrise, and--” - -“I will leef when de moon rise, at eleven,” he interjected. - -“You have had no sleep for two nights, and no food. You can’t last it -out,” she said calmly. - -The deliberate look on his face deepened to stubbornness. - -“It is my vow to my brudder--he is in purgatore. An’ I mus’ do it,” he -rejoined, with an emphasis there was no mistaking. “You can show me dat -way?” - -She went to a drawer and took out a piece of paper. Then, with a point -of blackened stick, as he watched her and listened, she swiftly drew his -route for him. - -“Yes, I get it in my head,” he said. “I go dat way, but I wish--I wish -it was dat queeck way. I have no fear, not’ing. I go w’en dat moon -rise--I go, bien sur.” - -“You must sleep, then, while I get some food for you.” She pointed to a -couch in a corner. “I will wake you when the moon rises.” - -For the first time he seemed to realise her, for a moment to leave the -thing which consumed him, and put his mind upon her. - -“You not happy--you not like me here?” he asked simply; then added -quickly, “I am not bad man like me brudder--no.” - -Her eyes rested on him for a moment as though realising him, while some -thought was working in her mind behind. - -“No, you are not a bad man,” she said. “Men and women are equal on the -plains. You have no fear--I have no fear.” - -He glanced at the rifles on the walls, then back at her. “My mudder, she -was good woman. I am glad she did not lif to know what Fadette do.” His -eyes drank her in for a minute, then he said: “I go sleep now, t’ank -you--till moontime.” - -In a moment his deep breathing filled the room, the only sound save for -the fire within and the frost outside. - -Time went on. The night deepened. - - ......................... - -Loisette sat beside the fire, but her body was half-turned from it -towards the man on the sofa. She was not agitated outwardly, but within -there was that fire which burns up life and hope and all the things that -come between us and great issues. It had burned up everything in her -except one thought, one powerful motive. She had been deeply wronged, -and justice had been about to give “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a -tooth.” But the man lying there had come to sweep away the scaffolding -of justice--he had come for that. - -Perhaps he might arrive at Askatoon before the stroke of the hour, but -still he would be too late, for in her pocket now was the Governor’s -reprieve. The man had slept soundly. His wallet was still in his breast; -but the reprieve was with her. - -If he left without discovering his loss, and got well on his way, and -discovered it then, it would be too late. If he returned--she only saw -one step before her, she would wait for that, and deal with it when it -came. She was thinking of Lucy, of her own lover ruined and gone. She -was calm in her madness. - -At the first light of the moon she roused him. She had put food into his -fur-coat pocket, and after he had drunk a bowl of hot pea-soup, while -she told him his course again, she opened the door, and he passed out -into the night. He started forward without a word, but came back again -and caught her hand. - -“Pardon,” he said; “I go forget everyt’ing except dat. But I t’ink what -you do for me, it is better than all my life. Bien sur, I will come -again, when I get my mind to myself. Ah, but you are beautibul,” he -said, “an’ you not happy. Well, I come again--yes, a Dieu.” - -He was gone into the night, with the moon silvering the sky, and the -steely frost eating into the sentient life of this northern world. -Inside the house, with the bearskin blind dropped at the window again, -and the fire blazing high, Loisette sat with the Governor’s reprieve in -her hand. Looking at it, she wondered why it had been given to Ba’tiste -Caron, and not to a police-officer. Ah yes, it was plain--Ba’tiste was -a woodsman and plainsman, and could go far more safely than a constable, -and faster. Ba’tiste had reason for going fast, and he would travel -night and day--he was travelling night and day indeed. And now Ba’tiste -might get there, but the reprieve would not. He would not be able to -stop the hanging of Haman--the hanging of Rube Haman. - -A change came over her. Her eyes blazed, her breast heaved now. She had -been so quiet, so cold and still. But life seemed moving in her once -again. The woman, Kate Wimper, who had helped to send two people to -their graves, would now drink the dregs of shame, if she was capable of -shame--would be robbed of her happiness, if so be she loved Rube Haman. - -She stood up, as though to put the paper in the fire, but paused -suddenly at one thought--Rube Haman was innocent of murder. - -Even so, he was not innocent of Lucy’s misery and death, of the death of -the little one who only opened its eyes to the light for an instant, and -then went into the dark again. But truly she was justified! When Haman -was gone things would go on just the same--and she had been so bitter, -her heart had been pierced as with a knife these past three years. Again -she held out her hand to the fire, but suddenly she gave a little cry -and put her hand to her head. There was Ba’tiste! - -What was Ba’tiste to her? Nothing-nothing at all. She had saved his -life--even if she wronged Ba’tiste, her debt would be paid. No, she -would not think of Ba’tiste. Yet she did not put the paper in the fire, -but in the pocket of her dress. Then she went to her room, leaving the -door open. The bed was opposite the fire, and, as she lay there--she did -not take off her clothes, she knew not why-she could see the flames. She -closed her eyes, but could not sleep, and more than once when she opened -them she thought she saw Ba’tiste sitting there as he had sat hours -before. Why did Ba’tiste haunt her so? What was it he had said in his -broken English as he went away?--that he would come back; that she was -“beautibul.” - -All at once as she lay still, her head throbbing, her feet and hands icy -cold, she sat up listening. “Ah-again!” she cried. She sprang from her -bed, rushed to the door, and strained her eyes into the silver night. -She called into the icy void, “Qui va la? Who goes?” - -She leaned forwards, her hand at her ear, but no sound came in reply. -Once more she called, but nothing answered. The night was all light and -frost and silence. - -She had only heard, in her own brain, the iteration of Ba’tiste’s -calling. Would he reach Askatoon in time, she wondered, as she shut the -door? Why had she not gone with him and attempted the shorter way the -quick way, he had called it? All at once the truth came back upon her, -stirring her now. It would do no good for Ba’tiste to arrive in time. -He might plead to them all and tell the truth about the reprieve, but it -would not avail--Rube Haman would hang. That did not matter--even though -he was innocent; but Ba’tiste’s brother would be so long in -purgatory. And even that would not matter; but she would hurt -Ba’tiste--Ba’tiste--Ba’tiste. And Ba’tiste he would know that she--and -he had called her “beautibul,” that she had-- - -With a cry she suddenly clothed herself for travel. She put some food -and drink in a leather bag and slung them over her shoulder. Then she -dropped on a knee and wrote a note to her father, tears falling from -her eyes. She heaped wood on the fire and moved towards the door. All -at once she turned to the crucifix on the wall which had belonged to her -mother, and, though she had followed her father’s Protestant religion, -she kissed the feet of the sacred figure. - -“Oh, Christ, have mercy on me, and bring me safe to my journey’s end-in -time,” she said breathlessly; then she went softly to the door, leaving -the dog behind. - -It opened, closed, and the night swallowed her. Like a ghost she sped -the quick way to Askatoon. She was six hours behind Ba’tiste, and, going -hard all the time, it was doubtful if she could get there before the -fatal hour. - -On the trail Ba’tiste had taken there were two huts where he could rest, -and he had carried his blanket slung on his shoulder. The way she went -gave no shelter save the trees and caves which had been used to cache -buffalo meat and hides in old days. But beyond this there was danger in -travelling by night, for the springs beneath the ice of the three lakes -she must, cross made it weak and rotten even in the fiercest weather, -and what would no doubt have been death to Ba’tiste would be peril at -least to her. Why had she not gone with him? - -“He had in his face what was in Lucy’s,” she said to herself, as she -sped on. “She was fine like him, ready to break her heart for those she -cared for. My, if she had seen him first instead of--” - -She stopped short, for the ice gave way to her foot, and she only sprang -back in time to save herself. But she trotted on, mile after mile, -the dog-trot of the Indian, head bent forwards, toeing in, breathing -steadily but sharply. - -The morning came, noon, then a fall of snow and a keen wind, and despair -in her heart; but she had passed the danger-spots, and now, if the storm -did not overwhelm her, she might get to Askatoon in time. In the midst -of the storm she came to one of the caves of which she had known. Here -was wood for a fire, and here she ate, and in weariness unspeakable fell -asleep. When she waked it was near sun-down, the storm had ceased, and, -as on the night before, the sky was stained with colour and drowned in -splendour. - -“I will do it--I will do it, Ba’tiste!” she called, and laughed aloud -into the sunset. She had battled with herself all the way, and she had -conquered. Right was right, and Rube Haman must not be hung for what he -did not do. Her heart hardened whenever she thought of the woman, but -softened again when she thought of Ba’tiste, who had to suffer for the -deed of a brother in “purgatore.” Once again the night and its silence -and loneliness followed her, the only living thing near the trail till -long after midnight. After that, as she knew, there were houses here and -there where she might have rested, but she pushed on unceasing. - -At daybreak she fell in with a settler going to Askatoon with his dogs. -Seeing how exhausted she was, he made her ride a few miles upon his -sledge; then she sped on ahead again till she came to the borders of -Askatoon. - -People were already in the streets, and all were tending one way. She -stopped and asked the time. It was within a quarter of an hour of the -time when Haman was to pay another’s penalty. She spurred herself on, -and came to the jail blind with fatigue. As she neared the jail she saw -her father and Mickey. In amazement her father hailed her, but she would -not stop. She was admitted to the prison on explaining that she had a -reprieve. Entering a room filled with excited people, she heard a cry. - -It came from Ba’tiste. He had arrived but ten minutes before, and, in -the Sheriff’s presence had discovered his loss. He had appealed in vain. - -But now, as he saw the girl, he gave a shout of joy which pierced the -hearts of all. - -“Ah, you haf it! Say you haf it, or it is no use--he mus’ hang. -Spik-spik! Ah, my brudder--it is to do him right! Ah, Loisette--bon -Dieu, merci!” - -For answer she placed the reprieve in the hands of the Sheriff. Then she -swayed and fell fainting at the feet of Ba’tiste. - -She had come at the stroke of the hour. - -When she left for her home again the Sheriff kissed her. - -And that was not the only time he kissed her. He did it again six months -later, at the beginning of the harvest, when she and Ba’tiste Caron -started off on the long trail of life together. None but Ba’tiste knew -the truth about the loss of the reprieve, and to him she was “beautibul” - just the same, and greatly to be desired. - - - - -BUCKMASTER’S BOY - -“I bin waitin’ for him, an’ I’ll git him of it takes all winter. I’ll -git him--plumb.” - -The speaker smoothed the barrel of his rifle with mittened hand, which -had, however, a trigger-finger free. With black eyebrows twitching over -sunken grey eyes, he looked doggedly down the frosty valley from the -ledge of high rock where he sat. The face was rough and weather-beaten, -with the deep tan got in the open life of a land of much sun and little -cloud, and he had a beard which, untrimmed and growing wild, made him -look ten years older than he was. - -“I bin waitin’ a durn while,” the mountain-man added, and got to -his feet slowly, drawing himself out to six and a half feet of burly -manhood. The shoulders were, however, a little stooped, and the head was -thrust forwards with an eager, watchful look--a habit become a physical -characteristic. - -Presently he caught sight of a hawk sailing southward along the peaks -of the white icebound mountains above, on which the sun shone with such -sharp insistence, making sky and mountain of a piece in deep purity and -serene stillness. - -“That hawk’s seen him, mebbe,” he said, after a moment. “I bet it went -up higher when it got him in its eye. Ef it’d only speak and tell me -where he is--ef he’s a day, or two days, or ten days north.” - -Suddenly his eyes blazed and his mouth opened in superstitious -amazement, for the hawk stopped almost directly overhead at a great -height, and swept round in a circle many times, waveringly, uncertainly. -At last it resumed its flight southward, sliding down the mountains like -a winged star. - -The mountaineer watched it with a dazed expression for a moment longer, -then both hands clutched the rifle and half swung it to position -involuntarily. - -“It’s seen him, and it stopped to say so. It’s seen him, I tell you, an’ -I’ll git him. Ef it’s an hour, or a day, or a week, it’s all the same. -I’m here watchin’, waitin’ dead on to him, the poison skunk!” - -The person to whom he had been speaking now rose from the pile of cedar -boughs where he had been sitting, stretched his arms up, then shook -himself into place, as does a dog after sleep. He stood for a minute -looking at the mountaineer with a reflective, yet a furtively sardonic, -look. He was not above five feet nine inches in height, and he was slim -and neat; and though his buckskin coat and breeches were worn and even -frayed in spots, he had an air of some distinction and of concentrated -force. It was a face that men turned to look at twice and shook their -heads in doubt afterwards--a handsome, worn, secretive face, in as -perfect control as the strings of an instrument under the bow of a great -artist. It was the face of a man without purpose in life beyond the -moment--watchful, careful, remorselessly determined, an adventurer’s -asset, the dial-plate of a hidden machinery. - -Now he took the handsome meerschaum pipe from his mouth, from which he -had been puffing smoke slowly, and said in a cold, yet quiet voice, “How -long you been waitin’, Buck?” - -“A month. He’s overdue near that. He always comes down to winter at Fort -o’ Comfort, with his string of half-breeds, an’ Injuns, an’ the dogs.” - -“No chance to get him at the Fort?” - -“It ain’t so certain. They’d guess what I was doin’ there. It’s surer -here. He’s got to come down the trail, an’ when I spot him by the -Juniper clump”--he jerked an arm towards a spot almost a mile farther up -the valley--“I kin scoot up the underbrush a bit and git him--plumb. -I could do it from here, sure, but I don’t want no mistake. Once only, -jest one shot, that’s all I want, Sinnet.” - -He bit off a small piece of tobacco from a black plug Sinnet offered -him, and chewed it with nervous fierceness, his eyebrows working, as -he looked at the other eagerly. Deadly as his purpose was, and grim and -unvarying as his vigil had been, the loneliness had told on him, and he -had grown hungry for a human face and human companionship. Why Sinnet -had come he had not thought to inquire. Why Sinnet should be going north -instead of south had not occurred to him. He only realised that Sinnet -was not the man he was waiting for with murder in his heart; and all -that mattered to him in life was the coming of his victim down the -trail. He had welcomed Sinnet with a sullen eagerness, and had told him -in short, detached sentences the dark story of a wrong and a waiting -revenge, which brought a slight flush to Sinnet’s pale face and awakened -a curious light in his eyes. - -“Is that your shack--that where you shake down?” Sinnet said, pointing -towards a lean-to in the fir trees to the right. - -“That’s it. I sleep there. It’s straight on to the Juniper clump, the -front door is.” He laughed viciously, grimly. “Outside or inside, I’m on -to the Juniper clump. Walk into the parlour?” he added, and drew open a -rough-made door, so covered with green cedar boughs that it seemed of a -piece with the surrounding underbrush and trees. Indeed, the little but -was so constructed that it could not be distinguished from the woods -even a short distance away. - -“Can’t have a fire, I suppose?” Sinnet asked. - -“Not daytimes. Smoke ‘d give me away if he suspicioned me,” answered the -mountaineer. “I don’t take no chances. Never can tell.” - -“Water?” asked Sinnet, as though interested in the surroundings, while -all the time he was eyeing the mountaineer furtively--as it were, prying -to the inner man, or measuring the strength of the outer man. He lighted -a fresh pipe and seated himself on a rough bench beside the table in the -middle of the room, and leaned on his elbows, watching. - -The mountaineer laughed. It was not a pleasant laugh to hear. “Listen,” - he said. “You bin a long time out West. You bin in the mountains a good -while. Listen.” - -There was silence. Sinnet listened intently. He heard the faint drip, -drip, drip of water, and looked steadily at the back wall of the room. - -“There--rock?” he said, and jerked his head towards the sound. - -“You got good ears,” answered the other, and drew aside a blanket which -hung on the back wall of the room. A wooden trough was disclosed hanging -under a ledge of rock, and water dripped into it softly, slowly. - -“Almost providential, that rock,” remarked Sinnet. “You’ve got your well -at your back door. Food--but you can’t go far, and keep your eye on -the Bend too,” he nodded towards the door, beyond which lay the -frost-touched valley in the early morning light of autumn. - -“Plenty of black squirrels and pigeons come here on account of the -springs like this one, and I get ‘em with a bow and arrow. I didn’t call -myself Robin Hood and Daniel Boone not for nothin’ when I was knee-high -to a grasshopper.” He drew from a rough cupboard some cold game, and -put it on the table, with some scones and a pannikin of water. Then he -brought out a small jug of whiskey and placed it beside his visitor. -They began to eat. - -“How d’ye cook without fire?” asked Sinnet. “Fire’s all right at nights. -He’d never camp ‘twixt here an’ Juniper Bend at night. The next camp’s -six miles north from here. He’d only come down the valley daytimes. I -studied it ‘all out, and it’s a dead sure thing. From daylight till dusk -I’m on to him. I got the trail in my eye.” - -He showed his teeth like a wild dog, as his look swept the valley. There -was something almost revolting in his concentrated ferocity. - -Sinnet’s eyes half closed as he watched the mountaineer, and the long, -scraggy hands and whipcord neck seemed to interest him greatly. He -looked at his own slim brown hands with a half smile, and it was almost -as cruel as the laugh of the other. Yet it had, too, a knowledge and an -understanding which gave it humanity. - -“You’re sure he did it?” Sinnet asked presently, after drinking a very -small portion of liquor, and tossing some water from the pannikin after -it. “You’re sure Greevy killed your boy, Buck?” - -“My name’s Buckmaster, ain’t it--Jim Buckmaster? Don’t I know my own -name? It’s as sure as that. My boy said it was Greevy when he was dying. -He told Bill Ricketts so, and Bill told me afore he went East. Bill -didn’t want to tell, but he said it was fair I should know, for my boy -never did nobody any harm--an’ Greevy’s livin’ on. But I’ll git him. -Right’s right.” - -“Wouldn’t it be better for the law to hang him, if you’ve got the proof, -Buck? A year or so in jail, an’ a long time to think over what’s going -round his neck on the scaffold--wouldn’t that suit you, if you’ve got -the proof?” - -A rigid, savage look came into Buckmaster’s face. - -“I ain’t lettin’ no judge and jury do my business. I’m for certain sure, -not for p’r’aps! An’ I want to do it myself. Clint was only twenty. Like -boys we was together. I was eighteen when I married, an’ he come -when she went--jest a year--jest a year. An’ ever since then we lived -together, him an’ me, an’ shot together, an’ trapped together, an’ went -gold-washin’ together on the Cariboo, an’ eat out of the same dish, an’ -slept under the same blanket, and jawed together nights--ever since he -was five, when old Mother Lablache had got him into pants, an’ he was -fit to take the trail.” - -The old man stopped a minute, his whipcord neck swelling, his lips -twitching. He brought a fist down on the table with a bang. “The -biggest little rip he was, as full of fun as a squirrel, an’ never a -smile-o-jest his eyes dancin’, an’ more sense than a judge. He laid hold -o’ me, that cub did--it was like his mother and himself together; an’ -the years flowin’ in an’ peterin’ out, an’ him gettin’ older, an’ always -jest the same. Always on rock-bottom, always bright as a dollar, an’ we -livin’ at Black Nose Lake, layin’ up cash agin’ the time we was to go -South, an’ set up a house along the railway, an’ him to git married. I -was for his gittin’ married same as me, when we had enough cash. I use -to think of that when he was ten, and when he was eighteen I spoke to -him about it; but he wouldn’t listen--jest laughed at me. You remember -how Clint used to laugh sort of low and teasin’ like--you remember that -laugh o’ Clint’s, don’t you?” - -Sinnet’s face was towards the valley and Juniper Bend, but he slowly -turned his head and looked at Buckmaster strangely out of his half-shut -eyes. He took the pipe from his mouth slowly. - -“I can hear it now,” he answered slowly. “I hear it often, Buck.” - -The old man gripped his arm so suddenly that Sinnet was startled,--in so -far as anything could startle anyone who had lived a life of chance and -danger and accident, and his face grew a shade paler; but he did not -move, and Buckmaster’s hand tightened convulsively. - -“You liked him, an’ he liked you; he first learnt poker off you, Sinnet. -He thought you was a tough, but he didn’t mind that no more than I did. -It ain’t for us to say what we’re goin’ to be, not always. Things in -life git stronger than we are. You was a tough, but who’s goin’ to judge -you! I ain’t; for Clint took to you, Sinnet, an’ he never went wrong -in his thinkin’. God! he was wife an’ child to me--an’ he’s -dead--dead--dead.” - -The man’s grief was a painful thing to see. His hands gripped the table, -while his body shook with sobs, though his eyes gave forth no tears. -It was an inward convulsion, which gave his face the look of unrelieved -tragedy and suffering--Laocoon struggling with the serpents of sorrow -and hatred which were strangling him. - -“Dead an’ gone,” he repeated, as he swayed to and fro, and the table -quivered in his grasp. Presently, however, as though arrested by a -thought, he peered out of the doorway towards Juniper Bend. “That hawk -seen him--it seen him. He’s comin’, I know it, an’ I’ll git him--plumb.” - He had the mystery and imagination of the mountain-dweller. - -The rifle lay against the wall behind him, and he turned and touched -it almost caressingly. “I ain’t let go like this since he was killed, -Sinnet. It don’t do. I got to keep myself stiddy to do the trick when -the minute comes. At first I usen’t to sleep at nights, thinkin’ of -Clint, an’ missin’ him, an’ I got shaky and no good. So I put a cinch -on myself, an’ got to sleepin’ again--from the full dusk to dawn, for -Greevy wouldn’t take the trail at night. I’ve kept stiddy.” He held out -his hand as though to show that it was firm and steady, but it trembled -with the emotion which had conquered him. He saw it, and shook his head -angrily. - -“It was seein’ you, Sinnet. It burst me. I ain’t seen no one to speak to -in a month, an’ with you sittin’ there, it was like Clint an’ me cuttin’ -and comin’ again off the loaf an’ the knuckle-bone of ven’son.” - -Sinnet ran a long finger slowly across his lips, and seemed meditating -what he should say to the mountaineer. At length he spoke, looking into -Buckmaster’s face. “What was the story Ricketts told you? What did your -boy tell Ricketts? I’ve heard, too, about it, and that’s why I asked -you if you had proofs that Greevy killed Clint. Of course, Clint should -know, and if he told Ricketts, that’s pretty straight; but I’d like -to know if what I heard tallies with what Ricketts heard from Clint. -P’r’aps it’d ease your mind a bit to tell it. I’ll watch the Bend--don’t -you trouble about that. You can’t do these two things at one time. I’ll -watch for Greevy; you give me Clint’s story to Ricketts. I guess you -know I’m feelin’ for you, an’ if I was in your place I’d shoot the man -that killed Clint, if it took ten years. I’d have his heart’s blood--all -of it. Whether Greevy was in the right or in the wrong, I’d have -him--plumb.” - -Buckmaster was moved. He gave a fierce exclamation and made a gesture of -cruelty. “Clint right or wrong? There ain’t no question of that. My boy -wasn’t the kind to be in the wrong. What did he ever do but what was -right? If Clint was in the wrong I’d kill Greevy jest the same, for -Greevy robbed him of all the years that was before him--only a sapling -he was, an’ all his growin’ to do, all his branches to widen an’ his -roots to spread. But that don’t enter in it, his bein’ in the wrong. -It was a quarrel, and Clint never did Greevy any harm. It was a quarrel -over cards, an’ Greevy was drunk, an’ followed Clint out into the -prairie in the night and shot him like a coyote. Clint hadn’t no chance, -an’ he jest lay there on the ground till morning, when Ricketts and -Steve Joicey found him. An’ Clint told Ricketts who it was.” - -“Why didn’t Ricketts tell it right out at once?” asked Sinnet. - -“Greevy was his own cousin--it was in the family, an’ he kept thinkin’ -of Greevy’s gal, Em’ly. Her--what’ll it matter to her! She’ll get -married, an she’ll forgit. I know her, a gal that’s got no deep feelin’ -like Clint had for me. But because of her Ricketts didn’t speak for a -year. Then he couldn’t stand it any longer, an’ he told me--seein’ how I -suffered, an’ everybody hidin’ their suspicions from me, an’ me up here -out o’ the way, an’ no account. That was the feelin’ among ‘em--what was -the good of making things worse! They wasn’t thinkin’ of the boy or of -Jim Buckmaster, his father. They was thinkin’ of Greevy’s gal--to save -her trouble.” - -Sinnet’s face was turned towards Juniper Bend, and the eyes were -fixed, as it were, on a still more distant object--a dark, brooding, -inscrutable look. - -“Was that all Ricketts told you, Buck?” The voice was very quiet, but it -had a suggestive note. - -“That’s all Clint told Bill before he died. That was enough.” - -There was a moment’s pause, and then, puffing out long clouds of smoke, -and in a tone of curious detachment, as though he were telling of -something that he saw now in the far distance, or as a spectator of a -battle from a far vantage-point might report to a blind man standing -near, Sinnet said: - -“P’r’aps Ricketts didn’t know the whole story; p’r’aps Clint didn’t know -it all to tell him; p’r’aps Clint didn’t remember it all. P’r’aps he -didn’t remember anything except that he and Greevy quarrelled, and that -Greevy and he shot at each other in the prairie. He’d only be thinking -of the thing that mattered most to him--that his life was over, an’ that -a man had put a bullet in him, an’--” - -Buckmaster tried to interrupt him, but he waved a hand impatiently, and -continued: “As I say, maybe he didn’t remember everything; he had -been drinkin’ a bit himself, Clint had. He wasn’t used to liquor, and -couldn’t stand much. Greevy was drunk, too, and gone off his head with -rage. He always gets drunk when he first comes South to spend the winter -with his girl Em’ly.” He paused a moment, then went on a little more -quickly. “Greevy was proud of her--couldn’t even bear her being crossed -in any way; and she has a quick temper, and if she quarrelled with -anybody Greevy quarrelled too.” - -“I don’t want to know anything about her,” broke in Buckmaster roughly. -“She isn’t in this thing. I’m goin’ to git Greevy. I bin waitin’ for -him, an’ I’ll git him.” - -“You’re going to kill the man that killed your boy, if you can, Buck; -but I’m telling my story in my own way. You told Ricketts’s story; I’ll -tell what I’ve heard. And before you kill Greevy you ought to know all -there is that anybody else knows--or suspicions about it.” - -“I know enough. Greevy done it, an’ I’m here.” With no apparent -coherence and relevancy Sinnet continued, but his voice was not so -even as before. “Em’ly was a girl that wasn’t twice alike. She was -changeable. First it was one, then it was another, and she didn’t seem -to be able to fix her mind. But that didn’t prevent her leadin’ men on. -She wasn’t changeable, though, about her father. She was to him what -your boy was to you. There she was like you, ready to give everything up -for her father.” - -“I tell y’ I don’t want to hear about her,” said Buckmaster, getting to -his feet and setting his jaws. “You needn’t talk to me about her. -She’ll git over it. I’ll never git over what Greevy done to me or to -Clint--jest twenty, jest twenty! I got my work to do.” - -He took his gun from the wall, slung it into the hollow of his arm, and -turned to look up the valley through the open doorway. - -The morning was sparkling with life--the life and vigour which a touch -of frost gives to the autumn world in a country where the blood tingles -to the dry, sweet sting of the air. Beautiful, and spacious, and -buoyant, and lonely, the valley and the mountains seemed waiting, like a -new-born world, to be peopled by man. It was as though all had been made -ready for him--the birds whistling and singing in the trees, the whisk -of the squirrels leaping from bough to bough, the peremptory sound of -the woodpecker’s beak against the bole of a tree, the rustle of the -leaves as a wood-hen ran past--a waiting, virgin world. - -Its beauty and its wonderful dignity had no appeal to Buckmaster. His -eyes and mind were fixed on a deed which would stain the virgin wild -with the ancient crime that sent the first marauder on human life into -the wilderness. - -As Buckmaster’s figure darkened the doorway Sinnet seemed to waken as -from a dream, and he got swiftly to his feet. - -“Wait--you wait, Buck. You’ve got to hear all. You haven’t heard my -story yet. Wait, I tell you.” His voice was so sharp and insistent, so -changed, that Buckmaster turned from the doorway and came back into the -room. - -“What’s the use of my hearin’? You want me not to kill Greevy, because -of that gal. What’s she to me?” - -“Nothing to you, Buck, but Clint was everything to her.” - -The mountaineer stood like one petrified. - -“What’s that--what’s that you say? It’s a damn lie!” - -“It wasn’t cards--the quarrel, not the real quarrel. Greevy found Clint -kissing her. Greevy wanted her to marry Gatineau, the lumber-king. That -was the quarrel.” - -A snarl was on the face of Buckmaster. “Then she’ll not be sorry when -I git him. It took Clint from her as well as from me.” He turned to -the door again. “But, wait, Buck, wait one minute and hear--” He was -interrupted by a low, exultant growl, and he saw Buckmaster’s rifle -clutched as a hunter, stooping, clutches his gun to fire on his prey. - -“Quick, the spy-glass!” he flung back at Sinnet. “It’s him--but I’ll -make sure.” - -Sinnet caught the telescope from the nails where it hung, and looked out -towards Juniper Bend. “It’s Greevy--and his girl, and the half-breeds,” - he said, with a note in his voice that almost seemed agitation, and yet -few had ever seen Sinnet agitated. “Em’ly must have gone up the trail in -the night.” - -“It’s my turn now,” the mountaineer said hoarsely, and, stooping, slid -away quickly into the undergrowth. Sinnet followed, keeping near him, -neither speaking. For a half mile they hastened on, and now and then -Buckmaster drew aside the bushes, and looked up the valley, to keep -Greevy and his bois brulees in his eye. Just so had he and his son and -Sinnet stalked the wapiti and the red deer along these mountains; but -this was a man that Buckmaster was stalking now, with none of the joy -of the sport which had been his since a lad; only the malice of the -avenger. The lust of a mountain feud was on him; he was pursuing the -price of blood. - -At last Buckmaster stopped at a ledge of rock just above the trail. -Greevy would pass below, within three hundred yards of his rifle. He -turned to Sinnet with cold and savage eyes. “You go back,” he said. -“It’s my business. I don’t want you to see. You don’t want to see, then -you won’t know, and you won’t need to lie. You said that the man that -killed Clint ought to die. He’s going to die, but it’s none o’ your -business. I want to be alone. In a minute he’ll be where I kin git -him--plumb. You go, Sinnet-right off. It’s my business.” - -There was a strange, desperate look in Sinnet’s face; it was as hard as -stone, but his eyes had a light of battle in them. - -“It’s my business right enough, Buck,” he said, “and you’re not going to -kill Greevy. That girl of his has lost her lover, your boy. It’s broke -her heart almost, and there’s no use making her an orphan too. She can’t -stand it. She’s had enough. You leave her father alone--you hear me, let -up!” He stepped between Buckmaster and the ledge of rock from which the -mountaineer was to take aim. - -There was a terrible look in Buckmaster’s face. He raised his -single-barrelled rifle, as though he would shoot Sinnet; but, at the -moment, he remembered that a shot would warn Greevy, and that he might -not have time to reload. He laid his rifle against a tree swiftly. - -“Git away from here,” he said, with a strange rattle in his throat. “Git -away quick; he’ll be down past here in a minute.” - -Sinnet pulled himself together as he saw Buckmaster snatch at a great -clasp-knife in his belt. He jumped and caught Buckmaster’s wrist in a -grip like a vice. - -“Greevy didn’t kill him, Buck,” he said. But the mountaineer was gone -mad, and did not grasp the meaning of the words. He twined his left arm -round the neck of Sinnet, and the struggle began, he fighting to free -Sinnet’s hand from his wrist, to break Sinnet’s neck. He did not realise -what he was doing. He only knew that this man stood between him and the -murderer of his boy, and all the ancient forces of barbarism were alive -in him. Little by little they drew to the edge of the rock, from which -there was a sheer drop of two hundred feet. Sinnet fought like a panther -for safety, but no sane man’s strength could withstand the demoniacal -energy that bent and crushed him. Sinnet felt his strength giving. Then -he said in a hoarse whisper, “Greevy didn’t kill him. I killed him, -and--” - -At that moment he was borne to the ground with a hand on his throat, and -an instant after the knife went home. - -Buckmaster got to his feet and looked at his victim for an instant, -dazed and wild; then he sprang for his gun. As he did so the words that -Sinnet had said as they struggled rang in his ears, “Greevy didn’t kill -him; I killed him!” - -He gave a low cry and turned back towards Sinnet, who lay in a pool of -blood. - -Sinnet was speaking. He went and stooped over him. “Em’ly threw me over -for Clint,” the voice said huskily, “and I followed to have it out with -Clint. So did Greevy, but Greevy was drunk. I saw them meet. I was hid. -I saw that Clint would kill Greevy, and I fired. I was off my head--I’d -never cared for any woman before, and Greevy was her father. Clint was -off his head too. He had called me names that day--a cardsharp, and a -liar, and a thief, and a skunk, he called me, and I hated him just then. -Greevy fired twice wide. He didn’t know but what he killed Clint, but he -didn’t. I did. So I tried to stop you, Buck--” - -Life was going fast, and speech failed him; but he opened his eyes again -and whispered, “I didn’t want to die, Buck. I am only thirty-five, and -it’s too soon; but it had to be. Don’t look that way, Buck. You got the -man that killed him--plumb. But Em’ly didn’t play fair with me--made a -fool of me, the only time in my life I ever cared for a woman. You leave -Greevy alone, Buck, and tell Em’ly for me I wouldn’t let you kill her -father.” - -“You--Sinnet--you, you done it! Why, he’d have fought for you. You--done -it--to him--to Clint!” Now that the blood-feud had been satisfied, a -great change came over the mountaineer. He had done his work, and the -thirst for vengeance was gone. Greevy he had hated, but this man had -been with him in many a winter’s hunt. His brain could hardly grasp the -tragedy--it had all been too sudden. - -Suddenly he stooped down. “Sinnet,” he said, “ef there was a woman in -it, that makes all the difference. Sinnet, of--” - -But Sinnet was gone upon a long trail that led into an illimitable -wilderness. With a moan the old man ran to the ledge of rock. Greevy and -his girl were below. - -“When there’s a woman in it--!” he said, in a voice of helplessness -and misery, and watched Em’ly till she disappeared from view. Then he -turned, and, lifting up in his arms the man he had killed, carried him -into the deeper woods. - - - - -TO-MORROW - -“My, nothing’s the matter with the world to-day! It’s so good it almost -hurts.” - -She raised her head from the white petticoat she was ironing, and gazed -out of the doorway and down the valley with a warm light in her eyes -and a glowing face. The snow-tipped mountains far above and away, the -fir-covered, cedar-ranged foothills, and, lower down, the wonderful -maple and ash woods, with their hundred autumn tints, all merging to one -soft, red tone, the roar of the stream tumbling down the ravine from -the heights, the air that braced the nerves--it all seemed to be part of -her, the passion of life corresponding to the passion of living in her. - -After watching the scene dreamily for a moment, she turned and laid the -iron she had been using upon the hot stove near. Taking up another, she -touched it with a moistened finger to test the heat, and, leaning above -the table again, passed it over the linen for a few moments, smiling -at something that was in her mind. Presently she held the petticoat up, -turned it round, then hung it in front of her, eyeing it with critical -pleasure. - -“To-morrow!” she said, nodding at it. “You won’t be seen, I suppose, but -I’ll know you’re nice enough for a queen--and that’s enough to know.” - -She blushed a little, as though someone had heard her words and was -looking at her, then she carefully laid the petticoat over the back of -a chair. “No queen’s got one whiter, if I do say it,” she continued, -tossing her head. - -In that, at any rate, she was right, for the water of the mountain -springs was pure, the air was clear, and the sun was clarifying; and -little ornamented or frilled as it was, the petticoat was exquisitely -soft and delicate. It would have appealed to more eyes than a woman’s. - -“To-morrow!” She nodded at it again and turned again to the bright world -outside. With arms raised and hands resting against the timbers of the -doorway, she stood dreaming. A flock of pigeons passed with a whir not -far away, and skirted the woods making down the valley. She watched -their flight abstractedly, yet with a subconscious sense of pleasure. -Life--they were Life, eager, buoyant, belonging to this wild region, -where still the heart could feel so much at home, where the great world -was missed so little. - -Suddenly, as she gazed, a shot rang out down the valley, and two of the -pigeons came tumbling to the ground, a stray feather floating after. -With a startled exclamation she took a step forward. Her brain became -confused and disturbed. She had looked out on Eden, and it had been -ravaged before her eyes. She had been thinking of to-morrow, and this -vast prospect of beauty and serenity had been part of the pageant -in which it moved. Not the valley alone had been marauded, but that -“To-morrow,” and all it meant to her. - -Instantly the valley had become clouded over for her, its glory and its -grace despoiled. She turned back to the room where the white petticoat -lay upon the chair, but stopped with a little cry of alarm. - -A man was standing in the centre of the room. He had entered stealthily -by the back door, and had waited for her to turn round. He was haggard -and travel stained, and there was a feverish light in his eyes. His -fingers trembled as they adjusted his belt, which seemed too large for -him. Mechanically he buckled it tighter. - -“You’re Jenny Long, ain’t you?” he asked. “I beg pardon for sneakin’ in -like this, but they’re after me, some ranchers and a constable--one o’ -the Riders of the Plains. I’ve been tryin’ to make this house all day. -You’re Jenny Long, ain’t you?” - -She had plenty of courage, and, after the first instant of shock, she -had herself in hand. She had quickly observed his condition, had marked -the candour of the eye and the decision and character of the face, and -doubt of him found no place in her mind. She had the keen observation -of the dweller in lonely places, where every traveller has the -potentialities of a foe, while the door of hospitality is opened to him -after the custom of the wilds. Year in, year out, since she was a -little girl and came to live here with her Uncle Sanger when her father -died--her mother had gone before she could speak--travellers had halted -at this door, going North or coming South, had had bite and sup, and -bed, may be, and had passed on, most of them never to be seen again. -More than that, too, there had been moments of peril, such as when, -alone, she had faced two wood-thieves with a revolver, as they -were taking her mountain-pony with them, and herself had made them -“hands-up,” and had marched them into a prospector’s camp five miles -away. - -She had no doubt about the man before her. Whatever he had done, it was -nothing dirty or mean--of that she was sure. - -“Yes, I’m Jenny Long,” she answered. “What have you done? What are they -after you for?” - -“Oh! to-morrow,” he answered, “to-morrow I got to git to Bindon. It’s -life or death. I come from prospecting two hundred miles up North. I -done it in two days and a half. My horse dropped dead--I’m near -dead myself. I tried to borrow another horse up at Clancey’s, and at -Scotton’s Drive, but they didn’t know me, and they bounced me. So I -borrowed a horse off Weigall’s paddock, to make for here--to you. -I didn’t mean to keep that horse. Hell, I’m no horse-stealer! But I -couldn’t explain to them, except that I had to git to Bindon to save a -man’s life. If people laugh in your face, it’s no use explainin’. I took -a roan from Weigall’s, and they got after me. ‘Bout six miles up they -shot at me an’ hurt me.” - -She saw that one arm hung limp at his side and that his wrist was wound -with a red bandana. - -She started forward. “Are you hurt bad? Can I bind it up or wash it for -you? I’ve got plenty of hot water here, and it’s bad letting a wound get -stale.” - -He shook his head. “I washed the hole clean in the creek below. I -doubled on them. I had to go down past your place here, and then work -back to be rid of them. But there’s no telling when they’ll drop on to -the game, and come back for me. My only chance was to git to you. Even -if I had a horse, I couldn’t make Bindon in time. It’s two days round -the gorge by trail. A horse is no use now--I lost too much time since -last night. I can’t git to Bindon to-morrow in time, if I ride the -trail.” - -“The river?” she asked abruptly. - -“It’s the only way. It cuts off fifty mile. That’s why I come to you.” - -She frowned a little, her face became troubled, and her glance fell -on his arm nervously. “What’ve I got to do with it?” she asked almost -sharply. - -“Even if this was all right,”--he touched the wounded arm--“I couldn’t -take the rapids in a canoe. I don’t know them, an’ it would be sure -death. That’s not the worst, for there’s a man at Bindon would lose his -life--p’r’aps twenty men--I dunno; but one man sure. To-morrow, it’s go -or stay with him. He was good--Lord, but he was good!--to my little -gal years back. She’d only been married to me a year when he saved her, -riskin’ his own life. No one else had the pluck. My little gal, only -twenty she was, an’ pretty as a picture, an’ me fifty miles away when -the fire broke out in the hotel where she was. He’d have gone down to -hell for a friend, an’ he saved my little gal. I had her for five years -after that. That’s why I got to git to Bindon to-morrow. If I don’t, I -don’t want to see to-morrow. I got to go down the river to-night.” - -She knew what he was going to ask her. She knew he was thinking what -all the North knew, that she was the first person to take the Dog Nose -Rapids in a canoe, down the great river scarce a stone’s-throw from her -door; and that she had done it in safety many times. Not in all the -West and North were there a half-dozen people who could take a canoe -to Bindon, and they were not here. She knew that he meant to ask her to -paddle him down the swift stream with its murderous rocks, to Bindon. -She glanced at the white petticoat on the chair, and her lips tightened. -To-morrow-tomorrow was as much to her here as it would be to this man -before her, or the man he would save at Bindon. “What do you want?” she -asked, hardening her heart. “Can’t you see? I want you to hide me here -till tonight. There’s a full moon, an’ it would be as plain goin’ as by -day. They told me about you up North, and I said to myself, ‘If I git to -Jenny Long, an’ tell her about my friend at Bindon, an’ my little gal, -she’ll take me down to Bindon in time.’ My little gal would have paid -her own debt if she’d ever had the chance. She didn’t--she’s lying up on -Mazy Mountain. But one woman’ll do a lot for the sake of another woman. -Say, you’ll do it, won’t you? If I don’t git there by to-morrow noon, -it’s no good.” - -She would not answer. He was asking more than he knew. Why should she be -sacrificed? Was it her duty to pay the “little gal’s debt,” to save the -man at Bindon? To-morrow was to be the great day in her own life. The -one man in all the world was coming to marry her to-morrow. After four -years’ waiting, after a bitter quarrel in which both had been to blame, -he was coming from the mining town of Selby to marry her to-morrow. - -“What will happen? Why will your friend lose his life if you don’t get -to Bindon?” - -“By noon to-morrow, by twelve o’clock noon; that’s the plot; that’s what -they’ve schemed. Three days ago, I heard. I got a man free from trouble -North--he was no good, but I thought he ought to have another chance, -and I got him free. He told me of what was to be done at Bindon. There’d -been a strike in the mine, an’ my friend had took it in hand with -knuckle-dusters on. He isn’t the kind to fell a tree with a jack-knife. -Then three of the strikers that had been turned away--they was the -ringleaders--they laid a plan that’d make the devil sick. They’ve put a -machine in the mine, an’ timed it, an’ it’ll go off when my friend comes -out of the mine at noon to-morrow.” - -Her face was pale now, and her eyes had a look of pain and horror. Her -man--him that she was to marry--was the head of a mine also at Selby, -forty miles beyond Bindon, and the horrible plot came home to her with -piercing significance. - -“Without a second’s warning,” he urged, “to go like that, the man that -was so good to my little gal, an’ me with a chance to save him, an’ -others too, p’r’aps. You won’t let it be. Say, I’m pinnin’ my faith to -you. I’m--” - -Suddenly he swayed. She caught him, held him, and lowered him gently in -a chair. Presently he opened his eyes. “It’s want o’ food, I suppose,” - he said. “If you’ve got a bit of bread and meat--I must keep up.” - -She went to a cupboard, but suddenly turned towards him again. Her ears -had caught a sound outside in the underbush. He had heard also, and he -half staggered to his feet. - -“Quick-in here!” she said, and, opening a door, pushed him inside. -“Lie down on my bed, and I’ll bring you vittles as quick as I can,” she -added. Then she shut the door, turned to the ironing-board, and took up -the iron, as the figure of a man darkened the doorway. - -“Hello, Jinny, fixin’ up for to-morrow?” the man said, stepping inside, -with a rifle under his arm and some pigeons in his hand. - -She nodded and gave him an impatient, scrutinising glance. His face had -a fatuous kind of smile. - -“Been celebrating the pigeons?” she asked drily, jerking her head -towards the two birds, which she had seen drop from her Eden skies a -short time before. - -“I only had one swig of whiskey, honest Injun!” he answered. “I s’pose I -might have waited till to-morrow, but I was dead-beat. I got a bear over -by the Tenmile Reach, and I was tired. I ain’t so young as I used to be, -and, anyhow, what’s the good! What’s ahead of me? You’re going to git -married to-morrow after all these years we bin together, and you’re -going down to Selby from the mountains, where I won’t see you, not once -in a blue moon. Only that old trollop, Mother Massy, to look after me.” - -“Come down to Selby and live there. You’ll be welcome by Jake and me.” - -He stood his gun in the corner and, swinging the pigeons in his hand, -said: “Me live out of the mountains? Don’t you know better than that? -I couldn’t breathe; and I wouldn’t want to breathe. I’ve got my shack -here, I got my fur business, and they’re still fond of whiskey up -North!” He chuckled to himself, as he thought of the illicit still -farther up the mountain behind them. “I make enough to live on, and I’ve -put a few dollars by, though I won’t have so many after to-morrow, after -I’ve given you a little pile, Jinny.” - -“P’r’aps there won’t be any to-morrow, as you expect,” she said slowly. - -The old man started. “What, you and Jake ain’t quarrelled again? You -ain’t broke it off at the last moment, same as before? You ain’t had a -letter from Jake?” He looked at the white petticoat on the chairback, -and shook his head in bewilderment. - -“I’ve had no letter,” she answered. “I’ve had no letter from Selby for -a month. It was all settled then, and there was no good writing, when -he was coming to-morrow with the minister and the licence. Who do you -think’d be postman from Selby here? It must have cost him ten dollars to -send the last letter.” - -“Then what’s the matter? I don’t understand,” the old man urged -querulously. He did not want her to marry and leave him, but he wanted -no more troubles; he did not relish being asked awkward questions by -every mountaineer he met, as to why Jenny Long didn’t marry Jake Lawson. - -“There’s only one way that I can be married tomorrow,” she said at -last, “and that’s by you taking a man down the Dog Nose Rapids to Bindon -to-night.” - -He dropped the pigeons on the floor, dumbfounded. “What in--” - -He stopped short, in sheer incapacity, to go further. Jenny had not -always been easy to understand, but she was wholly incomprehensible now. - -She picked up the pigeons and was about to speak, but she glanced at the -bedroom door, where her exhausted visitor had stretched himself on her -bed, and beckoned her uncle to another room. - -“There’s a plate of vittles ready for you in there,” she said. “I’ll -tell you as you eat.” - -He followed her into the little living-room adorned by the trophies of -his earlier achievements with gun and rifle, and sat down at the table, -where some food lay covered by a clean white cloth. - -“No one’ll ever look after me as you’ve done, Jinny,” he said, as he -lifted the cloth and saw the palatable dish ready for him. Then he -remembered again about to-morrow and the Dog Nose Rapids. - -“What’s it all about, Jinny? What’s that about my canoeing a man down to -Bindon?” - -“Eat, uncle,” she said more softly than she had yet spoken, for his -words about her care of him had brought a moisture to her eyes. “I’ll be -back in a minute and tell you all about it.” - -“Well, it’s about took away my appetite,” he said. “I feel a kind of -sinking.” He took from his pocket a bottle, poured some of its contents -into a tin cup, and drank it off. - -“No, I suppose you couldn’t take a man down to Bindon,” she said, as she -saw his hand trembling on the cup. Then she turned and entered the other -room again. Going to the cupboard, she hastily heaped a plate with -food, and, taking a dipper of water from a pail near by, she entered her -bedroom hastily and placed what she had brought on a small table, as her -visitor rose slowly from the bed. - -He was about to speak, but she made a protesting gesture. - -“I can’t tell you anything yet,” she said. “Who was it come?” he asked. - -“My uncle--I’m going to tell him.” - -“The men after me may git here any minute,” he urged anxiously. - -“They’d not be coming into my room,” she answered, flushing slightly. - -“Can’t you hide me down by the river till we start?” he asked, his eyes -eagerly searching her face. He was assuming that she would take him down -the river: but she gave no sign. - -“I’ve got to see if he’ll take you first,” she answered. - -“He--your uncle, Tom Sanger? He drinks, I’ve heard. He’d never git to -Bindon.” - -She did not reply directly to his words. “I’ll come back and tell you. -There’s a place you could hide by the river where no one could ever find -you,” she said, and left the room. - -As she stepped out, she saw the old man standing in the doorway of the -other room. His face was petrified with amazement. - -“Who you got in that room, Jinny? What man you got in that room? I -heard a man’s voice. Is it because o’ him that you bin talkin’ about no -weddin’ to-morrow? Is it one o’ the others come back, puttin’ you off -Jake again?” - -Her eyes flashed fire at his first words, and her breast heaved with -anger, but suddenly she became composed again and motioned him to a -chair. - -“You eat, and I’ll tell you all about it, Uncle Tom,” she said, and, -seating herself at the table also, she told him the story of the man who -must go to Bindon. - -When she had finished, the old man blinked at her for a minute without -speaking, then he said slowly: “I heard something ‘bout trouble down at -Bindon yisterday from a Hudson’s Bay man goin’ North, but I didn’t take -it in. You’ve got a lot o’ sense, Jinny, an’ if you think he’s tellin’ -the truth, why, it goes; but it’s as big a mixup as a lariat in a -steer’s horns. You’ve got to hide him sure, whoever he is, for I -wouldn’t hand an Eskimo over, if I’d taken him in my home once; we’re -mountain people. A man ought to be hung for horse-stealin’, but this was -different. He was doing it to save a man’s life, an’ that man at Bindon -was good to his little gal, an’ she’s dead.” - -He moved his head from side to side with the air of a sentimental -philosopher. He had all the vanity of a man who had been a success in a -small, shrewd, culpable way--had he not evaded the law for thirty years -with his whiskey-still? - -“I know how he felt,” he continued. “When Betsy died--we was only four -years married--I could have crawled into a knot-hole an’ died there. You -got to save him, Jinny, but”--he came suddenly to his feet--“he ain’t -safe here. They might come any minute, if they’ve got back on his trail. -I’ll take him up the gorge. You know where.” - -“You sit still, Uncle Tom,” she rejoined. “Leave him where he is a -minute. There’s things must be settled first. They ain’t going to look -for him in my bedroom, be they?” - -The old man chuckled. “I’d like to see ‘em at it. You got a temper, -Jinny; and you got a pistol too, eh?” He chuckled again. “As good a shot -as any in the mountains. I can see you darin’ ‘em to come on. But what -if Jake come, and he found a man in your bedroom”--he wiped the tears of -laughter from his eyes--“why, Jinny--!” - -He stopped short, for there was anger in her face. “I don’t want to hear -any more of that. I do what I want to do,” she snapped out. - -“Well, well, you always done what you wanted; but we got to git him up -the hills, till it’s sure they’re out o’ the mountains and gone back. -It’ll be days, mebbe.” - -“Uncle Tom, you’ve took too much to drink,” she answered. “You don’t -remember he’s got to be at Bindon by to-morrow noon. He’s got to save -his friend by then.” - -“Pshaw! Who’s going to take him down the river to-night? You’re goin’ -to be married to-morrow. If you like, you can give him the canoe. It’ll -never come back, nor him neither!” - -“You’ve been down with me,” she responded suggestively. “And you went -down once by yourself.” - -He shook his head. “I ain’t been so well this summer. My sight ain’t -what it was. I can’t stand the racket as I once could. ‘Pears to me I’m -gettin’ old. No, I couldn’t take them rapids, Jinny, not for one frozen -minute.” - -She looked at him with trouble in her eyes, and her face lost some of -its colour. She was fighting back the inevitable, even as its shadow -fell upon her. “You wouldn’t want a man to die, if you could save him, -Uncle Tom--blown up, sent to Kingdom Come without any warning at all; -and perhaps he’s got them that love him--and the world so beautiful.” - -“Well, it ain’t nice dyin’ in the summer, when it’s all sun, and there’s -plenty everywhere; but there’s no one to go down the river with him. -What’s his name?” - -Her struggle was over. She had urged him, but in very truth she was -urging herself all the time, bringing herself to the axe of sacrifice. - -“His name’s Dingley. I’m going down the river with him--down to Bindon.” - -The old man’s mouth opened in blank amazement. His eyes blinked -helplessly. - -“What you talkin’ about, Jinny! Jake’s comin’ up with the minister, an’ -you’re goin’ to be married at noon to-morrow.” - -“I’m takin’ him”--she jerked her head towards the room where Dingley -was--“down Dog Nose Rapids to-night. He’s risked his life for his -friend, thinkin’ of her that’s dead an’ gone, and a man’s life is a -man’s life. If it was Jake’s life in danger, what’d I think of a woman -that could save him, and didn’t?” - -“Onct you broke off with Jake Lawson--the day before you was to be -married; an’ it’s took years to make up an’ agree again to be spliced. -If Jake comes here to-morrow, and you ain’t here, what do you think -he’ll do? The neighbours are comin’ for fifty miles round, two is comin’ -up a hundred miles, an’ you can’t--Jinny, you can’t do it. I bin sick -of answerin’ questions all these years ‘bout you and Jake, an’ I ain’t -goin’ through it again. I’ve told more lies than there’s straws in a -tick.” - -She flamed out. “Then take him down the river yourself--a man to do a -man’s work. Are you afeard to take the risk?” - -He held out his hands slowly and looked at them. They shook a little. -“Yes, Jinny,” he said sadly, “I’m afeard. I ain’t what I was. I made a -mistake, Jinny. I’ve took too much whiskey. I’m older than I ought to -be. I oughtn’t never to have had a whiskey-still, an’ I wouldn’t have -drunk so much. I got money--money for you, Jinny, for you an’ Jake, but -I’ve lost what I’ll never git back. I’m afeard to go down the river with -him. I’d go smash in the Dog Nose Rapids. I got no nerve. I can’t hunt -the grizzly any more, nor the puma, Jinny. I got to keep to common -shootin’, now and henceforth, amen! No, I’d go smash in Dog Nose -Rapids.” - -She caught his hands impulsively. “Don’t you fret, Uncle Tom. You’ve -bin a good uncle to me, and you’ve bin a good friend, and you ain’t the -first that’s found whiskey too much for him. You ain’t got an enemy in -the mountains. Why, I’ve got two or three--” - -“Shucks! Women--only women whose beaux left ‘em to follow after you. -That’s nothing, an’ they’ll be your friends fast enough after you’re -married tomorrow.” - -“I ain’t going to be married to-morrow. I’m going down to Bindon -to-night. If Jake’s mad, then it’s all over, and there’ll be more -trouble among the women up here.” - -By this time they had entered the other room. The old man saw the white -petticoat on the chair. “No woman in the mountains ever had a petticoat -like that, Jinny. It’d make a dress, it’s that pretty an’ neat. Golly, -I’d like to see it on you, with the blue skirt over, and just hitched up -a little.” - -“Oh, shut up--shut up!” she said in sudden anger, and caught up the -petticoat as though she would put it away; but presently she laid it -down again and smoothed it with quick, nervous fingers. “Can’t you talk -sense and leave my clothes alone? If Jake comes, and I’m not here, and -he wants to make a fuss, and spoil everything, and won’t wait, you give -him this petticoat. You put it in his arms. I bet you’ll have the laugh -on him. He’s got a temper.” - -“So’ve you, Jinny, dear, so’ve you,” said the old man, laughing. “You’re -goin’ to have your own way, same as ever--same as ever.” - - -II - -A moon of exquisite whiteness silvering the world, making shadows on the -water as though it were sunlight and the daytime, giving a spectral look -to the endless array of poplar trees on the banks, glittering on the -foam of the rapids. The spangling stars made the arch of the sky like -some gorgeous chancel in a cathedral as vast as life and time. Like the -day which was ended, in which the mountain-girl had found a taste of -Eden, it seemed too sacred for mortal strife. Now and again there came -the note of a night-bird, the croak of a frog from the shore; but the -serene stillness and beauty of the primeval North was over all. - -For two hours after sunset it had all been silent and brooding, and then -two figures appeared on the bank of the great river. A canoe was softly -and hastily pushed out from its hidden shelter under the overhanging -bank, and was noiselessly paddled out to midstream, dropping down the -current meanwhile. - -It was Jenny Long and the man who must get to Bindon. They had waited -till nine o’clock, when the moon was high and full, to venture forth. -Then Dingley had dropped from her bedroom window, had joined her under -the trees, and they had sped away, while the man’s hunters, who had -come suddenly, and before Jenny could get him away into the woods, -were carousing inside. These had tracked their man back to Tom Sanger’s -house, and at first they were incredulous that Jenny and her uncle had -not seen him. They had prepared to search the house, and one had laid -his finger on the latch of her bedroom door; but she had flared out with -such anger that, mindful of the supper she had already begun to prepare -for them, they had desisted, and the whiskey-jug which the old man -brought out distracted their attention. - -One of their number, known as the Man from Clancey’s, had, however, been -outside when Dingley had dropped from the window, and had seen him from -a distance. He had not given the alarm, but had followed, to make the -capture by himself. But Jenny had heard the stir of life behind them, -and had made a sharp detour, so that they had reached the shore and were -out in mid-stream before their tracker got to the river. Then he called -to them to return, but Jenny only bent a little lower and paddled on, -guiding the canoe towards the safe channel through the first small -rapids leading to the great Dog Nose Rapids. - -A rifle-shot rang out, and a bullet “pinged” over the water and -splintered the side of the canoe where Dingley sat. He looked calmly -back, and saw the rifle raised again, but did not stir, in spite of -Jenny’s warning to lie down. - -“He’ll not fire on you so long as he can draw a bead on me,” he said -quietly. - -Again a shot rang out, and the bullet sang past his head. - -“If he hits me, you go straight on to Bindon,” he continued. “Never mind -about me. Go to the Snowdrop Mine. Get there by twelve o’clock, and warn -them. Don’t stop a second for me--” - -Suddenly three shots rang out in succession--Tom Sanger’s house had -emptied itself on the bank of the river--and Dingley gave a sharp -exclamation. - -“They’ve hit me, but it’s the same arm as before,” he growled. “They got -no right to fire at me. It’s not the law. Don’t stop,” he added quickly, -as he saw her half turn round. - -Now there were loud voices on the shore. Old Tom Sanger was threatening -to shoot the first man that fired again, and he would have kept his -word. - -“Who you firin’ at?” he shouted. “That’s my niece, Jinny Long, an’ you -let that boat alone. This ain’t the land o’ lynch law. Dingley ain’t -escaped from gaol. You got no right to fire at him.” - -“No one ever went down Dog Nose Rapids at night,” said the Man from -Clancey’s, whose shot had got Dingley’s arm. “There ain’t a chance of -them doing it. No one’s ever done it.” - -The two were in the roaring rapids now, and the canoe was jumping -through the foam like a racehorse. The keen eyes on the bank watched -the canoe till it was lost in the half-gloom below the first rapids, and -then they went slowly back to Tom Sanger’s house. - -“So there’ll be no wedding to-morrow,” said the Man from Clancey’s. - -“Funerals, more likely,” drawled another. - -“Jinny Long’s in that canoe, an’ she ginerally does what she wants to,” - said Tom Sanger sagely. - -“Well, we done our best, and now I hope they’ll get to Bindon,” said -another. - -Sanger passed the jug to him freely. Then they sat down and talked -of the people who had been drowned in Dog Nose Rapids and of the last -wedding in the mountains. - - -III - -It was as the Man from Clancey’s had said, no one had ever gone down Dog -Nose Rapids in the nighttime, and probably no one but Jenny Long would -have ventured it. Dingley had had no idea what a perilous task had been -set his rescuer. It was only when the angry roar of the great rapids -floated up-stream to them, increasing in volume till they could see the -terror of tumbling waters just below, and the canoe shot forward like a -snake through the swift, smooth current which would sweep them into the -vast caldron, that he realised the terrible hazard of the enterprise. - -The moon was directly overhead when they drew upon the race of rocks -and fighting water and foam. On either side only the shadowed shore, -forsaken by the races which had hunted and roamed and ravaged here--not -a light, nor any sign of life, or the friendliness of human presence to -make their isolation less complete, their danger, as it were, shared -by fellow-mortals. Bright as the moon was, it was not bright enough for -perfect pilotage. Never in the history of white men had these rapids -been ridden at nighttime. As they sped down the flume of the deep, -irresistible current, and were launched into the trouble of rocks and -water, Jenny realised how great their peril was, and how different the -track of the waters looked at nighttime from daytime. Outlines seemed -merged, rocks did not look the same, whirlpools had a different vortex, -islands of stone had a new configuration. As they sped on, lurching, -jumping, piercing a broken wall of wave and spray like a torpedo, -shooting an almost sheer fall, she came to rely on a sense of intuition -rather than memory, for night had transformed the waters. - -Not a sound escaped either. The man kept his eyes fixed on the woman; -the woman scanned the dreadful pathway with eyes deep-set and burning, -resolute, vigilant, and yet defiant too, as though she had been trapped -into this track of danger, and was fighting without great hope, but -with the temerity and nonchalance of despair. Her arms were bare to the -shoulder almost, and her face was again and again drenched; but second -succeeded second, minute followed minute in a struggle which might well -turn a man’s hair grey, and now, at last-how many hours was it since -they had been cast into this den of roaring waters!--at last, suddenly, -over a large fall, and here smooth waters again, smooth and untroubled, -and strong and deep. Then, and only then, did a word escape either; -but the man had passed through torture and unavailing regret, for he -realised that he had had no right to bring this girl into such a fight. -It was not her friend who was in danger at Bindon. Her life had been -risked without due warrant. “I didn’t know, or I wouldn’t have asked -it,” he said in a low voice. “Lord, but you are a wonder--to take that -hurdle for no one that belonged to you, and to do it as you’ve done it. -This country will rise to you.” He looked back on the raging rapids far -behind, and he shuddered. “It was a close call, and no mistake. We must -have been within a foot of down-you-go fifty times. But it’s all right -now, if we can last it out and git there.” Again he glanced back, -then turned to the girl. “It makes me pretty sick to look at it,” he -continued. “I bin through a lot, but that’s as sharp practice as I -want.” - -“Come here and let me bind up your arm,” she answered. “They hit -you--the sneaks! Are you bleeding much?” - -He came near her carefully, as she got the big canoe out of the current -into quieter water. She whipped the scarf from about her neck, and with -his knife ripped up the seam of his sleeve. Her face was alive with -the joy of conflict and elated with triumph. Her eyes were shining. She -bathed the wound--the bullet had passed clean through the fleshy part -of the arm--and then carefully tied the scarf round it over her -handkerchief. - -“I guess it’s as good as a man could do it,” she said at last. - -“As good as any doctor,” he rejoined. - -“I wasn’t talking of your arm,” she said. - -“‘Course not. Excuse me. You was talkin’ of them rapids, and I’ve got to -say there ain’t a man that could have done it and come through like you. -I guess the man that marries you’ll get more than his share of luck.” - -“I want none of that,” she said sharply, and picked up her paddle again, -her eyes flashing anger. - -He took a pistol from his pocket and offered it to her. “I didn’t mean -any harm by what I said. Take this if you think I won’t know how to -behave myself,” he urged. - -She flung up her head a little. “I knew what I was doing before I -started,” she said. “Put it away. How far is it, and can we do it in -time?” - -“If you can hold out, we can do it; but it means going all night and all -morning; and it ain’t dawn yet, by a long shot.” - -Dawn came at last, and the mist of early morning, and the imperious and -dispelling sun; and with mouthfuls of food as they drifted on, the two -fixed their eyes on the horizon beyond which lay Bindon. And now it -seemed to the girl as though this race to save a life or many lives -was the one thing in existence. To-morrow was to-day, and the white -petticoat was lying in the little house in the mountains, and her -wedding was an interminable distance off, so had this adventure drawn -her into its risks and toils and haggard exhaustion. - -Eight, nine, ten, eleven o’clock came, and then they saw signs of -settlement. Houses appeared here and there upon the banks, and now and -then a horseman watched them from the shore, but they could not pause. -Bindon--Bindon--Bindon--the Snowdrop Mine at Bindon, and a death-dealing -machine timed to do its deadly work, were before the eyes of the two -voyageurs. - -Half-past eleven, and the town of Bindon was just beyond them. A quarter -to twelve, and they had run their canoe into the bank beyond which were -the smokestacks and chimneys of the mine. Bindon was peacefully pursuing -its way, though here and there were little groups of strikers who had -not resumed work. - -Dingley and the girl scrambled up the bank. Trembling with fatigue, they -hastened on. The man drew ahead of her, for she had paddled for fifteen -hours, practically without ceasing, and the ground seemed to rise up at -her. But she would not let him stop. - -He hurried on, reached the mine, and entered, shouting the name of his -friend. It was seven minutes to twelve. - -A moment later, a half-dozen men came rushing from that portion of the -mine where Dingley had been told the machine was placed, and at their -head was Lawson, the man he had come to save. - -The girl hastened on to meet them, but she grew faint and leaned against -a tree, scarce conscious. She was roused by voices. - -“No, it wasn’t me, it wasn’t me that done it; it was a girl. Here she -is--Jenny Long! You got to thank her, Jake.” - -Jake! Jake! The girl awakened to full understanding now. Jake--what -Jake? She looked, then stumbled forward with a cry. - -“Jake--it was my Jake!” she faltered. The mine-boss caught her in his -arms. “You, Jenny! It’s you that’s saved me!” - -Suddenly there was a rumble as of thunder, and a cloud of dust and stone -rose from the Snowdrop Mine. The mine-boss tightened his arm round the -girl’s waist. “That’s what I missed, through him and you, Jenny,” he -said. - -“What was you doing here, and not at Selby, Jake?” she asked. - -“They sent for me-to stop the trouble here.” - -“But what about our wedding to-day?” she asked with a frown. - -“A man went from here with a letter to you three days ago,” he said, -“asking you to come down here and be married. I suppose he got drunk, -or had an accident, and didn’t reach you. It had to be. I was needed -here--couldn’t tell what would happen.” - -“It has happened out all right,” said Dingley, “and this’ll be the end -of it. You got them miners solid now. The strikers’ll eat humble pie -after to-day.” - -“We’ll be married to-day, just the same,” the mine-boss said, as he gave -some brandy to the girl. - -But the girl shook her head. She was thinking of a white petticoat in a -little house in the mountains. “I’m not going to be married to-day,” she -said decisively. - -“Well, to-morrow,” said the mine-boss. - -But the girl shook her head again. “To-day is tomorrow,” she answered. -“You can wait, Jake. I’m going back home to be married.” - - - - -QU’APPELLE - -(Who calls?) - -“But I’m white; I’m not an Indian. My father was a white man. I’ve been -brought up as a white girl. I’ve had a white girl’s schooling.” - -Her eyes flashed as she sprang to her feet and walked up and down the -room for a moment, then stood still, facing her mother,--a dark-faced, -pock-marked woman, with heavy, somnolent eyes, and waited for her to -speak. The reply came slowly and sullenly-- - -“I am a Blackfoot woman. I lived on the Muskwat River among the braves -for thirty years. I have killed buffalo. I have seen battles. Men, too, -I have killed when they came to steal our horses and crept in on our -lodges in the night-the Crees! I am a Blackfoot. You are the daughter -of a Blackfoot woman. No medicine can cure that. Sit down. You have no -sense. You are not white. They will not have you. Sit down.” - -The girl’s handsome face flushed; she threw up her hands in an agony of -protest. A dreadful anger was in her panting breast, but she could not -speak. She seemed to choke with excess of feeling. For an instant she -stood still, trembling with agitation, then she sat down suddenly on -a great couch covered with soft deerskins and buffalo robes. There was -deep in her the habit of obedience to this sombre but striking woman. -She had been ruled firmly, almost oppressively, and she had not yet -revolted. Seated on the couch, she gazed out of the window at the flying -snow, her brain too much on fire for thought, passion beating like a -pulse in all her lithe and graceful young body, which had known the -storms of life and time for only twenty years. - -The wind shrieked and the snow swept past in clouds of blinding drift, -completely hiding from sight the town below them, whose civilisation had -built itself many habitations and was making roads and streets on the -green-brown plain, where herds of buffalo had stamped and streamed and -thundered not long ago. The town was a mile and a half away, and these -two were alone in a great circle of storm, one of them battling against -a tempest which might yet overtake her, against which she had set her -face ever since she could remember, though it had only come to violence -since her father died two years before--a careless, strong, wilful -white man, who had lived the Indian life for many years, but had been -swallowed at last by the great wave of civilisation streaming westward -and northward, wiping out the game and the Indian, and overwhelming the -rough, fighting, hunting, pioneer life. Joel Renton had made money, by -good luck chiefly, having held land here and there which he had got for -nothing, and had then almost forgotten about it, and, when reminded -of it, still held on to it with that defiant stubbornness which often -possesses improvident and careless natures. He had never had any real -business instinct, and to swagger a little over the land he held and -to treat offers of purchase with contempt was the loud assertion of a -capacity he did not possess. So it was that stubborn vanity, beneath -which was his angry protest against the prejudice felt by the new people -of the West for the white pioneer who married an Indian, and lived the -Indian life,--so it was that this gave him competence and a comfortable -home after the old trader had been driven out by the railway and the -shopkeeper. With the first land he sold he sent his daughter away to -school in a town farther east and south, where she had been brought in -touch with a life that at once cramped and attracted her; where, too, -she had felt the first chill of racial ostracism, and had proudly fought -it to the end, her weapons being talent, industry, and a hot, defiant -ambition. - -There had been three years of bitter, almost half-sullen, struggle, -lightened by one sweet friendship with a girl whose face she had since -drawn in a hundred different poses on stray pieces of paper, on the -walls of the big, well-lighted attic to which she retreated for hours -every day, when she was not abroad on the prairies, riding the Indian -pony that her uncle the Piegan Chief, Ice Breaker, had given her years -before. Three years of struggle, and then her father had died, and the -refuge for her vexed, defiant heart was gone. While he lived she could -affirm the rights of a white man’s daughter, the rights of the daughter -of a pioneer who had helped to make the West; and her pride in him had -given a glow to her cheek and a spring to her step which drew every eye. -In the chief street of Portage la Drome men would stop their trafficking -and women nudge each other when she passed, and wherever she went she -stirred interest, excited admiration, or aroused prejudice--but the -prejudice did not matter so long as her father, Joel Renton, lived. -Whatever his faults, and they were many--sometimes he drank too much, -and swore a great deal, and bullied and stormed--she blinked at them -all, for he was of the conquering race, a white man who had slept in -white sheets and eaten off white tablecloths, and used a knife and fork, -since he was born; and the women of his people had had soft petticoats -and fine stockings, and silk gowns for festal days, and feathered -hats of velvet, and shoes of polished leather, always and always, back -through many generations. She had held her head high, for she was of his -women, of the women of his people, with all their rights and all their -claims. She had held it high till that stormy day--just such a day -as this, with the surf of snow breaking against the house--when they -carried him in out of the wild turmoil and snow, laying him on the couch -where she now sat, and her head fell on his lifeless breast, and she -cried out to him in vain to come back to her. - -Before the world her head was still held high, but in the attic-room, -and out on the prairies far away, where only the coyote or the -prairie-hen saw, her head drooped, and her eyes grew heavy with pain and -sombre protest. Once in an agony of loneliness, and cruelly hurt by a -conspicuous slight put upon her at the Portage by the wife of the Reeve -of the town, who had daughters twain of pure white blood got from behind -the bar of a saloon in Winnipeg, she had thrown open her window at night -with the frost below zero, and stood in her thin nightdress, craving the -death which she hoped the cold would give her soon. It had not availed, -however, and once again she had ridden out in a blizzard to die, but -had come upon a man lost in the snow, and her own misery had passed from -her, and her heart, full of the blood of plainsmen, had done for another -what it would not do for itself. The Indian in her had, with strange, -sure instinct, found its way to Portage la Drome, the man with both -hands and one foot frozen, on her pony, she walking at his side, only -conscious that she had saved one, not two, lives that day. - -Here was another such day, here again was the storm in her heart which -had driven her into the plains that other time, and here again was that -tempest of white death outside. - -“You have no sense. You are not white. They will not have you. Sit -down--” - -The words had fallen on her ears with a cold, deadly smother. There came -a chill upon her which stilled the wild pulses in her, which suddenly -robbed the eyes of their brightness and gave a drawn look to the face. - -“You are not white. They will not have you, Pauline.” The Indian mother -repeated the words after a moment, her eyes grown still more gloomy; -for in her, too, there was a dark tide of passion moving. In all the -outlived years this girl had ever turned to the white father rather than -to her, and she had been left more and more alone. Her man had been -kind to her, and she had been a faithful wife, but she had resented the -natural instinct of her half-breed child, almost white herself and with -the feelings and ways of the whites, to turn always to her father, as -though to a superior guide, to a higher influence and authority. Was -not she herself the descendant of Blackfoot and Piegan chiefs through -generations of rulers and warriors? Was there not Piegan and Blackfoot -blood in the girl’s veins? Must only the white man’s blood be reckoned -when they made up their daily account and balanced the books of their -lives, credit and debtor,--misunderstanding and kind act, neglect -and tenderness, reproof and praise, gentleness and impulse, anger and -caress,--to be set down in the everlasting record? Why must the Indian -always give way--Indian habits, Indian desires, the Indian way of doing -things, the Indian point of view, Indian food, Indian medicine? Was it -all bad, and only that which belonged to white life good? - -“Look at your face in the glass, Pauline,” she added at last. “You are -good-looking, but it isn’t the good looks of the whites. The lodge of -a chieftainess is the place for you. There you would have praise and -honour; among the whites you are only a half-breed. What is the good? -Let us go back to the life out there beyond the Muskwat River--up -beyond. There is hunting still, a little, and the world is quiet, and -nothing troubles. Only the wild dog barks at night, or the wolf sniffs -at the door and all day there is singing. Somewhere out beyond the -Muskwat the feasts go on, and the old men build the great fires, and -tell tales, and call the wind out of the north, and make the thunder -speak; and the young men ride to the hunt or go out to battle, and build -lodges for the daughters of the tribe; and each man has his woman, and -each woman has in her breast the honour of the tribe, and the little -ones fill the lodge with laughter. Like a pocket of deerskin is every -house, warm and small and full of good things. Hai-yai, what is this -life to that! There you will be head and chief of all, for there is -money enough for a thousand horses; and your father was a white man, and -these are the days when the white man rules. Like clouds before the sun -are the races of men, and one race rises and another falls. Here you -are not first, but last; and the child of the white father and mother, -though they be as the dirt that flies from a horse’s heels, it is before -you. Your mother is a Blackfoot.” - -As the woman spoke slowly and with many pauses, the girl’s mood changed, -and there came into her eyes a strange, dark look deeper than anger. -She listened with a sudden patience which stilled the agitation in -her breast and gave a little touch of rigidity to her figure. Her eyes -withdrew from the wild storm without and gravely settled on her mother’s -face, and with the Indian woman’s last words understanding pierced, -but did not dispel, the sombre and ominous look in her eyes. There was -silence for a moment, and then she spoke almost as evenly as her mother -had done. - -“I will tell you everything. You are my mother, and I love you; but -you will not see the truth. When my father took you from the lodges and -brought you here, it was the end of the Indian life. It was for you to -go on with him, but you would not go. I was young, but I saw, and I said -that in all things I would go with him. I did not know that it would be -hard, but at school, at the very first, I began to understand. There was -only one, a French girl--I loved her--a girl who said to me, ‘You are -as white as I am, as anyone, and your heart is the same, and you are -beautiful.’ Yes, Manette said I was beautiful.” - -She paused a moment, a misty, far-away look came into her eyes, her -fingers clasped and unclasped, and she added: - -“And her brother, Julien,--he was older,--when he came to visit Manette, -he spoke to me as though I was all white, and was good to me. I have -never forgotten, never. It was five years ago, but I remember him. He -was tall and strong, and as good as Manette--as good as Manette. I loved -Manette, but she suffered for me, for I was not like the others, and my -ways were different--then. I had lived up there on the Warais among the -lodges, and I had not seen things--only from my father, and he did so -much in an Indian way. So I was sick at heart, and sometimes I wanted to -die; and once--But there was Manette, and she would laugh and sing, and -we would play together, and I would speak French and she would speak -English, and I learned from her to forget the Indian ways. What were -they to me? I had loved them when I was of them, but I came on to a -better life. The Indian life is to the white life as the parfleche pouch -to--to this.” She laid her hand upon a purse of delicate silver mesh -hanging at her waist. “When your eyes are opened you must go on, you -cannot stop. There is no going back. When you have read of all there -is in the white man’s world, when you have seen, then there is no -returning. You may end it all, if you wish, in the snow, in the river, -but there is no returning. The lodge of a chief--ah, if my father had -heard you say that--!” - -The Indian woman shifted heavily in her chair, then shrank away from -the look fixed on her. Once or twice she made as if she would speak, but -sank down in the great chair, helpless and dismayed. - -“The lodge of a chief!” the girl continued in a low, bitter voice. “What -is the lodge of a chief? A smoky fire, a pot, a bed of skins, aih-yi! If -the lodges of the Indians were millions, and I could be head of all, -and rule the land, yet would I rather be a white girl in the hut of her -white man, struggling for daily bread among the people who sweep the -buffalo out, but open up the land with the plough, and make a thousand -live where one lived before. It is peace you want, my mother, peace and -solitude, in which the soul goes to sleep. Your days of hope are over, -and you want to drowse by the fire. I want to see the white men’s cities -grow, and the armies coming over the hill with the ploughs and the -reapers and the mowers, and the wheels and the belts and engines of the -great factories, and the white woman’s life spreading everywhere; for I -am a white man’s daughter. I can’t be both Indian and white. I will not -be like the sun when the shadow cuts across it and the land grows dark. -I will not be half-breed. I will be white or I will be Indian; and I -will be white, white only. My heart is white, my tongue is white, I -think, I feel, as white people think and feel. What they wish, I wish; -as they live, I live; as white women dress, I dress.” - -She involuntarily drew up the dark red skirt she wore, showing a white -petticoat and a pair of fine stockings on an ankle as shapely as she had -ever seen among all the white women she knew. She drew herself up -with pride, and her body had a grace and ease which the white woman’s -convention had not cramped. - -Yet, with all her protests, no one would have thought her English. -She might have been Spanish, or Italian, or Roumanian, or Slav, though -nothing of her Indian blood showed in purely Indian characteristics, and -something sparkled in her, gave a radiance to her face and figure -which the storm and struggle in her did not smother. The white women -of Portage la Drome were too blind, too prejudiced, to see all that she -really was, and admiring white men could do little, for Pauline would -have nothing to do with them till the women met her absolutely as an -equal; and from the other halfbreeds, who intermarried with each other -and were content to take a lower place than the pure whites, she held -aloof, save when any of them was ill or in trouble. Then she recognised -the claim of race, and came to their doors with pity and soft impulses -to help them. French and Scotch and English half-breeds, as they were, -they understood how she was making a fight for all who were half-Indian, -half-white, and watched her with a furtive devotion, acknowledging her -superior place, and proud of it. - -“I will not stay here,” said the Indian mother with sullen stubbornness. -“I will go back beyond the Warais. My life is my own life, and I will do -what I like with it.” - -The girl started, but became composed again on the instant. “Is your -life all your own, mother?” she asked. “I did not come into the world -of my own will. If I had I would have come all white or all Indian. I am -your daughter, and I am here, good or bad--is your life all your own?” - -“You can marry and stay here, when I go. You are twenty. I had my man, -your father, when I was seventeen. You can marry. There are men. You -have money. They will marry you--and forget the rest.” - -With a cry of rage and misery the girl sprang to her feet and started -forwards, but stopped suddenly at sound of a hasty knocking and a voice -asking admittance. An instant later, a huge, bearded, broad-shouldered -man stepped inside, shaking himself free of the snow, laughing -half-sheepishly as he did so, and laying his fur-cap and gloves with -exaggerated care on the wide window-sill. - -“John Alloway,” said the Indian woman in a voice of welcome, and with -a brightening eye, for it would seem as though he came in answer to her -words of a few moments before. With a mother’s instinct she had divined -at once the reason for the visit, though no warning thought crossed the -mind of the girl, who placed a chair for their visitor with a heartiness -which was real--was not this the white man she had saved from death in -the snow a year ago? Her heart was soft towards the life she had kept -in the world. She smiled at him, all the anger gone from her eyes, and -there was almost a touch of tender anxiety in her voice as she said -“What brought you out in this blizzard? It wasn’t safe. It doesn’t seem -possible you got here from the Portage.” - -The huge ranchman and auctioneer laughed cheerily. “Once lost, twice get -there,” he exclaimed, with a quizzical toss of the head, thinking he had -said a good thing. “It’s a year ago to the very day that I was lost out -back”--he jerked a thumb over his shoulder--“and you picked me up and -brought me in; and what was I to do but come out on the anniversary and -say thank you? I’d fixed up all year to come to you, and I wasn’t to be -stopped, ‘cause it was like the day we first met, old Coldmaker hitting -the world with his whips of frost, and shaking his ragged blankets of -snow over the wild west.” - -“Just such a day,” said the Indian woman after a pause. Pauline remained -silent, placing a little bottle of cordial before their visitor, with -which he presently regaled himself, raising his glass with an air. - -“Many happy returns to us both!” he said, and threw the liquor down his -throat, smacked his lips, and drew his hand down his great moustache and -beard like some vast animal washing its face with its paw. Smiling -and yet not at ease, he looked at the two women and nodded his head -encouragingly, but whether the encouragement was for himself or for them -he could not have told. - -His last words, however, had altered the situation. The girl had caught -at a suggestion in them which startled her. This rough white plainsman -was come to make love to her, and to say--what? He was at once awkward -and confident, afraid of her, of her refinement, grace, beauty, and -education, and yet confident in the advantage of his position, a -white man bending to a half-breed girl. He was not conscious of the -condescension and majesty of his demeanour, but it was there, and his -untutored words and ways must make it all too apparent to the girl. The -revelation of the moment made her at once triumphant and humiliated. -This white man had come to make love to her, that was apparent; but that -he, ungrammatical, crude, and rough, should think he had but to put -out his hand, and she in whom every subtle emotion and influence had -delicate response, whose words and ways were as far removed from his as -day from night, would fly to him, brought the flush of indignation to -her cheek. She responded to his toast with a pleasant nod, however, and -said: - -“But if you will keep coming in such wild storms, there will not be many -anniversaries.” Laughing, she poured out another glass of liquor for -him. - -“Well, now, p’r’aps you’re right, and so the only thing to do is not to -keep coming, but to stay--stay right where you are.” - -The Indian woman could not see her daughter’s face, which was turned to -the fire, but she herself smiled at John Alloway, and nodded her head -approvingly. Here was the cure for her own trouble and loneliness. -Pauline and she, who lived in different worlds, and yet were tied to -each other by circumstances they could not control, would each work -out her own destiny after her own nature, since John Alloway had come -a-wooing. She would go back on the Warais, and Pauline would remain at -the Portage, a white woman with her white man. She would go back to the -smoky fires in the huddled lodges; to the venison stew and the snake -dance; to the feasts of the Medicine Men, and the long sleeps in the -summer days, and the winter’s tales, and be at rest among her own -people; and Pauline would have revenge of the wife of the prancing -Reeve, and perhaps the people would forget who her mother was. - -With these thoughts flying through her sluggish mind, she rose and moved -heavily from the room, with a parting look of encouragement at Alloway, -as though to say, a man that is bold is surest. - -With her back to the man, Pauline watched her mother leave the room, -saw the look she gave Alloway. When the door was closed she turned and -looked Alloway in the eyes. - -“How old are you?” she asked suddenly. - -He stirred in his seat nervously. “Why, fifty, about,” he answered with -confusion. - -“Then you’ll be wise not to go looking for anniversaries in blizzards, -when they’re few at the best,” she said with a gentle and dangerous -smile. - -“Fifty-why, I’m as young as most men of thirty,” he responded with -an uncertain laugh. “I’d have come here to-day if it had been snowing -pitchforks and chain-lightning. I made up my mind I would. You saved my -life, that’s dead sure; and I’d be down among the moles if it wasn’t -for you and that Piegan pony of yours. Piegan ponies are wonders in a -storm-seem to know their way by instinct. You, too--why, I bin on -the plains all my life, and was no better than a baby that day; but -you--why, you had Piegan in you, why, yes--” - -He stopped short for a moment, checked by the look in her face, then -went blindly on: “And you’ve got Blackfoot in you, too; and you just -felt your way through the tornado and over the blind prairie like a bird -reaching for the hills. It was as easy to you as picking out a moverick -in a bunch of steers to me. But I never could make out what you was -doing on the prairie that terrible day. I’ve thought of it a hundred -times. What was you doing, if it ain’t cheek to ask?” - -“I was trying to lose a life,” she answered quietly, her eyes dwelling -on his face, yet not seeing him; for it all came back on her, the agony -which had driven her out into the tempest to be lost evermore. - -He laughed. “Well, now, that’s good,” he said; “that’s what they call -speaking sarcastic. You was out to save, and not to lose, a life; that -was proved to the satisfaction of the court.” He paused and chuckled -to himself, thinking he had been witty, and continued: “And I was that -court, and my judgment was that the debt of that life you saved had to -be paid to you within one calendar year, with interest at the usual per -cent for mortgages on good security. That was my judgment, and there’s -no appeal from it. I am the great Justinian in this case.” - -“Did you ever save anybody’s life?” she asked, putting the bottle of -cordial away, as he filled his glass for the third time. - -“Twice certain, and once dividin’ the honours,” he answered, pleased at -the question. - -“And did you expect to get any pay, with or without interest?” she -added. - -“Me? I never thought of it again. But yes--by gol, I did! One case was -funny, as funny can be. It was Ricky Wharton over on the Muskwat River. -I saved his life right enough, and he came to me a year after and said, -You saved my life, now what are you going to do with it? I’m stony -broke. I owe a hundred dollars, and I wouldn’t be owing it if you hadn’t -saved my life. When you saved it I was five hunderd to the good, and -I’d have left that much behind me. Now I’m on the rocks, because you -insisted on saving my life; and you just got to take care of me.’ I -‘insisted!’ Well, that knocked me silly, and I took him on--blame me, if -I didn’t keep Ricky a whole year, till he went north looking for gold. -Get pay--why, I paid! Saving life has its responsibilities, little gal.” - -“You can’t save life without running some risk yourself, not as a rule, -can you?” she said, shrinking from his familiarity. - -“Not as a rule,” he replied. “You took on a bit of risk with me, you and -your Piegan pony.” - -“Oh, I was young,” she responded, leaning over the table, and drawing -faces on a piece of paper before her. “I could take more risks, I was -only nineteen!” - -“I don’t catch on,” he rejoined. “If it’s sixteen or--” - -“Or fifty,” she interposed. - -“What difference does it make? If you’re done for, it’s the same at -nineteen as fifty, and vicey-versey.” - -“No, it’s not the same,” she answered. “You leave so much more that you -want to keep, when you go at fifty.” - -“Well, I dunno. I never thought of that.” - -“There’s all that has belonged to you. You’ve been married, and have -children, haven’t you?” - -He started, frowned, then straightened himself. “I got one girl--she’s -east with her grandmother,” he said jerkily. - -“That’s what I said; there’s more to leave behind at fifty,” she -replied, a red spot on each cheek. She was not looking at him, but at -the face of a man on the paper before her--a young man with abundant -hair, a strong chin, and big, eloquent eyes; and all around his face she -had drawn the face of a girl many times, and beneath the faces of both -she was writing Manette and Julien. - -The water was getting too deep for John Alloway. - -He floundered towards the shore. “I’m no good at words,” he said--“no -good at argyment; but I’ve got a gift for stories--round the fire of a -night, with a pipe and a tin basin of tea; so I’m not going to try and -match you. You’ve had a good education down at Winnipeg. Took every -prize, they say, and led the school, though there was plenty of fuss -because they let you do it, and let you stay there, being half-Indian. -You never heard what was going on outside, I s’pose. It didn’t matter, -for you won out. Blamed foolishness, trying to draw the line between red -and white that way. Of course, it’s the women always, always the women, -striking out for all-white or nothing. Down there at Portage they’ve -treated you mean, mean as dirt. The Reeve’s wife--well, we’ll fix that -up all right. I guess John Alloway ain’t to be bluffed. He knows too -much and they all know he knows enough. When John Alloway, 32 Main -Street, with a ranch on the Katanay, says, ‘We’re coming--Mr. and Mrs. -John Alloway is coming,’ they’ll get out their cards visite, I guess.” - -Pauline’s head bent lower, and she seemed laboriously etching lines into -the faces before her--Manette and Julien, Julien and Manette; and there -came into her eyes the youth and light and gaiety of the days when -Julien came of an afternoon and the riverside rang with laughter; the -dearest, lightest days she had ever spent. - -The man of fifty went on, seeing nothing but a girl over whom he was -presently going to throw the lasso of his affection, and take her home -with him, yielding and glad, a white man, and his half-breed girl--but -such a half-breed! - -“I seen enough of the way some of them women treated you,” he continued, -“and I sez to myself, Her turn next. There’s a way out, I sez, and John -Alloway pays his debts. When the anniversary comes round I’ll put things -right, I sez to myself. She saved my life, and she shall have the rest -of it, if she’ll take it, and will give a receipt in full, and open -a new account in the name of John and Pauline Alloway. Catch it? -See--Pauline?” - -Slowly she got to her feet. There was a look in her eyes such as -had been in her mother’s a little while before, but a hundred times -intensified: a look that belonged to the flood and flow of generations -of Indian life, yet controlled in her by the order and understanding of -centuries of white men’s lives, the pervasive, dominating power of race. - -For an instant she kept her eyes towards the window. The storm had -suddenly ceased, and a glimmer of sunset light was breaking over the -distant wastes of snow. - -“You want to pay a debt you think you owe,” she said, in a strange, -lustreless voice, turning to him at last. “Well, you have paid it. You -have given me a book to read which I will keep always. And I give you a -receipt in full for your debt.” - -“I don’t know about any book,” he answered dazedly. “I want to marry you -right away.” - -“I am sorry, but it is not necessary,” she replied suggestively. Her -face was very pale now. - -“But I want to. It ain’t a debt. That was only a way of putting it. I -want to make you my wife. I got some position, and I can make the West -sit up, and look at you and be glad.” - -Suddenly her anger flared out, low and vivid and fierce, but her words -were slow and measured. “There is no reason why I should marry you--not -one. You offer me marriage as a prince might give a penny to a beggar. -If my mother were not an Indian woman, you would not have taken it all -as a matter of course. But my father was a white man, and I am a white -man’s daughter, and I would rather marry an Indian, who would think me -the best thing there was in the light of the sun, than marry you. Had I -been pure white you would not have been so sure, you would have asked, -not offered. I am not obliged to you. You ought to go to no woman as -you came to me. See, the storm has stopped. You will be quite safe going -back now. The snow will be deep, perhaps, but it is not far.” - -She went to the window, got his cap and gloves, and handed them to him. -He took them, dumbfounded and overcome. - -“Say, I ain’t done it right, mebbe, but I meant well, and I’d be good to -you and proud of you, and I’d love you better than anything I ever saw,” - he said shamefacedly, but eagerly and honestly too. - -“Ah, you should have said those last words first,” she answered. - -“I say them now.” - -“They come too late; but they would have been too late in any case,” she -added. “Still, I am glad you said them.” - -She opened the door for him. - -“I made a mistake,” he urged humbly. “I understand better now. I never -had any schoolin’.” - -“Oh, it isn’t that,” she answered gently. “Goodbye.” - -Suddenly he turned. “You’re right--it couldn’t ever be,” he said. -“You’re--you’re great. And I owe you my life still.” - -He stepped out into the biting air. - -For a moment Pauline stood motionless in the middle of the room, her -gaze fixed upon the door which had just closed; then, with a wild -gesture of misery and despair, she threw herself upon the couch in a -passionate outburst of weeping. Sobs shook her from head to foot, and -her hands, clenched above her head, twitched convulsively. - -Presently the door opened and her mother looked in eagerly. At what she -saw her face darkened and hardened for an instant, but then the girl’s -utter abandonment of grief and agony convinced and conquered her. -Some glimmer of the true understanding of the problem which Pauline -represented got into her heart, and drove the sullen selfishness from -her face and eyes and mind. She came over heavily and, sinking upon her -knees, swept an arm around the girl’s shoulder. She realised what had -happened, and probably this was the first time in her life that she had -ever come by instinct to a revelation of her daughter’s mind, or of the -faithful meaning of incidents of their lives. - -“You said no to John Alloway,” she murmured. Defiance and protest spoke -in the swift gesture of the girl’s hands. “You think because he was -white that I’d drop into his arms! No--no--no!” - -“You did right, little one.” - -The sobs suddenly stopped, and the girl seemed to listen with all her -body. There was something in her Indian mother’s voice she had never -heard before--at least, not since she was a little child, and swung in a -deer-skin hammock in a tamarac tree by Renton’s Lodge, where the chiefs -met, and the West paused to rest on its onward march. Something of the -accents of the voice that crooned to her then was in the woman’s tones -now. - -“He offered it like a lump of sugar to a bird--I know. He didn’t know -that you have great blood--yes, but it is true. My man’s grandfather, he -was of the blood of the kings of England. My man had the proof. And for -a thousand years my people have been chiefs. There is no blood in all -the West like yours. My heart was heavy, and dark thoughts came to me, -because my man is gone, and the life is not my life, and I am only an -Indian woman from the Warais, and my heart goes out there always now. -But some great Medicine has been poured into my heart. As I stood at the -door and saw you lying there, I called to the Sun. ‘O great Spirit,’ I -said, ‘help me to understand; for this girl is bone of my bone and flesh -of my flesh, and Evil has come between us!’ And the Sun Spirit poured -the Medicine into my spirit, and there is no cloud between us now. It -has passed away, and I see. Little white one, the white life is the only -life, and I will live it with you till a white man comes and gives you -a white man’s home. But not John Alloway--shall the crow nest with the -oriole?” - -As the woman spoke with slow, measured voice, full of the cadences of -a heart revealing itself, the girl’s breath at first seemed to stop, so -still she lay; then, as the true understanding of the words came to her, -she panted with excitement, her breast heaved, and the blood flushed -her face. When the slow voice ceased, and the room became still, she lay -quiet for a moment, letting the new thing find secure lodgment in her -thought; then, suddenly, she raised herself and threw her arms round her -mother in a passion of affection. - -“Lalika! O mother Lalika!” she said tenderly, and kissed her again -and again. Not since she was a little girl, long before they left the -Warais, had she called her mother by her Indian name, which her father -had humorously taught her to do in those far-off happy days by the -beautiful, singing river and the exquisite woods, when, with a bow and -arrow, she had ranged a young Diana who slew only with love. - -“Lalika, mother Lalika, it is like the old, old times,” she added -softly. “Ah, it does not matter now, for you understand!” - -“I do not understand altogether,” murmured the Indian woman gently. “I -am not white, and there is a different way of thinking; but I will hold -your hand, and we will live the white life together.” - -Cheek to cheek they saw the darkness come, and, afterwards, the silver -moon steal up over a frozen world, in which the air bit like steel and -braced the heart like wine. Then, at last, before it was nine o’clock, -after her custom, the Indian woman went to bed, leaving her daughter -brooding peacefully by the fire. - -For a long time Pauline sat with hands clasped in her lap, her gaze on -the tossing flames, in her heart and mind a new feeling of strength and -purpose. The way before her was not clear, she saw no further than this -day, and all that it had brought; yet she was as one that has crossed -a direful flood and finds herself on a strange shore in an unknown -country, with the twilight about her, yet with so much of danger passed -that there was only the thought of the moment’s safety round her, the -camp-fire to be lit, and the bed to be made under the friendly trees and -stars. - -For a half-hour she sat so, and then, suddenly, she raised her head -listening, leaning towards the window, through which the moonlight -streamed. She heard her name called without, distinct and -strange--“Pauline! Pauline!” - -Starting up, she ran to the door and opened it. All was silent and -cruelly cold. Nothing but the wide plain of snow and the steely air. But -as she stood intently listening, the red glow from the fire behind her, -again came the cry--“Pauline!” not far away. Her heart beat hard, and -she raised her head and called--why was it she should call out in a -language not her own? “Qu’appelle? Qu’appelle?” - -And once again on the still night air came the trembling -appeal--“Pauline!” - -“Qu’appelle? Qu’appelle?” she cried, then, with a gasping murmur of -understanding and recognition she ran forwards in the frozen night -towards the sound of the voice. The same intuitive sense which had made -her call out in French, without thought or reason, had revealed to her -who it was that called; or was it that even in the one word uttered -there was the note of a voice always remembered since those days with -Manette at Winnipeg? - -Not far away from the house, on the way to Portage la Drome, but a -little distance from the road, was a crevasse, and towards this she -sped, for once before an accident had happened there. Again the voice -called as she sped--“Pauline!” and she cried out that she was coming. -Presently she stood above the declivity, and peered over. Almost -immediately below her, a few feet down, was a man lying in the snow. He -had strayed from the obliterated road, and had fallen down the crevasse, -twisting his foot cruelly. Unable to walk he had crawled several hundred -yards in the snow, but his strength had given out, and then he had -called to the house, on whose dark windows flickered the flames of the -fire, the name of the girl he had come so far to see. With a cry of -joy and pain at once she recognised him now. It was as her heart had -said--it was Julien, Manette’s brother. In a moment she was beside him, -her arm around his shoulder. - -“Pauline!” he said feebly, and fainted in her arms. An instant later -she was speeding to the house, and, rousing her mother and two of the -stablemen, she snatched a flask of brandy from a cupboard and hastened -back. - -An hour later Julien Labrosse lay in the great sitting-room beside the -fire, his foot and ankle bandaged, and at ease, his face alight with all -that had brought him there. And once again the Indian mother with a sure -instinct knew why he had come, and saw that now her girl would have a -white woman’s home, and, for her man, one of the race like her father’s -race, white and conquering. - -“I’m sorry to give trouble,” Julien said, laughing--he had a trick -of laughing lightly; “but I’ll be able to get back to the Portage -to-morrow.” - -To this the Indian mother said, however: “To please yourself is a great -thing, but to please others is better; and so you will stay here till -you can walk back to the Portage, M’sieu’ Julien.” - -“Well, I’ve never been so comfortable,” he said--“never so--happy. If -you don’t mind the trouble!” The Indian woman nodded pleasantly, and -found an excuse to leave the room. But before she went she contrived -to place near his elbow one of the scraps of paper on which Pauline had -drawn his face, with that of Manette. It brought a light of hope and -happiness into his eyes, and he thrust the paper under the fur robes of -the couch. - -“What are you doing with your life?” Pauline asked him, as his eyes -sought hers a few moments later. - -“Oh, I have a big piece of work before me,” he answered eagerly, “a -great chance--to build a bridge over the St. Lawrence, and I’m only -thirty! I’ve got my start. Then, I’ve made over the old Seigneury my -father left me, and I’m going to live in it. It will be a fine place, -when I’ve done with it--comfortable and big, with old oak timbers and -walls, and deep fireplaces, and carvings done in the time of Louis -Quinze, and dark red velvet curtains for the drawingroom, and skins and -furs. Yes, I must have skins and furs like these here.” He smoothed the -skins with his hand. - -“Manette, she will live with you?” Pauline asked. “Oh no, her husband -wouldn’t like that. You see, Manette is to be married. She told me to -tell you all about it.” - -He told her all there was to tell of Manette’s courtship, and added that -the wedding would take place in the spring. - -“Manette wanted it when the leaves first flourish and the birds come -back,” he said gaily; “and so she’s not going to live with me at the -Seigneury, you see. No, there it is, as fine a house, good enough for a -prince, and I shall be there alone, unless--” - -His eyes met hers, and he caught the light that was in them, before the -eyelids drooped over them and she turned her head to the fire. “But the -spring is two months off yet,” he added. - -“The spring?” she asked, puzzled, yet half afraid to speak. - -“Yes, I’m going into my new house when Manette goes into her new -house--in the spring. And I won’t go alone if--” - -He caught her eyes again, but she rose hurriedly and said: “You must -sleep now. Good-night.” She held out her hand. - -“Well, I’ll tell you the rest to-morrow-to-morrow night when it’s quiet -like this, and the stars shine,” he answered. “I’m going to have a home -of my own like this--ah, bien sur, Pauline.” - -That night the old Indian mother prayed to the Sun. “O great Spirit,” - she said, “I give thanks for the Medicine poured into my heart. Be good -to my white child when she goes with her man to the white man’s home far -away. O great Spirit, when I return to the lodges of my people, be kind -to me, for I shall be lonely; I shall not have my child; I shall not -hear my white man’s voice. Give me good Medicine, O Sun and great -Father, till my dream tells me that my man comes from over the hills for -me once more.” - - - - -THE STAKE AND THE PLUMB-LINE - -She went against all good judgment in marrying him; she cut herself off -from her own people, from the life in which she had been an alluring and -beautiful figure. Washington had never had two such seasons as those in -which she moved; for the diplomatic circle who had had “the run of the -world” knew her value, and were not content without her. She might -have made a brilliant match with one ambassador thirty years older than -herself--she was but twenty-two; and there were at least six attaches -and secretaries of legation who entered upon a tournament for her heart -and hand; but she was not for them. All her fine faculties of tact and -fairness, of harmless strategy, and her gifts of wit and unexpected -humour were needed to keep her cavaliers constant and hopeful to the -last; but she never faltered, and she did not fail. The faces of old men -brightened when they saw her, and one or two ancient figures who, for -years, had been seldom seen at social functions now came when they knew -she was to be present. There were, of course, a few women who said she -would coquette with any male from nine to ninety; but no man ever said -so; and there was none, from first to last, but smiled with pleasure -at even the mention of her name, so had her vivacity, intelligence, and -fine sympathy conquered them. She was a social artist by instinct. In -their hearts they all recognised how fair and impartial she was; and she -drew out of every man the best that was in him. The few women who did -not like her said that she chattered; but the truth was she made other -people talk by swift suggestion or delicate interrogation. - -After the blow fell, Freddy Hartzman put the matter succinctly, and told -the truth faithfully, when he said, “The first time I met her, I told -her all I’d ever done that could be told, and all I wanted to do; -including a resolve to carry her off to some desert place and set up -a Kingdom of Two. I don’t know how she did it. I was like a tap, and -poured myself out; and when it was all over, I thought she was the best -talker I’d ever heard. But yet she’d done nothing except look at me -and listen, and put in a question here and there, that was like a baby -asking to see your watch. Oh, she was a lily-flower, was Sally Seabrook, -and I’ve never been sorry I told her all my little story! It did me -good. Poor darling--it makes me sick sometimes when I think of it. Yet -she’ll win out all right--a hundred to one she’ll win out. She was a -star.” - -Freddy Hartzman was in an embassy of repute; he knew the chancelleries -and salons of many nations, and was looked upon as one of the ablest and -shrewdest men in the diplomatic service. He had written one of the -best books on international law in existence, he talked English like a -native, he had published a volume of delightful verse, and had -omitted to publish several others, including a tiny volume which Sally -Seabrook’s charms had inspired him to write. His view of her was shared -by most men who knew the world, and especially by the elderly men who -had a real knowledge of human nature, among whom was a certain important -member of the United States executive called John Appleton. When the end -of all things at Washington came for Sally, these two men united to bear -her up, that her feet should not stumble upon the stony path of the hard -journey she had undertaken. - -Appleton was not a man of much speech, but his words had weight; for he -was not only a minister; he came of an old family which had ruled -the social destinies of a state, and had alternately controlled and -disturbed its politics. On the day of the sensation, in the fiery cloud -of which Sally disappeared, Appleton delivered himself of his mind in -the matter at a reception given by the President. - -“She will come back--and we will all take her back, be glad to have her -back,” he said. “She has the grip of a lever which can lift the eternal -hills with the right pressure. Leave her alone--leave her alone. This is -a democratic country, and she’ll prove democracy a success before she’s -done.” - -The world knew that John Appleton had offered her marriage, and he had -never hidden the fact. What they did not know was that she had told him -what she meant to do before she did it. He had spoken to her plainly, -bluntly, then with a voice that was blurred and a little broken, -urging her against the course towards which she was set; but it had not -availed; and, realising that he had come upon a powerful will underneath -the sunny and so human surface, he had ceased to protest, to bear down -upon her mind with his own iron force. When he realised that all his -reasoning was wasted, that all worldly argument was vain, he made one -last attempt, a forlorn hope, as though to put upon record what he -believed to be the truth. - -“There is no position you cannot occupy,” he said. “You have the perfect -gift in private life, and you have a public gift. You have a genius for -ruling. Say, my dear, don’t wreck it all. I know you are not for me, but -there are better men in the country than I am. Hartzman will be a great -man one day--he wants you. Young Tilden wants you; he has millions, and -he will never disgrace them or you, the power which they can command, -and the power which you have. And there are others. Your people have -told you they will turn you off; the world will say things--will -rend you. There is nothing so popular for the moment as the fall of a -favourite. But that’s nothing--it’s nothing at all compared with the -danger to yourself. I didn’t sleep last night thinking of it. Yet I’m -glad you wrote me; it gave me time to think, and I can tell you the -truth as I see it. Haven’t you thought that he will drag you down, -down, down, wear out your soul, break and sicken your life, destroy your -beauty--you are beautiful, my dear, beyond what the world sees, even. -Give it up--ah, give it up, and don’t break our hearts! There are too -many people loving you for you to sacrifice them--and yourself, too.... -You’ve had such a good time!” - -“It’s been like a dream,” she interrupted, in a faraway voice, “like a -dream, these two years.” - -“And it’s been such a good dream,” he urged; “and you will only go to a -bad one, from which you will never wake. The thing has fastened on him; -he will never give it up. And penniless, too--his father has cast him -off. My girl, it’s impossible. Listen to me. There’s no one on earth -that would do more for you than I would--no one.” - -“Dear, dear friend!” she cried with a sudden impulse, and caught his -hand in hers and kissed it before he could draw it back. “You are so -true, and you think you are right. But, but”--her eyes took on a -deep, steady, far-away look--“but I will save him; and we shall not be -penniless in the end. Meanwhile I have seven hundred dollars a year of -my own. No one can touch that. Nothing can change me now--and I have -promised.” - -When he saw her fixed determination, he made no further protest, but -asked that he might help her, be with her the next day, when she was -to take a step which the wise world would say must lead to sorrow and a -miserable end. - -The step she took was to marry Jim Templeton, the drunken, cast-off son -of a millionaire senator from Kentucky, who controlled railways, and -owned a bank, and had so resented his son’s inebriate habits that for -five years he had never permitted Jim’s name to be mentioned in his -presence. Jim had had twenty thousand dollars left him by his mother, -and a small income of three hundred dollars from an investment which had -been made for him when a little boy. And this had carried him on; for, -drunken as he was, he had sense enough to eke out the money, limiting -himself to three thousand dollars a year. He had four thousand dollars -left, and his tiny income of three hundred, when he went to Sally -Seabrook, after having been sober for a month, and begged her to marry -him. - -Before dissipation had made him look ten years older than he was, there -had been no handsomer man in all America. Even yet he had a remarkable -face; long, delicate, with dark brown eyes, as fair a forehead as man -could wish, and black, waving hair, streaked with grey-grey, though he -was but twenty-nine years of age. - -When Sally was fifteen and he twenty-two, he had fallen in love with -her and she with him; and nothing had broken the early romance. He had -captured her young imagination, and had fastened his image on her heart. -Her people, seeing the drift of things, had sent her to a school on -the Hudson, and the two did not meet for some time. Then came a stolen -interview, and a fastening of the rivets of attraction--for Jim had -gifts of a wonderful kind. He knew his Horace and Anacreon and Heine -and Lamartine and Dante in the originals, and a hundred others; he was -a speaker of power and grace; and he had a clear, strong head for -business. He was also a lawyer, and was junior attorney to his father’s -great business. It was because he had the real business gift, not -because he had a brilliant and scholarly mind, that his father had taken -him into his concerns, and was the more unforgiving when he gave way to -temptation. Otherwise, he would have pensioned Jim off, and dismissed -him from his mind as a useless, insignificant person; for Horace, -Anacreon, and philosophy and history were to him the recreations of the -feeble-minded. He had set his heart on Jim, and what Jim could do and -would do by and by in the vast financial concerns he controlled, when -he was ready to slip out and down; but Jim had disappointed him beyond -calculation. - -In the early days of their association Jim had left his post and taken -to drink at critical moments in their operations. At first, high words -had been spoken; then there came the strife of two dissimilar natures, -and both were headstrong, and each proud and unrelenting in his own way. -Then, at last, had come the separation, irrevocable and painful; and Jim -had flung out into the world, a drunkard, who, sober for a fortnight or -a month, or three months, would afterward go off on a spree, in which he -quoted Sappho and Horace in taverns, and sang bacchanalian songs with a -voice meant for the stage--a heritage from an ancestor who had sung upon -the English stage a hundred years before. Even in his cups, even after -his darling vice had submerged him, Jim Templeton was a man marked out -from his fellows, distinguished and very handsome. Society, however, had -ceased to recognise him for a long time, and he did not seek it. For two -or three years he practised law now and then. He took cases, preferably -criminal cases, for which very often he got no pay; but that, too, -ceased at last. Now, in his quiet, sober intervals he read omnivorously, -and worked out problems in physics for which he had a taste, until the -old appetite surged over him again. Then his spirits rose, and he was -the old brilliant talker, the joyous galliard until, in due time, he -became silently and lethargically drunk. - -In one of his sober intervals he had met Sally Seabrook in the street. -It was the first time in four years, for he had avoided her, and though -she had written to him once or twice, he had never answered her--shame -was in his heart. Yet all the time the old song was in Sally’s ears. -Jim Templeton had touched her in some distant and intimate corner of her -nature where none other had reached; and in all her gay life, when men -had told their tale of admiration in their own way, her mind had gone -back to Jim, and what he had said under the magnolia trees; and his -voice had drowned all others. She was not blind to what he had become, -but a deep belief possessed her that she, of all the world, could save -him. She knew how futile it would look to the world, how wild a dream -it looked even to her own heart, how perilous it was; but, play upon -the surface of things as she had done so much and so often in her brief -career, she was seized of convictions having origin, as it might seem, -in something beyond herself. - -So when she and Jim met in the street, the old true thing rushed upon -them both, and for a moment they stood still and looked at each other. -As they might look who say farewell forever, so did each dwell upon the -other’s face. That was the beginning of the new epoch. A few days more, -and Jim came to her and said that she alone could save him; and she -meant him to say it, had led him to the saying, for the same conviction -was burned deep in her own soul. She knew the awful risk she was taking, -that the step must mean social ostracism, and that her own people would -be no kinder to her than society; but she gasped a prayer, smiled at Jim -as though all were well, laid her plans, made him promise her one thing -on his knees, and took the plunge. - -Her people did as she expected. She was threatened with banishment from -heart and home--with disinheritance; but she pursued her course; and the -only person who stood with her and Jim at the altar was John Appleton, -who would not be denied, and who had such a half-hour with Jim before -the ceremony as neither of them forgot in the years that the locust ate -thereafter. And, standing at the altar, Jim’s eyes were still wet, with -new resolves in his heart and a being at his side meant for the best man -in the world. As he knelt beside her, awaiting the benediction, a sudden -sense of the enormity of this act came upon him, and for her sake he -would have drawn back then, had it not been too late. He realised that -it was a crime to put this young, beautiful life in peril; that his own -life was a poor, contemptible thing, and that he had been possessed of -the egotism of the selfish and the young. - -But the thing was done, and a new life was begun. Before they were -launched upon it, however, before society had fully grasped the -sensation, or they had left upon their journey to northern Canada, where -Sally intended they should work out their problem and make their home, -far and free from all old associations, a curious thing happened. Jim’s -father sent an urgent message to Sally to come to him. When she came, he -told her she was mad, and asked her why she had thrown her life away. - -“Why have you done it?” he said. “You--you knew all about him; you might -have married the best man in the country. You could rule a kingdom; you -have beauty and power, and make people do what you want: and you’ve got -a sot.” - -“He is your son,” she answered quietly. - -She looked so beautiful and so fine as she stood there, fearless and -challenging before him, that he was moved. But he would not show it. - -“He was my son--when he was a man,” he retorted grimly. - -“He is the son of the woman you once loved,” she answered. - -The old man turned his head away. - -“What would she have said to what you did to Jim?” He drew himself -around sharply. Her dagger had gone home, but he would not let her know -it. - -“Leave her out of the question--she was a saint,” he said roughly. - -“She cannot be left out; nor can you. He got his temperament naturally; -he inherited his weakness from your grandfather, from her father. Do you -think you are in no way responsible?” - -He was silent for a moment, but then said stubbornly: “Why--why have you -done it? What’s between him and me can’t be helped; we are father and -son; but you--you had no call, no responsibility.” - -“I love Jim. I always loved him, ever since I can remember, as you did. -I see my way ahead. I will not desert him. No one cares what happens to -him, no one but me. Your love wouldn’t stand the test; mine will.” - -“Your folks have disinherited you,--you have almost nothing, and I will -not change my mind. What do you see ahead of you?” - -“Jim--only Jim--and God.” - -Her eyes were shining, her hands were clasped together at her side in -the tenseness of her feeling, her indomitable spirit spoke in her face. - -Suddenly the old man brought his fist down on the table with a bang. -“It’s a crime--oh, it’s a crime, to risk your life so! You ought to have -been locked up. I’d have done it.” - -“Listen to me,” she rejoined quietly. “I know the risk. But do you think -that I could have lived my life out, feeling that I might have saved -Jim, and didn’t try? You talk of beauty and power and ruling--you say -what others have said to me. Which is the greater thing, to get what -pleases one, or to work for something which is more to one than all else -in the world? To save one life, one intellect, one great man--oh, he -has the making of a great man in him!--to save a soul, would not life be -well lost, would not love be well spent in doing it?” - -“Love’s labour lost,” said the old man slowly, cynically, but not -without emotion. - -“I have ambition,” she continued. “No girl was ever more ambitious, but -my ambition is to make the most and best of myself. Place?--Jim and I -will hold it yet. Power?--it shall be as it must be; but Jim and I will -work for it to fulfil ourselves. For me--ah, if I can save him--and -I mean to do so--do you think that I would not then have my heaven on -earth? You want money--money--money, power, and to rule; and these -are to you the best things in the world. I make my choice differently, -though I would have these other things if I could; and I hope I shall. -But Jim first--Jim first, your son, Jim--my husband, Jim.” - -The old man got to his feet slowly. She had him at bay. “But you are -great,” he said, “great! It is an awful stake--awful. Yet if you win, -you’ll have what money can’t buy. And listen to me. We’ll make the stake -bigger. It will give it point, too, in another way. If you keep Jim -sober for four years from the day of your marriage, on the last day -of that four years I’ll put in your hands for you and him, or for your -child--if you have one--five millions of dollars. I am a man of my word. -While Jim drinks I won’t take him back; he’s disinherited. I’ll give him -nothing now or hereafter. Save him for four years,--if he can do that he -will do all, and there’s five millions as sure as the sun’s in heaven. -Amen and amen.” - -He opened the door. There was a strange soft light in her eyes as she -came to go. - -“Aren’t you going to kiss me?” she said, looking at him whimsically. - -He was disconcerted. She did not wait, but reached up and kissed him -on the cheek. “Good-by,” she said with a smile. “We’ll win the stake. -Good-by.” - -An instant, and she was gone. He shut the door, then turned and looked -in a mirror on the wall. Abstractedly he touched the cheek she had -kissed. Suddenly a change passed over his face. He dropped in a chair, -and his fist struck the table as he said: “By God, she may do it, she -may do it! But it’s life and death--it’s life and death.” - -Society had its sensation, and then the veil dropped. For a long time -none looked behind it except Jim’s father. He had too much at stake not -to have his telescope upon them. A detective followed them to keep Jim’s -record. But this they did not know. - - -II - -From the day they left Washington Jim put his life and his fate in his -wife’s hands. He meant to follow her judgment, and, self-willed and -strong in intellect as he was, he said that she should have a fair -chance of fulfilling her purpose. There had been many pour parlers as -to what Jim should do. There was farming. She set that aside, because -it meant capital, and it also meant monotony and loneliness; and capital -was limited, and monotony and loneliness were bad for Jim, deadening an -active brain which must not be deprived of stimulants--stimulants of a -different sort, however, from those which had heretofore mastered it. -There was the law. But Jim would have to become a citizen of Canada, -change his flag, and where they meant to go--to the outskirts--there -would be few opportunities for the law; and with not enough to do there -would be danger. Railway construction? That seemed good in many ways, -but Jim had not the professional knowledge necessary; his railway -experience with his father had only been financial. Above all else he -must have responsibility, discipline, and strict order in his life. - -“Something that will be good for my natural vanity, and knock the -nonsense out of me,” Jim agreed, as they drew farther and farther away -from Washington and the past, and nearer and nearer to the Far North and -their future. Never did two more honest souls put their hands in each -other’s, and set forth upon the thorniest path to a goal which was their -hearts’ desire. Since they had become one, there had come into Sally’s -face that illumination which belongs only to souls possessed of an idea -greater than themselves, outside themselves--saints, patriots; faces -which have been washed in the salt tears dropped for others’ sorrows, -and lighted by the fire of self-sacrifice. Sally Seabrook, the -high-spirited, the radiant, the sweetly wilful, the provoking, to -concentrate herself upon this narrow theme--to reconquer the lost -paradise of one vexed mortal soul! - -What did Jim’s life mean?--It was only one in the millions coming and -going, and every man must work out his own salvation. Why should she -cramp her soul to this one issue, when the same soul could spend itself -upon the greater motives and in the larger circle? A wide world of -influence had opened up before her; position, power, adulation, could -all have been hers, as John Appleton and Jim’s father had said. She -might have moved in well-trodden ways, through gardens of pleasure, -lived a life where all would be made easy, where she would be shielded -at every turn, and her beauty would be flattered by luxury into a -constant glow. She was not so primitive, so unintellectual, as not to -have thought of this, else her decision would have had less importance; -she would have been no more than an infatuated emotional woman with a -touch of second class drama in her nature. She had thought of it all, -and she had made her choice. The easier course was the course for meaner -souls, and she had not one vein of thin blood nor a small idea in her -whole nature. She had a heart and mind for great issues. She believed -that Jim had a great brain, and would and could accomplish great things. -She knew that he had in him the strain of hereditary instinct--his -mother’s father had ended a brief life in a drunken duel on the -Mississippi, and Jim’s boyhood had never had discipline or direction, -or any strenuous order. He might never acquire order, and the power that -order and habit and the daily iteration of necessary thoughts and acts -bring; but the prospect did not appal her. She had taken the risk with -her eyes wide open; had set her own life and happiness in the hazard. -But Jim must be saved, must be what his talents, his genius, entitled -him to be. And the long game must have the long thought. - -So, as they drew into the great Saskatchewan Valley, her hand in his, -and hope in his eyes, and such a look of confidence and pride in her as -brought back his old strong beauty of face, and smoothed the careworn -lines of self-indulgence, she gave him his course: as a private he must -join the North-West Mounted Police, the red-coated riders of the plains, -and work his way up through every stage of responsibility, beginning at -the foot of the ladder of humbleness and self-control. She believed that -he would agree with her proposal; but her hands clasped his a little -more firmly and solicitously--there was a faint, womanly fear at her -heart--as she asked him if he would do it. The life meant more than -occasional separation; it meant that there would be periods when she -would not be with him; and there was great danger in that; but she knew -that the risks must be taken, and he must not be wholly reliant on her -presence for his moral strength. - -His face fell for a moment when she made the suggestion, but it cleared -presently, and he said with a dry laugh: “Well, I guess they must make -me a sergeant pretty quick. I’m a colonel in the Kentucky Carbineers!” - -She laughed, too; then a moment afterwards, womanlike, wondered if she -was right, and was a little frightened. But that was only because she -was not self-opinionated, and was anxious, more anxious than any woman -in all the North. - -It happened as Jim said; he was made a sergeant at once--Sally managed -that; for, when it came to the point, and she saw the conditions in -which the privates lived, and realised that Jim must be one of them and -clean out the stables, and groom his horse and the officers’ horses, -and fetch and carry, her heart failed her, and she thought that she -was making her remedy needlessly heroical. So she went to see the -Commissioner, who was on a tour of scrutiny on their arrival at the -post, and, as better men than he had done in more knowing circles, -he fell under her spell. If she had asked for a lieutenancy, he would -probably have corrupted some member of Parliament into securing it for -Jim. - -But Jim was made a sergeant, and the Commissioner and the captain of the -troop kept their eyes on him. So did other members of the troop who did -not quite know their man, and attempted, figuratively, to pinch him here -and there. They found that his actions were greater than his words, and -both were in perfect harmony in the end, though his words often seemed -pointless to their minds, until they understood that they had conveyed -truths through a medium more like a heliograph than a telephone. By and -by they begin to understand his heliographing, and, when they did that, -they began to swear by him, not at him. - -In time it was found that the troop never had a better disciplinarian -than Jim. He knew when to shut his eyes, and when to keep them open. To -non-essentials he kept his eyes shut; to essentials he kept them very -wide open. There were some men of good birth from England and elsewhere -among them, and these mostly understood him first. But they all -understood Sally from the beginning, and after a little they were glad -enough to be permitted to come, on occasion, to the five-roomed little -house near the barracks, and hear her talk, then answer her questions, -and, as men had done at Washington, open out their hearts to her. They -noticed, however, that while she made them barley-water, and all kinds -of soft drinks from citric acid, sarsaparilla and the like, and had one -special drink of her own invention, which she called cream-nectar, no -spirits were to be had. They also noticed that Jim never drank a drop -of liquor, and by and by, one way or another, they got a glimmer of the -real truth, before it became known who he really was or anything of his -story. And the interest in the two, and in Jim’s reformation, spread -through the country, while Jim gained reputation as the smartest man in -the force. - -They were on the outskirts of civilisation; as Jim used to say, “One -step ahead of the procession.” Jim’s duty was to guard the columns of -settlement and progress, and to see that every man got his own rights -and not more than his rights; that justice should be the plumb-line of -march and settlement. His principle was embodied in certain words which -he quoted once to Sally from the prophet Amos: “And the Lord said unto -me, Amos, what seest thou? And I said, A plumbline.” - -On the day that Jim became a lieutenant his family increased by one. It -was a girl, and they called her Nancy, after Jim’s mother. It was the -anniversary of their marriage, and, so far, Jim had won, with what -fightings and strugglings and wrestlings of the spirit only Sally and -himself knew. And she knew as well as he, and always saw the storm -coming before it broke--a restlessness, then a moodiness, then a hungry, -eager, helpless look, and afterwards an agony of longing, a feverish -desire to break away and get the thrilling thing which would still the -demon within him. - -There had been moments when his doom seemed certain--he knew and she -knew that if he once got drunk again he would fall never to rise. On one -occasion, after a hard, long, hungry ride, he was half-mad with desire, -but even as he seized the flask that was offered to him by his only -enemy, the captain of B Troop, at the next station eastward, there -came a sudden call to duty, two hundred Indians having gone upon the -war-path. It saved him; it broke the spell. He had to mount and away, -with the antidote and stimulant of responsibility driving him on. - -Another occasion was equally perilous to his safety. They had been idle -for days in a hot week in summer, waiting for orders to return from -the rail-head where they had gone to quell a riot, and where drink and -hilarity were common. Suddenly--more suddenly than it had ever come, -the demon of his thirst had Jim by the throat. Sergeant Sewell, of the -grey-stubble head, who loved him more than his sour heart had loved -anybody in all his life, was holding himself ready for the physical -assault he must make upon his superior officer, if he raised a glass to -his lips, when salvation came once again. An accident had occurred far -down on the railway line, and the operator of the telegraph-office had -that very day been stricken down with pleurisy and pneumonia. In despair -the manager had sent to Jim, eagerly hoping that he might help them, -for the Riders of the Plains were a sort of court of appeal for every -trouble in the Far North. - -Instantly Jim was in the saddle with his troop. Out of curiosity he -had learned telegraphy when a boy, as he had learned many things, and, -arrived at the scene of the accident, he sent messages and received -them--by sound, not on paper as did the official operator, to the -amazement and pride of the troop. Then, between caring for the injured -in the accident, against the coming of the relief train, and nursing -the sick operator through the dark moments of his dangerous illness, -he passed a crisis of his own disease triumphantly; but not the last -crisis. - -So the first and so the second and third years passed in safety. - - -III - -“PLEASE, I want to go, too, Jim.” - -Jim swung round and caught the child up in his arms. “Say, how dare you -call your father Jim--eh, tell me that?” - -“It’s what mummy calls you--it’s pretty.” - -“I don’t call her ‘mummy’ because you do, and you mustn’t call me Jim -because she does--do you hear?” The whimsical face lowered a little, -then the rare and beautiful dark blue eyes raised slowly, shaded by the -long lashes, and the voice said demurely, “Yes--Jim.” - -“Nancy--Nancy,” said a voice from the corner in reproof, mingled with -suppressed laughter. “Nancy, you musn’t be saucy. You must say ‘father’ -to--” - -“Yes, mummy. I’ll say father to--Jim.” - -“You imp--you imp of delight,” said Jim, as he strained the dainty -little lass to his breast, while she appeared interested in a wave of -his black hair, which she curled around her finger. - -Sally came forwards with the little parcel of sandwiches she had been -preparing, and put them in the saddle-bags lying on a chair at the -door, in readiness for the journey Jim was about to make. Her eyes were -glistening, and her face had a heightened colour. The three years -which had passed since she married had touched her not at all to her -disadvantage, rather to her profit. She looked not an hour older; -motherhood had only added to her charm, lending it a delightful gravity. -The prairie life had given a shining quality to her handsomeness, an air -of depth and firmness, an exquisite health and clearness to the colour -in her cheeks. Her step was as light as Nancy’s, elastic and buoyant--a -gliding motion which gave a sinuous grace to the movements of her -body. There had also come into her eyes a vigilance such as deaf people -possess, a sensitive observation imparting a deeper intelligence to the -face. - -Here was the only change by which you could guess the story of her life. -Her eyes were like the ears of an anxious mother who can never sleep -till every child is abed; whose sense is quick to hear the faintest -footstep without or within; and who, as years go on, and her children -grow older and older, must still lie awake hearkening for the late -footstep on the stair. In Sally’s eyes was the story of the past three -years: of love and temptation and struggle, of watchfulness and yearning -and anxiety, of determination and an inviolable hope. Her eyes had a -deeper look than that in Jim’s. Now, as she gazed at him, the maternal -spirit rose up from the great well of protectiveness in her and engulfed -both husband and child. There was always something of the maternal in -her eyes when she looked at Jim. He did not see it--he saw only the -wonderful blue, and the humour which had helped him over such difficult -places these past three years. In steadying and strengthening Jim’s -will, in developing him from his Southern indolence into Northern -industry and sense of responsibility, John Appleton’s warnings had -rung in Sally’s ears, and Freddy Hartzman’s forceful and high-minded -personality had passed before her eyes with an appeal powerful and -stimulating; but always she came to the same upland of serene faith and -white-hearted resolve; and Jim became dearer and dearer. - -The baby had done much to brace her faith in the future and comfort her -anxious present. The child had intelligence of a rare order. She would -lie by the half-hour on the floor, turning over the leaves of a book -without pictures, and, before she could speak, would read from the pages -in a language all her own. She made a fairy world for herself, peopled -by characters to whom she gave names, to whom she assigned curious -attributes and qualities. They were as real to her as though flesh and -blood, and she was never lonely, and never cried; and she had buried -herself in her father’s heart. She had drawn to her the roughest men in -the troop, and for old Sewell, the grim sergeant, she had a specially -warm place. - -“You can love me if you like,” she had said to him at the very start, -with the egotism of childhood; but made haste to add, “because I love -you, Gri-Gri.” She called him Gri-Gri from the first, but they knew only -long afterwards that “gri-gri” meant “grey-grey,” to signify that she -called him after his grizzled hairs. - -What she had been in the life-history of Sally and Jim they both knew. -Jim regarded her with an almost superstitious feeling. Sally was his -strength, his support, his inspiration, his bulwark of defence; Nancy -was the charm he wore about his neck--his mascot, he called her. Once, -when she was ill, he had suffered as he had never done before in his -life. He could not sleep nor eat, and went about his duties like one -in a dream. When his struggles against his enemy were fiercest, he -kept saying over her name to himself, as though she could help him. Yet -always it was Sally’s hand he held in the darkest hours, in his brutal -moments; for in this fight between appetite and will there are moments -when only the animal seems to exist, and the soul disappears in the -glare and gloom of the primal emotions. Nancy he called his “lucky -sixpence,” but he called Sally his “guinea-girl.” - -From first to last his whimsicality never deserted him. In his worst -hours, some innate optimism and humour held him steady in his fight. It -was not depression that possessed him at the worst, but the violence of -an appetite most like a raging pain which men may endure with a smile -upon their lips. He carried in his face the story of a conflict, the -aftermath of bitter experience; and through all there pulsed the glow -of experience. He had grown handsomer, and the graceful decision of his -figure, the deliberate certainty of every action, heightened the force -of a singular personality. As in the eyes of Sally, in his eyes was a -long reflective look which told of things overcome, and yet of dangers -present. His lips smiled often, but the eyes said: “I have lived, I have -seen, I have suffered, and I must suffer more. I have loved, I have been -loved under the shadow of the sword. Happiness I have had, and golden -hours, but not peace--never peace. My soul has need of peace.” - -In the greater, deeper experience of their lives, the more material side -of existence had grown less and less to them. Their home was a model -of simple comfort and some luxury, though Jim had insisted that Sally’s -income should not be spent, except upon the child, and should be saved -for the child, their home being kept on his pay and on the tiny income -left by his mother. With the help of an Indian girl, and a half-breed -for outdoor work and fires and gardening, Sally had cared for the house -herself. Ingenious and tasteful, with a gift for cooking and an educated -hand, she had made her little home as pretty as their few possessions -would permit. Refinement covered all, and three or four-score books were -like so many friends to comfort her when Jim was away; like kind and -genial neighbours when he was at home. From Browning she had written -down in her long sliding handwriting, and hung up beneath Jim’s -looking-glass, the heartening and inspiring words: - - “One who never turned his back, but marched breast forward, - Never doubted clouds would break, - Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph, - Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, - Sleep to wake.” - -They had lived above the sordid, and there was something in the nature -of Jim’s life to help them to it. He belonged to a small handful of men -who had control over an empire, with an individual responsibility and -influence not contained in the scope of their commissions. It was a -matter of moral force and character, and of uniform, symbolical only of -the great power behind; of the long arm of the State; of the insistence -of the law, which did not rely upon force alone, but on the certainty of -its administration. In such conditions the smallest brain was bound to -expand, to take on qualities of judgment and temperateness which -would never be developed in ordinary circumstances. In the case of -Jim Templeton, who needed no stimulant to his intellect, but rather a -steadying quality, a sense of proportion, the daily routine, the command -of men, the diverse nature of his duties, half civil, half military, -the personal appeals made on all sides by the people of the country for -advice, for help, for settlement of disputes, for information which -his well-instructed mind could give--all these modified the romantic -brilliance of his intellect, made it and himself more human. - -It had not come to him all at once. His intellect at first stood in his -way. His love of paradox, his deep observation, his insight, all made -him inherently satirical, though not cruelly so; but satire had become -pure whimsicality at last; and he came to see that, on the whole, -the world was imperfect, but also, on the whole, was moving towards -perfection rather than imperfection. He grew to realise that what seemed -so often weakness in men was tendency and idiosyncrasy rather than evil. -And in the end he thought better of himself as he came to think better -of all others. For he had thought less of all the world because he had -thought so little of himself. He had overestimated his own faults, had -made them into crimes in his own eyes, and, observing things in others -of similar import, had become almost a cynic in intellect, while in -heart he had remained, a boy. - -In all that he had changed a great deal. His heart was still the heart -of a boy, but his intellect had sobered, softened, ripened--even in this -secluded and seemingly unimportant life; as Sally had said and hoped it -would. Sally’s conviction had been right. But the triumph was not yet -achieved. She knew it. On occasion the tones of his voice told her, the -look that came into his eyes proclaimed it to her, his feverishness and -restlessness made it certain. How many a night had she thrown her arm -over his shoulder, and sought his hand and held it while in the dark -silence, wide-eyed, dry-lipped, and with a throat like fire he had held -himself back from falling. There was liquor in the house--the fight -would not have been a fight without it. She had determined that he -should see his enemy and meet him in the plains and face him down; and -he was never many feet away from his possible disaster. Yet for long -over three years all had gone well. There was another year. Would he -last out the course? - -At first the thought of the great stake for which she was playing in -terms of currency, with the head of Jim’s father on every note, was much -with her. The amazing nature of the offer of five millions of dollars -stimulated her imagination, roused her; gold coins are counters in the -game of success, signs and tokens. Money alone could not have lured her; -but rather what it represented--power, width of action, freedom to help -when the heart prompted, machinery for carrying out large plans, ability -to surround with advantage those whom we love. So, at first, while -yet the memories of Washington were much with her, the appeal of the -millions was strong. The gallant nature of the contest and the great -stake braced her; she felt the blood quicken in her pulse. - -But, all through, the other thing really mastered her: the fixed idea -that Jim must be saved. As it deepened, the other life that she had -lived became like the sports in which we shared when children, full of -vivacious memory, shining with impulse and the stir of life, but not to -be repeated--days and deeds outgrown. So the light of one idea shone in -her face. Yet she was intensely human too; and if her eyes had not been -set on the greater glory, the other thought might have vulgarised her -mind, made her end and goal sordid--the descent of a nature rather than -its ascension. - -When Nancy came, the lesser idea, the stake, took on a new importance, -for now it seemed to her that it was her duty to secure for the child -its rightful heritage. Then Jim, too, appeared in a new light, as -one who could never fulfil himself unless working through the natural -channels of his birth, inheritance, and upbringing. Jim, drunken and -unreliable, with broken will and fighting to find himself--the waste -places were for him, until he was the master of his will and emotions. -Once however, secure in ability to control himself, with cleansed brain -and purpose defined, the widest field would still be too narrow for his -talents--and the five, yes, the fifty millions of his father must be -his. - -She had never repented having married Jim; but twice in those three -years she had broken down and wept as though her heart would break. -There were times when Jim’s nerves were shaken in his struggle against -the unseen foe, and he had spoken to her querulously, almost sharply. -Yet in her tears there was no reproach for him, rather for herself--the -fear that she might lose her influence over him, that she could not -keep him close to her heart, that he might drift away from her in the -commonplaces and monotony of work and domestic life. Everything so -depended on her being to him not only the one woman for whom he cared, -but the woman without whom he could care for nothing else. - -“Oh, my God, give me his love,” she had prayed. “Let me keep it yet a -little while. For his sake, not for my own, let me have the power to -hold his love. Make my mind always quiet, and let me blow neither hot -nor cold. Help me to keep my temper sweet and cheerful, so that he will -find the room empty where I am not, and his footsteps will quicken when -he comes to the door. Not for my sake, dear God, but for his, or my -heart will break--it will break unless Thou dost help me to hold him. O -Lord, keep me from tears; make my face happy that I may be goodly to his -eyes, and forgive the selfishness of a poor woman who has little, and -would keep her little and cherish it, for Christ’s sake.” - -Twice had she poured out her heart so, in the agony of her fear that -she should lose favour in Jim’s sight--she did not know how alluring she -was, in spite of the constant proofs offered her. She had had her will -with all who came her way, from governor to Indian brave. Once, in a -journey they had made far north, soon after they came, she had stayed -at a Hudson’s Bay Company’s post for some days, while there came news -of restlessness among the Indians, because of lack of food, and Jim had -gone farther north to steady the tribes, leaving her with the factor and -his wife and a halfbreed servant. - -While she and the factor’s wife were alone in the yard of the post one -day, an Indian--chief, Arrowhead, in warpaint and feathers, entered -suddenly, brandishing a long knife. He had been drinking, and there was -danger in his black eyes. With a sudden inspiration she came forward -quickly, nodded and smiled to him, and then pointed to a grindstone -standing in the corner of the yard. As she did so, she saw Indians -crowding into the gate armed with knives, guns, bows, and arrows. She -beckoned to Arrowhead, and he followed her to the grindstone. She -poured some water on the wheel and began to turn it, nodding at the now -impassive Indian to begin. Presently he nodded also, and put his knife -on the stone. She kept turning steadily, singing to herself the while, -as with anxiety she saw the Indians drawing closer and closer in from -the gate. Faster and faster she turned, and at last the Indian lifted -his knife from the stone. She reached out her hand with simulated -interest, felt the edge with her thumb, the Indian looking darkly at her -the while. Presently, after feeling the edge himself, he bent over the -stone again, and she went on turning the wheel still singing softly. At -last he stopped again and felt the edge. With a smile which showed her -fine white teeth, she said, “Is that for me?” making a significant sign -across her throat at the same time. - -The old Indian looked at her grimly, then slowly shook his head in -negation. - -“I go hunt Yellow Hawk to-night,” he said. “I go fight; I like marry you -when I come back. How!” he said and turned away towards the gate. - -Some of his braves held back, the blackness of death in their looks. -He saw. “My knife is sharp,” he said. “The woman is brave. She shall -live--go and fight Yellow Hawk, or starve and die.” - -Divining their misery, their hunger, and the savage thought that had -come to them, Sally had whispered to the factor’s wife to bring food, -and the woman now came running out with two baskets full, and returned -for more. Sally ran forward among the Indians and put the food into -their hands. With grunts of satisfaction they seized what she gave, and -thrust it into their mouths, squatting on the ground. Arrowhead looked -on stern and immobile, but when at last she and the factor’s wife sat -down before the braves with confidence and an air of friendliness, he -sat down also; yet, famished as he was, he would not touch the food. At -last Sally, realising his proud defiance of hunger, offered him a little -lump of pemmican and a biscuit, and with a grunt he took it from her -hands and ate it. Then, at his command a fire was lit, the pipe of peace -was brought out, and Sally and the factor’s wife touched their lips to -it, and passed it on. - -So was a new treaty of peace and loyalty made with Arrowhead and -his tribe by a woman without fear, whose life had seemed not worth a -minute’s purchase; and, as the sun went down, Arrowhead and his men went -forth to make war upon Yellow Hawk beside the Nettigon River. In this -wise had her influence spread in the land. - - ....................... - -Standing now with the child in his arms and his wife looking at him with -a shining moisture of the eyes, Jim laughed outright. There came upon -him a sudden sense of power, of aggressive force--the will to do. Sally -understood, and came and laughingly grasped his arm. - -“Oh, Jim,” she said playfully, “you are getting muscles like steel. You -hadn’t these when you were colonel of the Kentucky Carbineers!” - -“I guess I need them now,” he said, smiling, and with the child still in -his arms drew her to a window looking northward. As far as the eye could -see, nothing but snow, like a blanket spread over the land. Here and -there in the wide expanse a tree silhouetted against the sky, a tracery -of eccentric beauty, and off in the far distance a solitary horseman -riding towards the postriding hard. - -“It was root, hog, or die with me, Sally,” he continued, “and I rooted -... I wonder--that fellow on the horse--I have a feeling about him. See, -he’s been riding hard and long-you can tell by the way the horse drops -his legs. He sags a bit himself.... But isn’t it beautiful, all that out -there--the real quintessence of life.” - -The air was full of delicate particles of frost on which the sun -sparkled, and though there was neither bird nor insect, nor animal, nor -stir of leaf, nor swaying branch or waving grass, life palpitated in -the air, energy sang its song in the footstep that crunched the frosty -ground, that broke the crusted snow; it was in the delicate wind that -stirred the flag by the barracks away to the left; hope smiled in the -wide prospect over which the thrilling, bracing air trembled. Sally had -chosen right. - -“You had a big thought when you brought me here, guinea-girl,” he added -presently. “We are going to win out here”--he set the child down--“you -and I and this lucky sixpence.” He took up his short fur coat. “Yes, -we’ll win, honey.” Then, with a brooding look in his face, he added: - - “‘The end comes as came the beginning, - And shadows fail into the past; - And the goal, is it not worth the winning, - If it brings us but home at the last? - - “‘While far through the pain of waste places - We tread, ‘tis a blossoming rod - That drives us to grace from disgraces, - From the fens to the gardens of God!’” - -He paused reflectively. “It’s strange that this life up here makes you -feel that you must live a bigger life still, that this is only the wide -porch to the great labour-house--it makes you want to do things. Well, -we’ve got to win the stake first,” he added with a laugh. - -“The stake is a big one, Jim--bigger than you think.” - -“You and her and me--me that was in the gutter.” - -“What is the gutter, dadsie?” asked Nancy. - -“The gutter--the gutter is where the dish-water goes, midget,” he -answered with a dry laugh. - -“Oh, I don’t think you’d like to be in the gutter,” Nancy said solemnly. - -“You have to get used to it first, miss,” answered Jim. Suddenly Sally -laid both hands on Jim’s shoulders and looked him in the eyes. “You must -win the stake Jim. Think--now!” - -She laid a hand on the head of the child. He did not know that he was -playing for a certain five millions, perhaps fifty millions, of dollars. -She had never told him of his father’s offer. He was fighting only for -salvation, for those he loved, for freedom. As they stood there, -the conviction had come upon her that they had come to the last -battle-field, that this journey which Jim now must take would decide -all, would give them perfect peace or lifelong pain. The shadow of -battle was over them, but he had no foreboding, no premonition; he had -never been so full of spirits and life. - -To her adjuration Jim replied by burying his face in her golden hair, -and he whispered: “Say, I’ve done near four years, my girl. I think I’m -all right now--I think. This last six months, it’s been easy--pretty -fairly easy.” - -“Four months more, only four months more--God be good to us!” she said -with a little gasp. - -If he held out for four months more, the first great stage in their -life--journey would be passed, the stake won. - -“I saw a woman get an awful fall once,” Jim said suddenly. “Her bones -were broken in twelve places, and there wasn’t a spot on her body -without injury. They set and fixed up every broken bone except one. It -was split down. They didn’t dare perform the operation; she couldn’t -stand it. There was a limit to pain, and she had reached the boundary. -Two years went by, and she got better every way, but inside her leg -those broken pieces of bone were rubbing against each other. She tried -to avoid the inevitable operation, but nature said, ‘You must do it, or -die in the end.’ She yielded. Then came the long preparations for the -operation. Her heart shrank, her mind got tortured. She’d suffered -too much. She pulled herself together, and said, ‘I must conquer this -shrinking body of mine, by my will. How shall I do it?’ Something within -her said, ‘Think and do for others. Forget yourself.’ And so, as they -got her ready for her torture, she visited hospitals, agonised cripple -as she was, and smiled and talked to the sick and broken, telling them -of her own miseries endured and dangers faced, of the boundary of human -suffering almost passed; and so she got her courage for her own trial. -And she came out all right in the end. Well, that’s the way I’ve felt -sometimes. But I’m ready for my operation now whenever it comes, and -it’s coming, I know. Let it come when it must.” He smiled. There came -a knock at the door, and presently Sewell entered. “The Commissioner -wishes you to come over, sir,” he said. - -“I was just coming, Sewell. Is all ready for the start?” - -“Everything’s ready, sir, but there’s to be a change of orders. -Something’s happened--a bad job up in the Cree country, I think.” - -A few minutes later Jim was in the Commissioner’s office. The murder of -a Hudson’s Bay Company’s man had been committed in the Cree country. -The stranger whom Jim and Sally had seen riding across the plains -had brought the news for thirty miles, word of the murder having been -carried from point to point. The Commissioner was uncertain what to do, -as the Crees were restless through want of food and the absence of game, -and a force sent to capture Arrowhead, the chief who had committed the -murder, might precipitate trouble. Jim solved the problem by offering to -go alone and bring the chief into the post. It was two hundred miles to -the Cree encampment, and the journey had its double dangers. - -Another officer was sent on the expedition for which Jim had been -preparing, and he made ready to go upon his lonely duty. His wife -did not know till three days after he had gone what the nature of his -mission was. - - -IV - -Jim made his journey in good weather with his faithful dogs alone, and -came into the camp of the Crees armed with only a revolver. If he had -gone with ten men, there would have been an instant melee, in which -he would have lost his life. This is what the chief had expected, had -prepared for; but Jim was more formidable alone, with power far behind -him which could come with force and destroy the tribe, if resistance -was offered, than with fifty men. His tongue had a gift of terse -and picturesque speech, powerful with a people who had the gift of -imagination. With five hundred men ready to turn him loose in the plains -without dogs or food, he carried himself with a watchful coolness and -complacent determination which got home to their minds with great force. - -For hours the struggle for the murderer went on, a struggle of mind over -inferior mind and matter. Arrowhead was a chief whose will had never -been crossed by his own people, and to master that will by a superior -will, to hold back the destructive force which, to the ignorant minds -of the braves, was only a natural force of defence, meant a task needing -more than authority behind it. For the very fear of that authority put -in motion was an incentive to present resistance to stave off the day -of trouble. The faces that surrounded Jim were thin with hunger, and -the murder that had been committed by the chief had, as its origin, the -foolish replies of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s man to their demand for -supplies. Arrowhead had killed him with his own hand. - -But Jim Templeton was of a different calibre. Although he had not been -told it, he realised that, indirectly, hunger was the cause of the crime -and might easily become the cause of another; for their tempers were -sharper even than their appetites. Upon this he played; upon this he -made an exhortation to the chief. He assumed that Arrowhead had become -violent, because of his people’s straits, that Arrowhead’s heart yearned -for his people and would make sacrifice for them. Now, if Arrowhead came -quietly, he would see that supplies of food were sent at once, and that -arrangements were made to meet the misery of their situation. Therefore, -if Arrowhead came freely, he would have so much in his favour before his -judges; if he would not come quietly, then he must be brought by force; -and if they raised a hand to prevent it, then destruction would fall -upon all--all save the women and children. The law must be obeyed. They -might try to resist the law through him, but, if violence was shown, he -would first kill Arrowhead, and then destruction would descend like -a wind out of the north, darkness would swallow them, and their bones -would cover the plains. - -As he ended his words a young brave sprang forwards with hatchet raised. -Jim’s revolver slipped down into his palm from his sleeve, and a bullet -caught the brave in the lifted arm. The hatchet dropped to the ground. - -Then Jim’s eyes blazed, and he turned a look of anger on the chief, his -face pale and hard, as he said: “The stream rises above the banks; come -with me, chief, or all will drown. I am master, and I speak. Ye are -hungry because ye are idle. Ye call the world yours, yet ye will not -stoop to gather from the earth the fruits of the earth. Ye sit idle -in the summer, and women and children die round you when winter comes. -Because the game is gone, ye say. Must the world stand still because a -handful of Crees need a hunting-ground? Must the makers of cities and -the wonders of the earth, who fill the land with plenty--must they stand -far off, because the Crees and their chief would wander over millions of -acres, for each man a million, when by a hundred, ay, by ten, each white -man would live in plenty, and make the land rejoice. See. Here is the -truth. When the Great Spirit draws the game away so that the hunting is -poor, ye sit down and fill your hearts with murder, and in the blackness -of your thoughts kill my brother. Idle and shiftless and evil ye are, -while the earth cries out to give you of its plenty, a great harvest -from a little seed, if ye will but dig and plant, and plough and sow and -reap, and lend your backs to toil. Now hear and heed. The end is come. - -“For this once ye shall be fed--by the blood of my heart, ye shall -be fed! And another year ye shall labour, and get the fruits of your -labour, and not stand waiting, as it were, till a fish shall pass the -spear, or a stag water at your door, that ye may slay and eat. The end -is come, ye idle men. O chief, harken! One of your braves would have -slain me, even as you slew my brother--he one, and you a thousand. Speak -to your people as I have spoken, and then come and answer for the deed -done by your hand. And this I say that right shall be done between men -and men. Speak.” - -Jim had made his great effort, and not without avail. Arrowhead rose -slowly, the cloud gone out of his face, and spoke to his people, bidding -them wait in peace until food came, and appointing his son chief in his -stead until his return. - -“The white man speaks truth, and I will go,” he said. “I shall return,” - he continued, “if it be written so upon the leaves of the Tree of Life; -and if it be not so written, I shall fade like a mist, and the tepees -will know me not again. The days of my youth are spent, and my step no -longer springs from the ground. I shuffle among the grass and the fallen -leaves, and my eyes scarce know the stag from the doe. The white man is -master--if he wills it we shall die, if he wills it we shall live. And -this was ever so. It is in the tale of our people. One tribe ruled, and -the others were their slaves. If it is written on the leaves of the Tree -of Life that the white man rule us for ever, then it shall be so. I have -spoken. Now, behold I go.” - -Jim had conquered, and together they sped away with the dogs through the -sweet-smelling spruce woods where every branch carried a cloth of white, -and the only sound heard was the swish of a blanket of snow as it fell -to the ground from the wide webs of green, or a twig snapped under the -load it bore. Peace brooded in the silent and comforting forest, and Jim -and Arrowhead, the Indian ever ahead, swung along, mile after mile, on -their snow-shoes, emerging at last upon the wide white prairie. - -A hundred miles of sun and fair weather, sleeping at night in the open -in a trench dug in the snow, no fear in the thoughts of Jim, nor evil in -the heart of the heathen man. There had been moments of watchfulness, of -uncertainty, on Jim’s part, the first few hours of the first night after -they left the Cree reservation; but the conviction speedily came to Jim -that all was well; for the chief slept soundly from the moment he lay -down in his blankets between the dogs. Then Jim went to sleep as in his -own bed, and, waking, found Arrowhead lighting a fire from a little load -of sticks from the sledges. And between murderer and captor there sprang -up the companionship of the open road which brings all men to a certain -land of faith and understanding, unless they are perverted and vile. -There was no vileness in Arrowhead. There were no handcuffs on his -hands, no sign of captivity; they two ate out of the same dish, drank -from the same basin, broke from the same bread. The crime of Arrowhead, -the gallows waiting for him, seemed very far away. They were only two -silent travellers, sharing the same hardship, helping to give material -comfort to each other--in the inevitable democracy of those far places, -where small things are not great nor great things small; where into -men’s hearts comes the knowledge of the things that matter; where, from -the wide, starry sky, from the august loneliness, and the soul of the -life which has brooded there for untold generations, God teaches the -values of this world and the next. - -One hundred miles of sun and fair weather, and then fifty miles of -bitter, aching cold, with nights of peril from the increasing chill, -so that Jim dared not sleep lest he should never wake again, but die -benumbed and exhausted. Yet Arrowhead slept through all. Day after day -so, and then ten miles of storm such as come only to the vast barrens of -the northlands; and woe to the traveller upon whom the icy wind and the -blinding snow descended! Woe came upon Jim Templeton and Arrowhead, the -heathen. - -In the awful struggle between man and nature that followed, the captive -became the leader. The craft of the plains, the inherent instinct, the -feeling which was more than eyesight became the only hope. One whole -day to cover ten miles--an endless path of agony, in which Jim went down -again and again, but came up blinded by snow and drift, and cut as with -lashes by the angry wind. At the end of the ten miles was a Hudson’s Bay -Company’s post and safety; and through ten hours had the two struggled -towards it, going off at tangents, circling on their own tracks; but the -Indian, by an instinct as sure as the needle to the pole, getting -the direction to the post again, in the moments of direst peril and -uncertainty. To Jim the world became a sea of maddening forces which -buffeted him; a whirlpool of fire in which his brain was tortured, his -mind was shrivelled up; a vast army rending itself, each man against -the other. It was a purgatory of music, broken by discords; and then at -last--how sweet it all was, after the eternity of misery--“Church bells -and voices low,” and Sally singing to him, Nancy’s voice calling! Then, -nothing but sleep--sleep, a sinking down millions of miles in an ether -of drowsiness which thrilled him; and after--no more. - -None who has suffered up to the limit of what the human body and soul -may bear can remember the history of those distracted moments when the -struggle became one between the forces in nature and the forces in -man, between agonised body and smothered mind, yet with the divine -intelligence of the created being directing, even though subconsciously, -the fight. - -How Arrowhead found the post in the mad storm he could never have told. -Yet he found it, with Jim unconscious on the sledge and with limbs -frozen, all the dogs gone but two, the leathers over the Indian’s -shoulders as he fell against the gate of the post with a shrill cry that -roused the factor and his people within, together with Sergeant Sewell, -who had been sent out from headquarters to await Jim’s arrival there. It -was Sewell’s hand which first felt Jim’s heart and pulse, and found that -there was still life left, even before it could be done by the doctor -from headquarters, who had come to visit a sick man at the post. - -For hours they worked with snow upon the frozen limbs to bring back life -and consciousness. Consciousness came at last with half delirium, half -understanding; as emerging from the passing sleep of anaesthetics, the -eye sees things and dimly registers them, before the brain has set them -in any relation to life or comprehension. - -But Jim was roused at last, and the doctor presently held to his lips -a glass of brandy. Then from infinite distance Jim’s understanding -returned; the mind emerged, but not wholly, from the chaos in which it -was travelling. His eyes stood out in eagerness. - -“Brandy! brandy!” he said hungrily. - -With an oath Sewell snatched the glass from the doctor’s hand, put it -on the table, then stooped to Jim’s ear and said hoarsely: -“Remember--Nancy. For God’s sake, sir, don’t drink.” - -Jim’s head fell back, the fierce light went out of his eyes, the face -became greyer and sharper. “Sally--Nancy--Nancy,” he whispered, and his -fingers clutched vaguely at the quilt. - -“He must have brandy or he will die. The system is pumped out. He must -be revived,” said the doctor. He reached again for the glass of spirits. - -Jim understood now. He was on the borderland between life and death; his -feet were at the brink. “No--not--brandy, no!” he moaned. “Sally-Sally, -kiss me,” he said faintly, from the middle world in which he was. - -“Quick, the broth!” said Sewell to the factor, who had been preparing -it. “Quick, while there’s a chance.” He stooped and called into Jim’s -ear: “For the love of God, wake up, sir. They’re coming--they’re both -coming--Nancy’s coming. They’ll soon be here.” What matter that he lied, -a life was at stake. - -Jim’s eyes opened again. The doctor was standing with the brandy in -his hand. Half madly Jim reached out. “I must live until they come,” - he cried; “the brandy--give it me! Give it--ah, no, no, I must not!” he -added, gasping, his lips trembling, his hands shaking. - -Sewell held the broth to his lips. He drank a little, yet his face -became greyer and greyer; a bluish tinge spread about his mouth. - -“Have you nothing else, sir?” asked Sewell in despair. The doctor put -down the brandy, went quickly to his medicine-case, dropped into a glass -some liquid from a phial, came over again, and poured a little between -the lips; then a little more, as Jim’s eyes opened again; and at last -every drop in the glass trickled down the sinewy throat. - -Presently as they watched him the doctor said: “It will not do. He must -have brandy. It has life-food in it.” - -Jim understood the words. He knew that if he drank the brandy the -chances against his future were terrible. He had made his vow, and he -must keep it. Yet the thirst was on him; his enemy had him by the throat -again, was dragging him down. Though his body was so cold, his throat -was on fire. But in the extremity of his strength his mind fought -on--fought on, growing weaker every moment. He was having his last -fight. They watched him with an aching anxiety, and there was anger in -the doctor’s face. He had no patience with these forces arrayed against -him. - -At last the doctor whispered to Sewell: “It’s no use; he must have the -brandy, or he can’t live an hour.” - -Sewell weakened; the tears fell down his rough, hard cheeks. “It’ll ruin -him-it’s ruin or death.” - -“Trust a little more in God, and in the man’s strength. Let us give him -the chance. Force it down his throat--he’s not responsible,” said the -physician, to whom saving life was more than all else. - -Suddenly there appeared at the bedside Arrowhead, gaunt and weak, his -face swollen, the skin of it broken by the whips of storm. - -“He is my brother,” he said, and, stooping, laid both hands, which he -had held before the fire for a long time, on Jim’s heart. “Take his -feet, his hands, his, legs, and his head in your hands,” he said to them -all. “Life is in us; we will give him life.” - -He knelt down and kept both hands on Jim’s heart, while the others, even -the doctor, awed by his act, did as they were bidden. “Shut your eyes. -Let your life go into him. Think of him, and him alone. Now!” said -Arrowhead in a strange voice. - -He murmured, and continued murmuring, his body drawing closer and closer -to Jim’s body, while in the deep silence, broken only by the chanting -of his low monotonous voice, the others pressed Jim’s hands and head and -feet and legs--six men under the command of a heathen murderer. - -The minutes passed. The colour came back to Jim’s face, the skin of his -hands filled up, they ceased twitching, his pulse got stronger, his eyes -opened with a new light in them. - -“I’m living, anyhow,” he said at last with a faint smile. “I’m -hungry--broth, please.” - -The fight was won, and Arrowhead, the pagan murderer, drew over to the -fire and crouched down beside it, his back to the bed, impassive and -still. They brought him a bowl of broth and bread, which he drank -slowly, and placed the empty bowl between his knees. He sat there -through the night, though they tried to make him lie down. - -As the light came in at the windows, Sewell touched him on the shoulder, -and said: “He is sleeping now.” - -“I hear my brother breathe,” answered Arrowhead. “He will live.” - -All night he had listened, and had heard Jim’s breath as only a man who -has lived in waste places can hear. “He will live. What I take with one -hand I give with the other.” - -He had taken the life of the factor; he had given Jim his life. And when -he was tried three months later for murder, some one else said this for -him, and the hearts of all, judge and jury, were so moved they knew not -what to do. - -But Arrowhead was never sentenced, for, at the end of the first day’s -trial, he lay down to sleep and never waked again. He was found the next -morning still and cold, and there was clasped in his hands a little doll -which Nancy had given him on one of her many visits to the prison during -her father’s long illness. They found a piece of paper in his belt with -these words in the Cree language: “With my hands on his heart at the -post I gave him the life that was in me, saving but a little until now. -Arrowhead, the chief, goes to find life again by the well at the root of -the tree. How!” - - -V - -On the evening of the day that Arrowhead made his journey to “the well -at the root of the tree” a stranger knocked at the door of Captain -Templeton’s cottage; then, without awaiting admittance, entered. - -Jim was sitting with Nancy on his knee, her head against his shoulder, -Sally at his side, her face alight with some inner joy. Before the knock -came to the door Jim had just said, “Why do your eyes shine so, Sally? -What’s in your mind?” She had been about to answer, to say to him what -had been swelling her heart with pride, though she had not meant to -tell him what he had forgotten--not till midnight. But the figure that -entered the room, a big man with deep-set eyes, a man of power who had -carried everything before him in the battle of life, answered for her. - -“You have won the stake, Jim,” he said in a hoarse voice. “You and she -have won the stake, and I’ve brought it--brought it.” - -Before they could speak he placed in Sally’s hands bonds for five -million dollars. - -“Jim--Jim, my son!” he burst out. Then, suddenly, he sank into a chair -and, putting his head in his hands, sobbed aloud. - -“My God, but I’m proud of you--speak to me, Jim. You’ve broken me up.” - He was ashamed of his tears, but he could not wipe them away. - -“Father, dear old man!” said Jim, and put his hands on the broad -shoulders. - -Sally knelt down beside him, took both the great hands from the -tear-stained face, and laid them against her cheek. But presently she -put Nancy on his knees. - -“I don’t like you to cry,” the child said softly; “but to-day I cried -too, ‘cause my Indian man is dead.” - -The old man could not speak, but he put his cheek down to hers. After -a minute, “Oh, but she’s worth ten times that!” he said as Sally came -close to him with the bundle he had thrust into her hands. - -“What is it?” said Jim. - -“It’s five million dollars--for Nancy,” she said. “Five-million--what?” - -“The stake, Jim,” said Sally. “If you did not drink for four -years--never touched a drop--we were to have five million dollars.” - -“You never told him, then--you never told him that?” asked the old man. - -“I wanted him to win without it,” she said. “If he won, he would be the -stronger; if he lost, it would not be so hard for him to bear.” - -The old man drew her down and kissed her cheek. He chuckled, though the -tears were still in his eyes. “You are a wonder--the tenth wonder of the -world!” he declared. - -Jim stood staring at the bundle in Nancy’s hands. “Five millions--five -million dollars!”--he kept saying to himself. - -“I said Nancy’s worth ten times that, Jim.” The old man caught his hand -and pressed it. “But it was a damned near thing, I tell you,” he added. -“They tried to break me and my railways and my bank. I had to fight -the combination, and there was one day when I hadn’t that five million -dollars there, nor five. Jim, they tried to break the old man. And if -they’d broken me, they’d have made me out a scoundrel to her--to this -wife of yours who risked everything for both of us, for both of us, Jim; -for she’d given up the world to save you, and she was playing like a -soul in Hell for Heaven. If they’d broken me, I’d never have lifted my -head again. When things were at their worst I played to save that five -millions,--her stake and mine,--I played for that. I fought for it as a -man fights his way out of a burning house. And I won--I won. And it was -by fighting for that five millions I saved fifty--fifty millions, son. -They didn’t break the old man, Jim. They didn’t break him--not much.” - -“There are giants in the world still,” said Jim, his own eyes full. -He knew now his father and himself, and he knew the meaning of all the -bitter and misspent life of the old days. He and his father were on a -level of understanding at last. - -“Are you a giant?” asked Nancy, peering up into her grandfather’s eyes. - -The old man laughed, then sighed. “Perhaps I was once, more or less, my -dear--” saying to her what he meant for the other two. “Perhaps I was; -but I’ve finished. I’m through. I’ve had my last fight.” - -He looked at his son. “I pass the game on to you, Jim. You can do it. -I knew you could do it as the reports came in this year. I’ve had a -detective up here for four years. I had to do it. It was the devil in -me. - -“You’ve got to carry on the game, Jim; I’m done. I’ll stay home and -potter about. I want to go back to Kentucky, and build up the old place, -and take care of it a bit-your mother always loved it. I’d like to have -it as it was when she was there long ago. But I’ll be ready to help you -when I’m wanted, understand.” - -“You want me to run things--your colossal schemes? You think--?” - -“I don’t think. I’m old enough to know.” - - - - -WHEN THE SWALLOWS HOMEWARD FLY - -The arrogant sun had stalked away into the evening, trailing behind him -banners of gold and crimson, and a swift twilight was streaming over the -land. As the sun passed, the eyes of two men on a high hill followed it, -and the look of one was like a light in a window to a lost traveller. -It had in it the sense of home and the tale of a journey done. Such -a journey this man had made as few have ever attempted, and fewer -accomplished. To the farthermost regions of snow and ice, where the -shoulder of a continent juts out into the northwestern Arctic seas, -he had travelled on foot and alone, save for his dogs, and for Indian -guides, who now and then shepherded him from point to point. The vast -ice-hummocks had been his housing, pemmican, the raw flesh of fish, and -even the fat and oil of seals had been his food. Ever and ever through -long months the everlasting white glitter of the snow and ice, ever and -ever the cold stars, the cloudless sky, the moon at full, or swung like -a white sickle in the sky to warn him that his life must be mown like -grass. At night to sleep in a bag of fur and wool, by day the steely -wind, or the air shaking with a filmy powder of frost; while the -illimitably distant sun made the tiny flakes sparkle like silver--a -poudre day, when the face and hands are most like to be frozen, and all -so still and white and passionless, yet aching with energy. Hundreds -upon hundreds of miles that endless trail went winding to the farthest -North-west. No human being had ever trod its lengths before, though -Indians or a stray Hudson’s Bay Company man had made journeys over part -of it during the years that have passed since Prince Rupert sent his -adventurers to dot that northern land with posts and forts, and trace -fine arteries of civilisation through the wastes. - -Where this man had gone none other had been of white men from the -Western lands, though from across the wide Pacific, from the Eastern -world, adventurers and exiles had once visited what is now known as the -Yukon Valley. So this man, browsing in the library of his grandfather, -an Eastern scholar, had come to know; and for love of adventure, and -because of the tale of a valley of gold and treasure to be had, and -because he had been ruined by bad investments, he had made a journey -like none ever essayed before. And on his way up to those regions, where -the veil before the face of God is very thin and fine, and men’s hearts -glow within them, where there was no oasis save the unguessed deposit -of a great human dream that his soul could feel, the face of a girl -had haunted him. Her voice--so sweet a voice that it rang like muffled -silver in his ears, till, in the everlasting theatre of the Pole, the -stars seemed to repeat it through millions of echoing hills, growing -softer and softer as the frost hushed it to his ears-had said to him -late and early, “You must come back with the swallows.” Then she had -sung a song which had been like a fire in his heart, not alone because -of the words of it, but because of the soul in her voice, and it had -lain like a coverlet on his heart to keep it warm: - - “Adieu! The sun goes awearily down, - The mist creeps up o’er the sleepy town, - The white sail bends to the shuddering mere, - And the reapers have reaped and the night is here. - - Adieu! And the years are a broken song, - The right grows weak in the strife with wrong, - The lilies of love have a crimson stain, - And the old days never will come again. - - Adieu! Where the mountains afar are dim - ‘Neath the tremulous tread of the seraphim, - Shall not our querulous hearts prevail, - That have prayed for the peace of the Holy Grail. - - Adieu! Sometime shall the veil between - The things that are and that might have been - Be folded back for our eyes to see, - And the meaning of all shall be clear to me.” - -It had been but an acquaintance of five days while he fitted out for his -expedition, but in this brief time it had sunk deep into his mind that -life was now a thing to cherish, and that he must indeed come back; -though he had left England caring little if, in the peril and danger of -his quest, he ever returned. He had been indifferent to his fate till he -came to the Valley of the Saskatchewan, to the town lying at the foot of -the maple hill beside the great northern stream, and saw the girl whose -life was knit with the far north, whose mother’s heart was buried in -the great wastes where Sir John Franklin’s expedition was lost; for her -husband had been one of the ill-fated if not unhappy band of lovers -of that civilisation for which they had risked all and lost all save -immortality. Hither the two had come after he had been cast away on the -icy plains, and as the settlement had crept north, had gone north -with it, always on the outer edge of house and field, ever stepping -northward. Here, with small income but high hearts and quiet souls, they -had lived and laboured. And when this newcomer from the old land set his -face northward to an unknown destination, the two women had prayed as -the mother did in the old days when the daughter was but a babe at her -knee, and it was not yet certain that Franklin and his men had been cast -away for ever. Something in him, his great height, his strength of body, -his clear, meditative eyes, his brave laugh, reminded her of him--her -husband--who, like Sir Humphrey Gilbert, had said that it mattered -little where men did their duty, since God was always near to take or -leave as it was His will. When Bickersteth went, it was as though one -they had known all their lives had passed; and the woman knew also that -a new thought had been sown in her daughter’s mind, a new door opened in -her heart. - -And he had returned. He was now looking down into the valley where -the village lay. Far, far over, two days’ march away, he could see -the cluster of houses, and the glow of the sun on the tin spire of the -little Mission Church where he had heard the girl and her mother sing, -till the hearts of all were swept by feeling and ravished by the desire -for “the peace of the Holy Grail.” The village was, in truth, but a -day’s march away from him, but he was not alone, and the journey could -not be hastened. Beside him, his eyes also upon the sunset and the -village, was a man in a costume half-trapper, half-Indian, with bushy -grey beard and massive frame, and a distant, sorrowful look, like that -of one whose soul was tuned to past suffering. As he sat, his head sunk -on his breast, his elbow resting on a stump of pine--the token of a -progressive civilisation--his chin upon his hand, he looked like the -figure of Moses made immortal by Michael Angelo. But his strength was -not like that of the man beside him, who was thirty years younger. -When he walked, it was as one who had no destination, who had no haven -towards which to travel, who journeyed as one to whom the world is a -wilderness, and one tent or one hut is the same as another, and none is -home. - -Like two ships meeting hull to hull on the wide seas, where a few miles -of water will hide them from each other, whose ports are thousands of -miles apart, whose courses are not the same, they two had met, the elder -man, sick and worn, and near to death, in the poor hospitality of -an Indian’s tepee. John Bickersteth had nursed the old man back to -strength, and had brought him southward with him--a silent companion, -who spoke in monosyllables, who had no conversation at all of the -past, and little of the present; but who was a woodsman and an Arctic -traveller of the most expert kind; who knew by instinct where the -best places for shelter and for sleeping might be found; who never -complained, and was wonderful with the dogs. Close as their association -was, Bickersteth had felt concerning the other that his real self was in -some other sphere or place towards which his mind was always turning, as -though to bring it back. - -Again and again had Bickersteth tried to get the old man to speak about -the past, but he had been met by a dumb sort of look, a straining to -understand. Once or twice the old man had taken his hands in both of his -own, and gazed with painful eagerness into his face, as though trying -to remember or to comprehend something that eluded him. Upon these -occasions the old man’s eyes dropped tears in an apathetic quiet, which -tortured Bickersteth beyond bearing. Just such a look he had seen in the -eyes of a favourite dog when he had performed an operation on it to save -its life--a reproachful, non-comprehending, loving gaze. - -Bickersteth understood a little of the Chinook language, which is -familiar to most Indian tribes, and he had learned that the Indians knew -nothing exact concerning the old man; but rumours had passed from tribe -to tribe that this white man had lived for ever in the farthest north -among the Arctic tribes, and that he passed from people to people, -disappearing into the untenanted wilderness, but reappearing again among -stranger tribes, never resting, and as one always seeking what he could -not find. - -One thing had helped this old man in all his travels and sojourning. He -had, as it seemed to the native people, a gift of the hands; for when -they were sick, a few moments’ manipulation of his huge, quiet fingers -vanquished pain. A few herbs he gave in tincture, and these also were -praised; but it was a legend that when he was persuaded to lay on his -hands and close his eyes, and with his fingers to “search for the pain -and find it, and kill it,” he always prevailed. They believed that -though his body was on earth his soul was with Manitou, and that it was -his soul which came into him again, and gave the Great Spirit’s -healing to the fingers. This had been the man’s safety through how many -years--or how many generations--they did not know; for legends regarding -the pilgrim had grown and were fostered by the medicine men who, -by giving him great age and supernatural power, could, with more -self-respect, apologise for their own incapacity. - -So the years--how many it was impossible to tell, since he did not know -or would not say--had gone on; and now, after ceaseless wandering, his -face was turned towards that civilisation out of which he had come so -long ago--or was it so long ago--one generation, or two, or ten? It -seemed to Bickersteth at times as though it were ten, so strange, so -unworldly was his companion. At first he thought that the man remembered -more than he would appear to acknowledge, but he found that after a day -or two everything that happened as they journeyed was also forgotten. - -It was only visible things, or sounds, that appeared to open the doors -of memory of the most recent happenings. These happenings, if not -varied, were of critical moment, since, passing down from the land of -unchanging ice and snow, they had come into March and April storms, and -the perils of the rapids and the swollen floods of May. Now, in June, -two years and a month since Bickersteth had gone into the wilds, they -looked down upon the goal of one at least--of the younger man who had -triumphed in his quest up in these wilds abandoned centuries ago. - -With the joyous thought in his heart, that he had discovered anew one of -the greatest gold-fields of the world, that a journey unparalleled -had been accomplished, he turned towards his ancient companion, and -a feeling of pity and human love enlarged within him. He, John -Bickersteth, was going into a world again, where--as he believed--a -happy fate awaited him; but what of this old man? He had brought him -out of the wilds, out of the unknown--was he only taking him into the -unknown again? Were there friends, any friends anywhere in the world -waiting for him? He called himself by no name, he said he had no name. -Whence came he? Of whom? Whither was he wending now? Bickersteth had -thought of the problem often, and he had no answer for it save that he -must be taken care of, if not by others, then by himself; for the old -man had saved him from drowning; had also saved him from an awful death -on a March day when he fell into a great hole and was knocked insensible -in the drifting snow; had saved him from brooding on himself--the -beginning of madness--by compelling him to think for another. And -sometimes, as he had looked at the old man, his imagination had caught -the spirit of the legend of the Indians, and he had cried out, “O soul, -come back and give him memory--give him back his memory, Manitou the -mighty!” - -Looking on the old man now, an impulse seized him. “Dear old man,” he -said, speaking as one speaks to a child that cannot understand, “you -shall never want, while I have a penny, or have head or hands to work. -But is there no one that you care for or that cares for you, that you -remember, or that remembers you?” - -The old man shook his head though not with understanding, and he laid a -hand on the young man’s shoulder, and whispered: - -“Once it was always snow, but now it is green, the land. I have seen -it--I have seen it once.” His shaggy eyebrows gathered over, his eyes -searched, searched the face of John Bickersteth. “Once, so long ago--I -cannot think,” he added helplessly. - -“Dear old man,” Bickersteth said gently, knowing he would not wholly -comprehend, “I am going to ask her--Alice--to marry me, and if she does, -she will help look after you, too. Neither of us would have been here -without the other, dear old man, and we shall not be separated. Whoever -you are, you are a gentleman, and you might have been my father or -hers--or hers.” - -He stopped suddenly. A thought had flashed through his mind, a thought -which stunned him, which passed like some powerful current through his -veins, shocked him, then gave him a palpitating life. It was a wild -thought, but yet why not--why not? There was the chance, the faint, -far-off chance. He caught the old man by the shoulders, and looked him -in the eyes, scanned his features, pushed back the hair from the rugged -forehead. - -“Dear old man,” he said, his voice shaking, “do you know what I’m -thinking? I’m thinking that you may be of those who went out to -the Arctic Sea with Sir John Franklin--with Sir John Franklin, you -understand. Did you know Sir John Franklin--is it true, dear old boy, is -it true? Are you one that has lived to tell the tale? Did you know Sir -John Franklin--is it--tell me, is it true?” - -He let go the old man’s shoulders, for over the face of the other -there had passed a change. It was strained and tense. The hands were -outstretched, the eyes were staring straight into the west and the -coming night. - -“It is--it is--that’s it!” cried Bickersteth. “That’s it--love o’ God, -that’s it! Sir John Franklin--Sir John Franklin, and all the brave -lads that died up there! You remember the ship--the Arctic Sea--the -ice-fields, and Franklin--you remember him? Dear old man, say you -remember Franklin?” - -The thing had seized him. Conviction was upon him, and he watched the -other’s anguished face with anguish and excitement in his own. But--but -it might be, it might be her father--the eyes, the forehead are like -hers; the hands, the long hands, the pointed fingers. “Come, tell me, -did you have a wife and child, and were they both called Alice--do you -remember? Franklin--Alice! Do you remember?” - -The other got slowly to his feet, his arms outstretched, the look in his -face changing, understanding struggling for its place, memory fighting -for its own, the soul contending for its mastery. - -“Franklin--Alice--the snow,” he said confusedly, and sank down. - -“God have mercy!” cried Bickersteth, as he caught the swaying body, and -laid it upon the ground. “He was there--almost.” - -He settled the old man against the great pine stump and chafed his -hands. “Man, dear man, if you belong to her--if you do, can’t you see -what it will mean to me? She can’t say no to me then. But if it’s true, -you’ll belong to England and to all the world, too, and you’ll have fame -everlasting. I’ll have gold for her and for you, and for your Alice, -too, poor old boy. Wake up now and remember if you are Luke Allingham -who went with Franklin to the silent seas of the Pole. If it’s you, -really you, what wonder you lost your memory! You saw them all die, -Franklin and all, die there in the snow, with all the white world round -them. If you were there, what a travel you have had, what strange things -you have seen! Where the world is loneliest, God lives most. If you get -close to the heart of things, it’s no marvel you forgot what you were, -or where you came from; because it didn’t matter; you knew that you were -only one of thousands of millions who have come and gone, that make up -the soul of things, that make the pulses of the universe beat. That’s -it, dear old man. The universe would die, if it weren’t for the -souls that leave this world and fill it with life. Wake up! Wake up, -Allingham, and tell us where you’ve been and what you’ve seen.” - -He did not labour in vain. Slowly consciousness came back, and the grey -eyes opened wide, the lips smiled faintly under the bushy beard; but -Bickersteth saw that the look in the face was much the same as it had -been before. The struggle had been too great, the fight for the other -lost self had exhausted him, mind and body, and only a deep obliquity -and a great weariness filled the countenance. He had come back to the -verge, he had almost again discovered himself; but the opening door -had shut fast suddenly, and he was back again in the night, the -incompanionable night of forgetfulness. - -Bickersteth saw that the travail and strife had drained life and energy, -and that he must not press the mind and vitality of this exile of time -and the unknown too far. He felt that when the next test came the -old man would either break completely, and sink down into another and -everlasting forgetfulness, or tear away forever the veil between himself -and his past, and emerge into a long-lost life. His strength must be -shepherded, and he must be kept quiet and undisturbed until they came to -the town yonder in the valley, over which the night was slowly settling -down. There two women waited, the two Alices, from both of whom had gone -lovers into the North. The daughter was living over again in her young -love the pangs of suspense through which her mother had passed. Two -years since Bickersteth had gone, and not a sign! - -Yet, if the girl had looked from her bedroom window, this Friday night, -she would have seen on the far hill a sign; for there burned a fire -beside which sat two travellers who had come from the uttermost limits -of snow. But as the fire burned--a beacon to her heart if she had but -known it--she went to her bed, the words of a song she had sung at -choir--practice with tears in her voice and in her heart ringing in her -ears. A concert was to be held after the service on the coming Sunday -night, at which there was to be a collection for funds to build another -mission-house a hundred miles farther North, and she had been practising -music she was to sing. Her mother had been an amateur singer of great -power, and she was renewing her mother’s gift in a voice behind which -lay a hidden sorrow. As she cried herself to sleep the words of the song -which had moved her kept ringing in her ears and echoing in her heart: - - “When the swallows homeward fly, - And the roses’ bloom is o’er--” - -But her mother, looking out into the night, saw on the far hill the -fire, burning like a star, where she had never seen a fire set before, -and a hope shot into her heart for her daughter--a hope that had flamed -up and died down so often during the past year. Yet she had fanned with -heartening words every such glimmer of hope when it came, and now she -went to bed saying, “Perhaps he will come to-morrow.” In her mind, too, -rang the words of the song which had ravished her ears that night, the -song she had sung the night before her own husband, Luke Allingham, had -gone with Franklin to the Polar seas: - -“When the swallows homeward fly--” - -As she and her daughter entered the little church on the Sunday evening, -two men came over the prairie slowly towards the town, and both raised -their heads to the sound of the church-bell calling to prayer. In the -eyes of the younger man there was a look which has come to many in this -world returning from hard enterprise and great dangers, to the familiar -streets, the friendly faces of men of their kin and clan-to the lights -of home. - -The face of the older man, however, had another look. - -It was such a look as is seldom seen in the faces of men, for it showed -the struggle of a soul to regain its identity. The words which the old -man had uttered in response to Bickersteth’s appeal before he fainted -away, “Franklin--Alice--the snow,” had showed that he was on the verge; -the bells of the church pealing in the summer air brought him near it -once again. How many years had gone since he had heard church-bells? -Bickersteth, gazing at him in eager scrutiny, wondered if, after all, -he might be mistaken about him. But no, this man had never been born and -bred in the far North. His was a type which belonged to the civilisation -from which he himself had come. There would soon be the test of it all. -Yet he shuddered, too, to think what might happen if it was all true, -and discovery or reunion should shake to the centre the very life of the -two long-parted ones. - -He saw the look of perplexed pain and joy at once in the face of the old -man, but he said nothing, and he was almost glad when the bell stopped. -The old man turned to him. - -“What is it?” he asked. “I remember--” but he stopped suddenly, shaking -his head. - -An hour later, cleared of the dust of travel, the two walked slowly -towards the church from the little tavern where they were lodged. The -service was now over, but the concert had begun. The church was full, -and there were people in the porch; but these made way for the two -strangers; and, as Bickersteth was recognised by two or three present, -place was found for them. Inside, the old man stared round him in a -confused and troubled way, but his motions were quiet and abstracted and -he looked like some old viking, his workaday life done, come to pray ere -he went hence forever. They had entered in a pause in the concert, but -now two ladies came forward to the chancel steps, and one with her hands -clasped before her, began to sing: - - “When the swallows homeward fly, - And the roses’ bloom is o’er, - And the nightingale’s sweet song - In the woods is heard no more--” - -It was Alice--Alice the daughter--and presently the mother, the other -Alice, joined in the refrain. At sight of them Bickersteth’s eyes had -filled, not with tears, but with a cloud of feeling, so that he went -blind. There she was, the girl he loved. Her voice was ringing in his -ears. In his own joy for one instant he had forgotten the old man -beside him, and the great test that was now upon him. He turned quickly, -however, as the old man got to his feet. For an instant the lost exile -of the North stood as though transfixed. The blood slowly drained from -his face, and in his eyes was an agony of struggle and desire. For a -moment an awful confusion had the mastery, and then suddenly a clear -light broke into his eyes, his face flushed healthily and shone, his -arms went up, and there rang in his ears the words: - - “Then I think with bitter pain, - Shall we ever meet again? - When the swallows homeward fly--” - -“Alice--Alice!” he called, and tottered forward up the aisle, followed -by John Bickersteth. - -“Alice, I have come back!” he cried again. - - - - -GEORGE’S WIFE - -“She’s come, and she can go back. No one asked her, no one wants her, -and she’s got no rights here. She thinks she’ll come it over me, but -she’ll get nothing, and there’s no place for her here.” - -The old, grey-bearded man, gnarled and angular, with overhanging brows -and a harsh face, made this little speech of malice and unfriendliness, -looking out on the snow-covered prairie through the window. Far in -the distance were a sleigh and horses like a spot in the snow, growing -larger from minute to minute. - -It was a day of days. Overhead, the sun was pouring out a flood of light -and warmth, and though it was bitterly cold, life was beating hard in -the bosom of the West. Men walked lightly, breathed quickly, and their -eyes were bright with the brightness of vitality and content. Even the -old man at the window of this lonely house, in a great lonely stretch of -country, with the cedar hills behind it, had a living force which defied -his seventy odd years, though the light in his face was hard and his -voice was harder still. Under the shelter of the foothills, cold as the -day was, his cattle were feeding in the open, scratching away the thin -layer of snow, and browsing on the tender grass underneath. An arctic -world in appearance, it had an abounding life which made it friendly -and generous--the harshness belonged to the surface. So, perhaps, it was -with the old man who watched the sleigh in the distance coming nearer, -but that in his nature on which any one could feed was not so easily -reached as the fresh young grass under the protecting snow. - -“She’ll get nothing out of me,” he repeated, as the others in the room -behind him made no remark, and his eyes ranged gloatingly over the -cattle under the foothills and the buildings which he had gathered -together to proclaim his substantial greatness in the West. “Not a sous -markee,” he added, clinking some coins in his pocket. “She’s got no -rights.” - -“Cassy’s got as much right here as any of us, Abel, and she’s coming to -say it, I guess.” - -The voice which spoke was unlike a Western voice. It was deep and full -and slow, with an organ-like quality. It was in good keeping with the -tall, spare body and large, fine rugged face of the woman to whom it -belonged. She sat in a rocking-chair, but did not rock, her fingers busy -with the knitting-needles, her feet planted squarely on the home-made -hassock at her feet. - -The old man waited for a minute in a painful silence, then he turned -slowly round, and, with tight-pressed lips, looked at the woman in the -rocking-chair. If it had been anyone else who had “talked back” at -him, he would have made quick work of them, for he was of that class -of tyrant who pride themselves on being self-made, and have an undue -respect for their own judgment and importance. But the woman who had -ventured to challenge his cold-blooded remarks about his dead son’s -wife, now hastening over the snow to the house her husband had left -under a cloud eight years before, had no fear of him, and, maybe, no -deep regard for him. He respected her, as did all who knew her--a very -reticent, thoughtful, busy being, who had been like a well of comfort -to so many that had drunk and passed on out of her life, out of time and -time’s experiences. Seventy-nine years saw her still upstanding, strong, -full of work, and fuller of life’s knowledge. It was she who had sent -the horses and sleigh for “Gassy,” when the old man, having read the -letter that Cassy had written him, said that she could “freeze at the -station” for all of him. Aunt Kate had said nothing then, but, when the -time came, by her orders the sleigh and horses were at the station; and -the old man had made no direct protest, for she was the one person he -had never dominated nor bullied. If she had only talked, he would have -worn her down, for he was fond of talking, and it was said by those -who were cynical and incredulous about him that he had gone to -prayer-meetings, had been a local preacher, only to hear his own voice. -Probably if there had been any politics in the West in his day, he would -have been a politician, though it would have been too costly for his -taste, and religion was very cheap; it enabled him to refuse to join in -many forms of expenditure, on the ground that he “did not hold by such -things.” - -In Aunt Kate, the sister of his wife, dead so many years ago, he had -found a spirit stronger than his own. He valued her; he had said more -than once, to those who he thought would never repeat it to her, that -she was a “great woman”; but self-interest was the mainspring of his -appreciation. Since she had come again to his house--she had lived with -him once before for two years when his wife was slowly dying--it had -been a different place. Housekeeping had cost less than before, yet -the cooking was better, the place was beautifully clean, and discipline -without rigidity reigned everywhere. One by one the old woman’s boys and -girls had died--four of them--and she was now alone, with not a single -grandchild left to cheer her; and the life out here with Abel Baragar -had been unrelieved by much that was heartening to a woman; for -Black Andy, Abel’s son, was not an inspiring figure, though even his -moroseness gave way under her influence. So it was that when Cassy’s -letter came, her breast seemed to grow warmer, and swell with longing -to see the wife of her nephew, who had such a bad reputation in Abel’s -eyes, and to see George’s little boy, who was coming too. After all, -whatever Cassy was, she was the mother of Abel’s son’s son; and Aunt -Kate was too old and wise to be frightened by tales told of Cassy or any -one else. So, having had her own way so far regarding Cassy’s coming, -she looked Abel calmly in the eyes, over the gold-rimmed spectacles -which were her dearest possession--almost the only thing of value she -had. She was not afraid of Abel’s anger, and he knew it; but his eldest -son, Black Andy, was present, and he must make a show of being master of -the situation. - -“Aunt Kate,” he said, “I didn’t make a fuss about you sending the horses -and sleigh for her, because women do fool things sometimes. I suppose -curiosity got the best of you. Anyhow, mebbe it’s right Cassy should -find out, once for all, how things stand, and that they haven’t altered -since she took George away, and ruined his life, and sent him to his -grave. That’s why I didn’t order Mick back when I saw him going out with -the team.” - -“Cassy Mavor,” interjected a third voice from a corner behind the great -stove--“Cassy Mavor, of the variety-dance-and-song, and a talk with the -gallery between!” - -Aunt Kate looked over at Black Andy, and stopped knitting, for there was -that in the tone of the sullen ranchman which stirred in her a sudden -anger, and anger was a rare and uncomfortable sensation to her. A flush -crept slowly over her face, then it died away, and she said quietly to -Black Andy--for she had ever prayed to be master of the demon of temper -down deep in her, and she was praying now: - -“She earnt her living by singing and dancing, and she’s brought up -George’s boy by it, and singing and dancing isn’t a crime. David danced -before the Lord. I danced myself when I was a young girl, and before I -joined the church. ‘Twas about the only pleasure I ever had; ‘bout the -only one I like to remember. There’s no difference to me ‘twixt making -your feet handy and clever and full of music, and playing with your -fingers on the piano or on a melodeon at a meeting. As for singing, -it’s God’s gift; and many a time I wisht I had it. I’d have sung the -blackness out of your face and heart, Andy.” She leaned back again and -began to knit very fast. “I’d like to hear Cassy sing, and see her dance -too.” - -Black Andy chuckled coarsely, “I often heard her sing and saw her dance -down at Lumley’s before she took George away East. You wouldn’t have -guessed she had consumption. She knocked the boys over down to Lumley’s. -The first night at Lumley’s done for George.” - -Black Andy’s face showed no lightening of its gloom as he spoke, but -there was a firing up of the black eyes, and the woman with the knitting -felt that--for whatever reason--he was purposely irritating his father. - -“The devil was in her heels and in her tongue,” Andy continued. “With -her big mouth, red hair, and little eyes, she’d have made anybody laugh. -I laughed.” - -“You laughed!” snapped out his father with a sneer. - -Black Andy’s eyes half closed with a morose look, then he went on. “Yes, -I laughed at Cassy. While she was out here at Lumley’s getting cured, -accordin’ to the doctor’s orders, things seemed to get a move on in the -West. But it didn’t suit professing Christians like you, dad.” He jerked -his head towards the old man and drew the spittoon near with his feet. - -“The West hasn’t been any worse off since she left,” snarled the old -man. - -“Well, she took George with her,” grimly retorted Black Andy. - -Abel Baragar’s heart had been warmer towards his dead son George than to -any one else in the world. George had been as fair of face and hair -as Andrew was dark; as cheerful and amusing as Andrew was gloomy and -dispiriting; as agile and dexterous of mind and body as his brother -was slow and angular; as emotional and warm-hearted as the other was -phlegmatic and sour--or so it seemed to the father and to nearly all -others. - -In those old days they had not been very well off. The railway was not -completed, and the West had not begun “to move.” The old man had bought -and sold land and cattle and horses, always living on a narrow margin -of safety, but in the hope that one day the choice bits of land he -was shepherding here and there would take a leap up in value; and his -judgment had been right. His prosperity had all come since George went -away with Cassy Mavor. His anger at George had been the more acute, -because the thing happened at a time when his affairs were on the edge -of a precipice. He had won through it, but only by the merest shave, -and it had all left him with a bad spot in his heart, in spite of his -“having religion.” Whenever he remembered George, he instinctively -thought of those black days when a Land and Cattle Syndicate was -crowding him over the edge into the chasm of failure, and came so near -doing it. A few thousand dollars less to put up here and there, and he -would have been ruined; his blood became hotter whenever he thought of -it. He had had to fight the worst of it through alone, for George, who -had been useful as a kind of buyer and seller, who was ever all things -to all men, and ready with quip and jest, and not a little uncertain -as to truth--to which the old man shut his eyes when there was a “deal” - on--had, in the end, been of no use at all, and had seemed to go to -pieces just when he was most needed. His father had put it all down to -Cassy Mavor, who had unsettled things since she had come to Lumley’s, -and being a man of very few ideas, he cherished those he had with an -exaggerated care. Prosperity had not softened him; it had given him -an arrogance unduly emphasised by a reputation for rigid virtue and -honesty. The indirect attack which Andrew now made on George’s memory -roused him to anger, as much because it seemed to challenge his own -judgment as cast a slight on the name of the boy whom he had cast off, -yet who had a firmer hold on his heart than any human being ever had. -It had only been pride which had prevented him from making it up with -George before it was too late; but, all the more, he was set against -the woman who “kicked up her heels for a living”; and, all the more, he -resented Black Andy, who, in his own grim way, had managed to remain a -partner with him in their present prosperity, and had done so little for -it. - -“George helped to make what you’ve got, Andy,” he said darkly now. “The -West missed George. The West said, ‘There was a good man ruined by a -woman.’ The West’d never think anything or anybody missed you, ‘cept -yourself. When you went North, it never missed you; when you come back, -its jaw fell. You wasn’t fit to black George’s boots.” - -Black Andy’s mouth took on a bitter sort of smile, and his eyes drooped -furtively, as he struck the damper of the stove heavily with his foot, -then he replied slowly: - -“Well, that’s all right; but if I wasn’t fit to black his boots, -it ain’t my fault. I git my nature honest, as he did. We wasn’t any -cross-breeds, I s’pose. We got the strain direct, and we was all right -on her side.” He jerked his head towards Aunt Kate, whose face was -growing pale. She interposed now. - -“Can’t you leave the dead alone?” she asked in a voice ringing a little. -“Can’t you let them rest? Ain’t it enough to quarrel about the living? -Cassy’ll be here soon,” she added, peering out of the window, “and if I -was you, I’d try and not make her sorry she ever married a Baragar. It -ain’t a feeling that’d make a sick woman live long.” - -Aunt Kate did not strike often, but when she did, she struck hard. -Abel Baragar staggered a little under this blow, for, at the moment, it -seemed to him that he saw his dead wife’s face looking at him from the -chair where her sister now sat. Down in his ill-furnished heart, where -there had been little which was companionable, there was a shadowed -corner. Sophy Baragar had been such a true-hearted, brave-souled woman, -and he had been so impatient and exacting with her, till the beautiful -face, which had been reproduced in George, had lost its colour and its -fire, had become careworn and sweet with that sweetness which goes early -out of the world. In all her days the vanished wife had never hinted -at as much as Aunt Kate suggested now, and Abel Baragar shut his eyes -against the thing which he was seeing. He was not all hard, after all. - -Aunt Kate turned to Black Andy now. - -“Mebbe Cassy ain’t for long,” she said. “Mebbe she’s come out for what -she came out for before. It seems to me it’s that, or she wouldn’t have -come; because she’s young yet, and she’s fond of her boy, and she’d -not want to bury herself alive out here with us. Mebbe her lungs is bad -again.” - -“Then she’s sure to get another husband out here,” said the old man, -recovering himself. “She got one before easy, on the same ticket.” With -something of malice he looked over at Black Andy. - -“If she can sing and dance as she done nine years ago, I shouldn’t -wonder,” answered Black Andy smoothly. These two men knew each other; -they had said hard things to each other for many a year, yet they lived -on together unshaken by each other’s moods and bitternesses. - -“I’m getting old,--I’m seventy-nine,--and I ain’t for long,” urged Aunt -Kate, looking Abel in the eyes. “Some day soon I’ll be stepping out and -away. Then things’ll go to sixes and sevens, as they did after Sophy -died. Some one ought to be here that’s got a right to be here, not a -hired woman.” - -Suddenly the old man raged out. - -“Her--off the stage, to look after this! Her, that’s kicked up her heels -for a living! It’s--no, she’s no good. She’s common. She’s come, and she -can go. I ain’t having sweepings from the streets living here as if they -had rights.” - -Aunt Kate set her lips. - -“Sweepings! You’ve got to take that back, Abel. It’s not Christian. -You’ve got to take that back.” - -“He’ll take it back all right before we’ve done, I guess,” remarked -Black Andy. “He’ll take a lot back.” - -“Truth’s truth, and I’ll stand by it, and--” - -The old man stopped, for there came to them now, clearly, the sound of -sleigh bells. They all stood still for an instant, silent and attentive, -then Aunt Kate moved towards the door. - -“Cassy’s come,” she said. “Cassy and George’s boy’ve come.” - -Another instant and the door was opened on the beautiful, white, -sparkling world, and the low sleigh, with its great warm buffalo robes, -in which the small figures of a woman and a child were almost lost, -stopped at the door. Two whimsical but tired eyes looked over a rim of -fur at the old woman in the doorway, then Cassy’s voice rang out. - -“Hello, that’s Aunt Kate, I know! Well, here we are, and here’s my boy. -Jump, George!” - -A moment later, and the gaunt old woman folded both mother and son in -her arms and drew them into the room. The door was shut, and they all -faced each other. - -The old man and Black Andy did not move, but stood staring at the trim -figure in black, with the plain face, large mouth, and tousled red hair, -and the dreamy-eyed, handsome little boy beside her. - -Black Andy stood behind the stove, looking over at the new-comers with -quizzical, almost furtive eyes, and his father remained for a moment -with mouth open, gazing at his dead son’s wife and child, as though not -quite comprehending the scene. The sight of the boy had brought back, -in some strange, embarrassing way, a vision of thirty years before, when -George was a little boy in buckskin pants and jacket, and was beginning -to ride the prairie with him. This boy was like George, yet not like -him. The face was George’s, the sensuous, luxurious mouth; but the eyes -were not those of a Baragar, nor yet those of Aunt Kate’s family; and -they were not wholly like the mother’s. They were full and brimming, -while hers were small and whimsical; yet they had her quick, humourous -flashes and her quaintness. - -“Have I changed so much? Have you forgotten me?” Cassy asked, looking -the old man in the eyes. “You look as strong as a bull.” She held out -her hand to him and laughed. - -“Hope I see you well,” said Abel Baragar mechanically, as he took the -hand and shook it awkwardly. - -“Oh, I’m all right,” answered the nonchalant little woman, undoing her -jacket. “Shake hands with your grandfather, George. That’s right--don’t -talk too much,” she added, with a half-nervous little laugh, as the old -man, with a kind of fixed smile, and the child shook hands in silence. - -Presently she saw Black Andy behind the stove. “Well, Andy, have you -been here ever since?” she asked, and, as he came forward, she suddenly -caught him by both arms, stood on tiptoe, and kissed him. “Last time I -saw you, you were behind the stove at Lumley’s. Nothing’s ever too warm -for you,” she added. “You’d be shivering on the Equator. You were always -hugging the stove at Lumley’s.” - -“Things was pretty warm there, too, Cassy,” he said, with a sidelong -look at his father. - -She saw the look, her face flashed with sudden temper, then her eyes -fell on her boy, now lost in the arms of Aunt Kate, and she curbed -herself. - -“There were plenty of things doing at Lumley’s in those days,” she -said brusquely. “We were all young and fresh then,” she added, and then -something seemed to catch her voice, and she coughed a little--a hard, -dry, feverish cough. “Are the Lumleys all right? Are they still there, -at the Forks?” she asked, after the little paroxysm of coughing. - -“Cleaned out--all scattered. We own the Lumleys’ place now,” replied -Black Andy, with another sidelong glance at his father, who, as he put -some more wood on the fire and opened the damper of the stove wider, -grimly watched and listened. - -“Jim, and Lance, and Jerry, and Abner?” she asked almost abstractedly. - -“Jim’s dead-shot by a U. S. marshal by mistake for a smuggler,” answered -Black Andy suggestively. “Lance is up on the Yukon, busted; Jerry is one -of our hands on the place; and Abner is in jail.” - -“Abner-in jail!” she exclaimed in a dazed way. “What did he do? Abner -always seemed so straight.” - -“Oh, he sloped with a thousand dollars of the railway people’s money. -They caught him, and he got seven years.” - -“He was married, wasn’t he?” she asked in a low voice. “Yes, to Phenie -Tyson. There’s no children, so she’s all right, and divorce is cheap -over in the States, where she is now.” - -“Phenie Tyson didn’t marry Abner because he was a saint, but because he -was a man, I suppose,” she replied gravely. “And the old folks?” - -“Both dead. What Abner done sent the old man to his grave. But Abner’s -mother died a year before.” - -“What Abner done killed his father,” said Abel Baragar with dry -emphasis. “Phenie Tyson was extravagant-wanted this and that, and -nothin’ was too good for her. Abner spoilt his life gettin’ her what she -wanted; and it broke old Ezra Lumley’s heart.” - -George’s wife looked at him for a moment with her eyes screwed up, and -then she laughed softly. “My, it’s curious how some folks go up and some -go down! It must be lonely for Phenie waiting all these years for Abner -to get free.... I had the happiest time in my life at Lumley’s. I was -getting better of my-cold. While I was there I got lots of strength -stored up, to last me many a year when I needed it; and, then, George -and I were married at Lumley’s....” - -Aunt Kate came slowly over with the boy, and laid a hand on Cassy’s -shoulder, for there was an undercurrent to the conversation which boded -no good. The very first words uttered had plunged Abel Baragar and his -son’s wife into the midst of the difficulty which she had hoped might, -after all, be avoided. - -“Come, and I’ll show you your room, Cassy,” she said. “It faces south, -and you’ll get the sun all day. It’s like a sun-parlour. We’re going to -have supper in a couple of hours, and you must rest some first. Is the -house warm enough for you?” - -The little, garish woman did not reply directly, but shook back her red -hair and caught her boy to her breast and kissed him; then she said in -that staccato manner which had given her words on the stage such point -and emphasis, “Oh, this house is a’most too warm for me, Aunt Kate!” - -Then she moved towards the door with the grave, kindly old woman, her -son’s hand in her own. - -“You can see the Lumleys’ place from your window, Cassy,” said Black -Andy grimly. “We got a mortgage on it, and foreclosed it, and it’s ours -now; and Jerry Lumley’s stock-riding for us. Anyhow, he’s better off -than Abner, or Abner’s wife.” - -Cassy turned at the door and faced him. Instinctively she caught at some -latent conflict with old Abel Baragar in what Black Andy had said, and -her face softened, for it suddenly flashed into her mind that he was not -against her. - -“I’m glad to be back West,” she said. “It meant a lot to me when I was -at Lumley’s.” She coughed a little again, but turned to the door with a -laugh. - -“How long have you come to stay here--out West?” asked the old man -furtively. - -“Why, there’s plenty of time to think of that!” she answered brusquely, -and she heard Black Andy laugh derisively as the door closed behind her. - -In a blaze of joy the sun swept down behind the southern hills, and -the windows of Lumley’s house at the Forks, catching the oblique rays, -glittered and shone like flaming silver. Nothing of life showed, save -the cattle here and there, creeping away to the shelter of the foothills -for the night. The white, placid snow made a coverlet as wide as the -vision of the eye, save where spruce and cedar trees gave a touch of -warmth and refuge here and there. A wonderful, buoyant peace seemed to -rest upon the wide, silent expanse. The birds of song were gone South -over the hills, and the living wild things of the prairies had stolen -into winter quarters. Yet, as Cassy Mavor looked out upon the exquisite -beauty of the scene, upon the splendid outspanning of the sun along the -hills, the deep plangent blue of the sky and the thrilling light, she -saw a world in agony and she heard the moans of the afflicted. The sun -shone bright on the windows of Lumley’s house, but she could hear the -crying of Abner’s wife, and of old Ezra and Eliza Lumley, when their -children were stricken or shamed; when Abel Baragar drew tighter and -tighter the chains of the mortgage, which at last made them tenants -in the house once their own. Only eight years ago, and all this had -happened. And what had not happened to her, too, in those eight years! - -With George--reckless, useless, loving, lying George--she had left -Lumley’s with her sickness cured, as it seemed, after a long year in the -West, and had begun life again. What sort of life had it been? “Kicking -up her heels on the stage,” as Abel Baragar had said; but, somehow, -not as it was before she went West to give her perforated lung to the -healing air of the plains, and to live outdoors with the men--a man’s -life. Then she had never put a curb on her tongue, or greatly on her -actions, except that, though a hundred men quarrelled openly, or in -their own minds, about her, no one had ever had any right to quarrel -about her. With a tongue which made men gasp with laughter, with as -comic a gift as ever woman had, and as equally comic a face, she had -been a good-natured little tyrant in her way. She had given a kiss here -and there, and had taken one, but always there had been before her mind -the picture of a careworn woman who struggled to bring up her three -children honestly, and without the help of charity, and, with a sigh of -content and weariness, had died as Cassy made her first hit on the stage -and her name became a household word. And Cassy, garish, gay, freckled, -witty and whimsical, had never forgotten those days when her mother -prayed and worked her heart out to do her duty by her children. Cassy -Mavor had made her following, had won her place, was the idol of “the -gallery”; and yet she was “of the people,” as she had always been, until -her first sickness came, and she had gone out to Lumley’s, out along the -foothills of the Rockies. - -What had made her fall in love with George Baragar? - -She could not have told, if she had been asked. He was wayward, given to -drink at times, given also to card-playing and racing; but he had a way -with him which few women could resist and which made men his friends; -and he had a sense of humour akin to her own. In any case, one day she -let him catch her up in his arms, and there was the end of it. But no, -not the end, after all. It was only the beginning of real life for her. -All that had gone before seemed but playing on the threshold, though -it had meant hard, bitter hard work, and temptation, and patience, and -endurance of many kinds. And now George was gone for ever. But George’s -little boy lay there on the bed in a soft sleep, with all his life -before him. - -She turned from the warm window and the buoyant, inspiring scene to -the bed. Stooping over, she kissed the sleeping boy with an abrupt -eagerness, and made a little awkward, hungry gesture of love over him, -and her face flushed hot with the passion of motherhood in her. - -“All I’ve got now,” she murmured. “Nothing else left--nothing else at -all.” - -She heard the door open behind her, and she turned round. Aunt Kate was -entering with a bowl in her hands. - -“I heard you moving about, and I’ve brought you something hot to drink,” - she said. - -“That’s real good of you, Aunt Kate,” was the cheerful reply. “But it’s -near supper-time, and I don’t need it.” - -“It’s boneset tea--for your cold,” answered Aunt Kate gently, and put it -on the high dressing-table made of a wooden box and covered with muslin. -“For your cold, Cassy,” she repeated. - -The little woman stood still a moment gazing at the steaming bowl, -lines growing suddenly around her mouth, then she looked at Aunt Kate -quizzically. “Is my cold bad--so bad that I need boneset?” she asked in -a queer, constrained voice. - -“It’s comforting, is boneset tea, even when there’s no cold, ‘specially -when the whiskey’s good, and the boneset and camomile has steeped some -days.” - -“Have you been steeping them some days?” Cassy asked softly, eagerly. - -Aunt Kate nodded, then tried to explain. - -“It’s always good to be prepared, and I didn’t know but what the cold -you used to have might be come back,” she said. “But I’m glad if it -ain’t, if that cough of yours is only one of the measly little hacks -people get in the East, where it’s so damp.” - -Cassy was at the window again, looking out at the dying radiance of the -sun. Her voice seemed hollow and strange and rather rough, as she said -in reply: - -“It’s a real cold, deep down, the same as I had nine years ago, Aunt -Kate; and it’s come to stay, I guess. That’s why I came back West. But -I couldn’t have gone to Lumley’s again, even if they were at the Forks -now, for I’m too poor. I’m a back-number now. I had to give up singing -and dancing a year ago, after George died. So I don’t earn my living any -more, and I had to come to George’s father with George’s boy.” - -Aunt Kate had a shrewd mind, and it was tactful, too. She did not -understand why Cassy, who had earned so much money all these years, -should be so poor now, unless it was that she hadn’t saved--that she and -George hadn’t saved. But, looking at the face before her, and the child -on the bed, she was convinced that the woman was a good woman, that, -singer and dancer as she was, there was no reason why any home should -be closed to her, or any heart should shut its doors before her. She -guessed a reason for this poverty of Cassy Mavor, but it only made her -lay a hand on the little woman’s shoulders and look into her eyes. - -“Cassy,” she said gently, “you was right to come here. There’s trials -before you, but for the boy’s sake you must bear them. Sophy, George’s -mother, had to bear them, and Abel was fond of her, too, in his way. -He’s stored up a lot of things to say, and he’ll say them; but you’ll -keep the boy in your mind, and be patient, won’t you, Cassy? You got -rights here, and it’s comfortable, and there’s plenty, and the air will -cure your lung as it did before. It did all right before, didn’t it?” - She handed the bowl of boneset tea. “Take it; it’ll do you good, Cassy,” - she added. - -Cassy said nothing in reply. She looked at the bed where her boy -lay, she looked at the angular face of the woman, with its brooding -motherliness, at the soft, grey hair, and, with a little gasp of -feeling, she raised the bowl to her lips and drank freely. Then, putting -it down, she said: - -“He doesn’t mean to have us, Aunt Kate, but I’ll try and keep my temper -down. Did he ever laugh in his life?” - -“He laughs sometimes--kind o’ laughs.” - -“I’ll make him laugh real, if I can,” Cassy rejoined. “I’ve made a lot -of people laugh in my time.” - -The old woman leaned suddenly over, and drew the red, ridiculous head to -her shoulder with a gasp of affection, and her eyes were full of tears. - -“Cassy,” she exclaimed, “Cassy, you make me cry.” Then she turned and -hurried from the room. - -Three hours later the problem was solved in the big sitting-room where -Cassy had first been received with her boy. Aunt Kate sat with her feet -on a hassock, rocking gently and watching and listening. Black Andy was -behind the great stove with his chair tilted back, carving the bowl of -a pipe; the old man sat rigid by the table, looking straight before him -and smacking his lips now and then as he was won’t to do at meeting; -while Cassy, with her chin in her hands and elbows on her knees, gazed -into the fire and waited for the storm to break. - -Her little flashes of humour at dinner had not brightened things, and -she had had an insane desire to turn cart-wheels round the room, so -implacable and highly strained was the attitude of the master of the -house, so unctuous was the grace and the thanksgiving before and -after the meal. Abel Baragar had stored up his anger and his righteous -antipathy for years, and this was the first chance he had had of -visiting his displeasure on the woman who had “ruined” George, and who -had now come to get “rights,” which he was determined she should not -have. He had steeled himself against seeing any good in her whatever. -Self-will, self-pride, and self-righteousness were big in him, and so -the supper had ended in silence, and with a little attack of coughing -on the part of Cassy, which made her angry at herself. Then the boy had -been put to bed, and she had come back to await the expected outburst. -She could feel it in the air, and while her blood tingled in a desire -to fight this tyrant to the bitter end, she thought of her boy and his -future, and she calmed the tumult in her veins. - -She did not have to wait very long. The querulous voice of the old man -broke the silence. - -“When be you goin’ back East? What time did you fix for goin’?” he -asked. - -She raised her head and looked at him squarely. “I didn’t fix any time -for going East again,” she replied. “I came out West this time to stay.” - -“I thought you was on the stage,” was the rejoinder. - -“I’ve left the stage. My voice went when I got a bad cold again, and -I couldn’t stand the draughts of the theatre, and so I couldn’t dance, -either. I’m finished with the stage. I’ve come out here for good and -all. - -“Where did you think of livin’ out here?” - -“I’d like to have gone to Lumley’s, but that’s not possible, is it? -Anyway, I couldn’t afford it now. So I thought I’d stay here, if there -was room for me.” - -“You want to board here?” - -“I didn’t put it to myself that way. I thought perhaps you’d be glad to -have me. I’m handy. I can cook, I can sew, and I’m quite cheerful and -kind. Then there’s George--little George. I thought you’d like to have -your grandson here with you.” - -“I’ve lived without him--or his father--for eight years, an’ I could -bear it a while yet, mebbe.” - -There was a half-choking sound from the old woman in the rocking-chair, -but she did not speak, though her knitting dropped into her lap. - -“But if you knew us better, perhaps you’d like us better,” rejoined -Cassy gently. “We’re both pretty easy to get on with, and we see the -bright side of things. He has a wonderful disposition, has George.” - -“I ain’t goin’ to like you any better,” said the old man, getting to his -feet. “I ain’t goin’ to give you any rights here. I’ve thought it out, -and my mind’s made up. You can’t come it over me. You ruined my boy’s -life and sent him to his grave. He’d have lived to be an old man out -here; but you spoiled him. You trapped him into marrying you, with your -kicking and your comic songs, and your tricks of the stage, and you -parted us--parted him and me for ever.” - -“That was your fault. George wanted to make it up.” - -“With you!” The old man’s voice rose shrilly, the bitterness and passion -of years was shooting high in the narrow confines of his mind. The -geyser of his prejudice and antipathy was furiously alive. “To come back -with you that ruined him and broke up my family, and made my life like -bitter aloes! No! And if I wouldn’t have him with you, do you think I’ll -have you without him? By the God of Israel, no!” - -Black Andy was now standing up behind the stove intently watching, his -face grim and sombre; Aunt Kate sat with both hands gripping the arms of -the rocker. - -Cassy got slowly to her feet. “I’ve been as straight a woman as your -mother or your wife ever was,” she said, “and all the world knows it. -I’m poor--and I might have been rich. I was true to myself before I -married George, and I was true to George after, and all I earned he -shared; and I’ve got little left. The mining stock I bought with what -I saved went smash, and I’m poor as I was when I started to work for -myself. I can work awhile yet, but I wanted to see if I could fit in -out here, and get well again, and have my boy fixed in the house of his -grandfather. That’s the way I’m placed, and that’s how I came. But give -a dog a bad name--ah, you shame your dead boy in thinking bad of me! I -didn’t ruin him. I didn’t kill him. He never came to any bad through me. -I helped him; he was happy. Why, I--” She stopped suddenly, putting -a hand to her mouth. “Go on, say what you want to say, and let’s -understand once for all,” she added with a sudden sharpness. - -Abel Baragar drew himself up. “Well, I say this. I’ll give you three -thousand dollars, and you can go somewhere else to live. I’ll keep the -boy here. That’s what I’ve fixed in my mind to do. You can go, and the -boy stays. I ain’t goin’ to live with you that spoiled George’s life.” - -The eyes of the woman dilated, she trembled with a sudden rush of anger, -then stood still, staring in front of her without a word. Black Andy -stepped from behind the stove. - -“You are going to stay here, Cassy,” he said; “here where you have -rights as good as any, and better than any, if it comes to that.” He -turned to his father. “You thought a lot of George,” he added. “He was -the apple of your eye. He had a soft tongue, and most people liked him; -but George was foolish--I’ve known it all these years. George was pretty -foolish. He gambled, he bet at races, he speculated--wild. You didn’t -know it. He took ten thousand dollars of your money, got from the -Wonegosh farm he sold for you. He--” - -Cassy Mavor started forwards with a cry, but Black Andy waved her down. - -“No, I’m going to tell it. George lost your ten thousand dollars, dad, -gambling, racing, speculating. He told her--Cassy-two days after they -was married, and she took the money she earned on the stage, and give -it to him to pay you back on the quiet through the bank. You never knew, -but that’s the kind of boy your son George was, and that’s the kind of -wife he had. George told me all about it when I was East six years ago.” - -He came over to Cassy and stood beside her. “I’m standing by George’s -wife,” he said, taking her hand, while she shut her eyes in her -misery--had she not hid her husband’s wrong-doing all these years? “I’m -standing by her. If it hadn’t been for that ten thousand dollars she -paid back for George, you’d have been swamped when the Syndicate got -after you, and we wouldn’t have had Lumley’s place, nor this, nor -anything. I guess she’s got rights here, dad, as good as any.” - -The old man sank slowly into a chair. “George--George stole from -me--stole money from me!” he whispered. His face was white. His -pride and vainglory were broken. He was a haggard, shaken figure. His -self-righteousness was levelled in the dust. - -With sudden impulse, Cassy stole over to him, and took his hand and held -it tight. - -“Don’t! Don’t feel so bad!” she said. “He was weak and wild then. But he -was all right afterwards. He was happy with me.” - -“I’ve owed Cassy this for a good many years, dad,” said Black Andy, “and -it had to be paid. She’s got better stuff in her than any Baragar.” - - ......................... - -An hour later, the old man said to Cassy at the door of her room: “You -got to stay here and git well. It’s yours, the same as the rest of -us--what’s here.” - -Then he went downstairs and sat with Aunt Kate by the fire. - -“I guess she’s a good woman,” he said at last. “I didn’t use her right.” - -“You’ve been lucky with your women-folk,” Aunt Kate answered quietly. - -“Yes, I’ve been lucky,” he answered. “I dunno if I deserve it. Mebbe -not. Do you think she’ll git well?” - -“It’s a healing air out here,” Aunt Kate answered, and listened to the -wood of the house snapping in the sharp frost. - - - - -MARCILE - -That the day was beautiful, that the harvest of the West had been a -great one, that the salmon-fishing had been larger than ever before, -that gold had been found in the Yukon, made no difference to Jacques -Grassette, for he was in the condemned cell of Bindon Jail, living out -those days which pass so swiftly between the verdict of the jury and the -last slow walk with the Sheriff. - -He sat with his back to the stone wall, his hands on his knees, looking -straight before him. All that met his physical gaze was another stone -wall, but with his mind’s eye he was looking beyond it into spaces far -away. His mind was seeing a little house with dormer windows, and a -steep roof on which the snow could not lodge in winter-time; with a -narrow stoop in front where one could rest of an evening, the day’s work -done; the stone-and-earth oven near by in the open, where the bread -for a family of twenty was baked; the wooden plough tipped against the -fence, to wait the “fall” cultivation; the big iron cooler in which the -sap from the maple trees was boiled, in the days when the snow thawed -and spring opened the heart of the wood; the flash of the sickle and the -scythe hard by; the fields of the little narrow farm running back from -the St. Lawrence like a riband; and, out on the wide stream, the -great rafts with their riverine population floating down to Michelin’s -mill-yards. - -For hours he had sat like this, unmoving, his gnarled red hands clamping -each leg as though to hold him steady while he gazed; and he saw himself -as a little lad, barefooted, doing chores, running after the shaggy, -troublesome pony which would let him catch it when no one else could, -and, with only a halter on, galloping wildly back to the farmyard, to be -hitched up in the carriole which had once belonged to the old Seigneur. -He saw himself as a young man, back from “the States” where he had been -working in the mills, regarded austerely by little Father Roche, who had -given him his first Communion--for, down in Massachusetts he had learned -to wear his curly hair plastered down on his forehead, smoke bad cigars, -and drink “old Bourbon,” to bet and to gamble, and be a figure at -horse-races. - -Then he saw himself, his money all gone, but the luck still with him, -at Mass on the Sunday before going to the backwoods lumber-camp for -the winter, as boss of a hundred men. He had a way with him, and he had -brains, had Jacques Grassette, and he could manage men, as Michelin -the lumber-king himself had found in a great river-row and strike, when -bloodshed seemed certain. Even now the ghost of a smile played at his -lips, as he recalled the surprise of the old habitants and of Father -Roche when he was chosen for this responsible post; for to run a great -lumber-camp well, hundreds of miles from civilisation, where there is -no visible law, no restraints of ordinary organised life, and where men, -for seven months together, never saw a woman or a child, and ate pork -and beans, and drank white whisky, was a task of administration as -difficult as managing a small republic new-created out of violent -elements of society. But Michelin was right, and the old Seigneur, Sir -Henri Robitaille, who was a judge of men, knew he was right, as did also -Hennepin the schoolmaster, whose despair Jacques had been, for he -never worked at his lessons as a boy, and yet he absorbed Latin and -mathematics by some sure but unexplainable process. “Ah! if you would -but work, Jacques, you vaurien, I would make a great man of you,” - Hennepin had said to him more than once; but this had made no impression -on Jacques. It was more to the point that the ground-hogs and black -squirrels and pigeons were plentiful in Casanac Woods. - -And so he thought as he stood at the door of the Church of St. Francis -on that day before going “out back” to the lumber-camp. He had reached -the summit of greatness--to command men. That was more than wealth or -learning, and as he spoke to the old Seigneur going in to Mass, he still -thought so, for the Seigneur’s big house and the servants and the great -gardens had no charm for him. The horses--that was another thing; but -there would be plenty of horses in the lumber-camp; and, on the whole, -he felt himself rather superior to the old Seigneur, who now was -Lieutenant-Governor of the province in which lay Bindon Jail. - -At the door of the Church of St. Francis he had stretched himself up -with good-natured pride, for he was by nature gregarious and friendly, -but with a temper quick and strong, and even savage when roused; though -Michelin the lumber-king did not know that when he engaged him as boss, -having seen him only at the one critical time, when his superior brain -and will saw its chance to command, and had no personal interest in the -strife. He had been a miracle of coolness then, and his six-foot-two of -pride and muscle was taking natural tribute at the door of the Church -of St. Francis, where he waited till nearly everyone had entered, and -Father Roche’s voice could be heard in the Mass. - -Then had happened the real event of his life: a blackeyed, rose-checked -girl went by with her mother, hurrying in to Mass. As she passed him -their eyes met, and his blood leapt in his veins. He had never seen -her before, and, in a sense, he had never seen any woman before. He -had danced with many a one, and kissed a few in the old days among the -flax-beaters, at the harvesting, in the gaieties of a wedding, and also -down in Massachusetts. That, however, was a different thing, which he -forgot an hour after; but this was the beginning of the world for him; -for he knew now, of a sudden, what life was, what home meant, why “old -folks” slaved for their children, and mothers wept when girls married or -sons went away from home to bigger things; why in there, in at Mass, so -many were praying for all the people, and thinking only of one. All in -a moment it came--and stayed; and he spoke to her, to Marcile, that very -night, and he spoke also to her father, Valloir the farrier, the next -morning by lamplight, before he started for the woods. He would not -be gainsaid, nor take no for an answer, nor accept, as a reason for -refusal, that she was only sixteen, and that he did not know her, for -she had been away with a childless aunt since she was three. That she -had fourteen brothers and sisters who had to be fed and cared for did -not seem to weigh with the farrier. That was an affair of le bon Dieu, -and enough would be provided for them all as heretofore--one could make -little difference; and though Jacques was a very good match, considering -his prospects and his favour with the lumber-king, Valloir had a kind -of fear of him, and could not easily promise his beloved Marcile, -the flower of his flock, to a man of whom the priest so strongly -disapproved. But it was a new sort of Jacques Grassette who, that -morning, spoke to him with the simplicity and eagerness of a child; and -the suddenly conceived gift of a pony stallion, which every man in the -parish envied Jacques, won Valloir over; and Jacques went “away back” - with the first timid kiss of Marcile Valloir burning on his cheek. - -“Well, bagosh, you are a wonder!” said Jacques’ father, when he told him -the news, and saw Jacques jump into the carriole and drive away. - -Here in prison, this, too, Jacques saw--this scene; and then the wedding -in the spring, and the tour through the parishes for days together, -lads and lasses journeying with them; and afterwards the new home with -a bigger stoop than any other in the village, with some old gnarled -crab-apple trees and lilac bushes, and four years of happiness, and a -little child that died; and all the time Jacques rising in the esteem -of Michelin the lumber-king, and sent on inspections, and to organise -camps; for weeks, sometimes for months, away from the house behind -the lilac bushes--and then the end of it all, sudden and crushing and -unredeemable. - -Jacques came back one night and found the house empty. Marcile had gone -to try her luck with another man. - -That was the end of the upward career of Jacques Grassette. He went -out upon a savage hunt which brought him no quarry, for the man and the -woman had disappeared as completely as though they had been swallowed -by the sea. And here, at last, he was waiting for the day when he must -settle a bill for a human life taken in passion and rage. - -His big frame seemed out of place in the small cell, and the watcher -sitting near him, to whom he had not addressed a word nor replied to a -question since the watching began, seemed an insignificant factor in the -scene. Never had a prisoner been more self-contained, or rejected -more completely all those ministrations of humanity which relieve the -horrible isolation of the condemned cell. Grassette’s isolation was -complete. He lived in a dream, did what little there was to do in a dark -abstraction, and sat hour after hour, as he was sitting now, piercing, -with a brain at once benumbed to all outer things and afire with inward -things, those realms of memory which are infinite in a life of forty -years. - -“Sacre!” he muttered at last, and a shiver seemed to pass through him -from head to foot; then an ugly and evil oath fell from his lips, which -made his watcher shrink back appalled, for he also was a Catholic, and -had been chosen of purpose, in the hope that he might have an influence -on this revolted soul. It had, however, been of no use, and Grassette -had refused the advances and ministrations of the little good priest, -Father Laflamme, who had come from the coast of purpose to give him -the offices of the Church. Silent, obdurate, sullen, he had looked the -priest straight in the face and had said in broken English, “Non, I pay -my bill. Nom de diable, I will say my own Mass, light my own candle, go -my own way. I have too much.” - -Now, as he sat glooming, after his outbreak of oaths, there came a -rattling noise at the door, the grinding of a key in the lock, the -shooting of bolts, and a face appeared at the little wicket in the door. -Then the door opened and the Sheriff stepped inside, accompanied by -a white-haired, stately old man. At sight of this second figure--the -Sheriff had come often before, and would come for one more doleful walk -with him--Grassette started. His face, which had never whitened in -all the dismal and terrorising doings of the capture and the trial and -sentence, though it had flushed with rage more than once, now turned -a little pale, for it seemed as if this old man had stepped out of the -visions which had just passed before his eyes. - -“His Honour, the Lieutenant-Governor, Sir Henri Robitaille, has come to -speak with you.... Stand up,” the Sheriff added sharply, as Grassette -kept his seat. - -Grassette’s face flushed with anger, for the prison had not broken his -spirits; then he got up slowly. “I not stand up for you,” he growled at -the Sheriff; “I stand up for him.” He jerked his head towards Sir Henri -Robitaille. This grand Seigneur, with Michelin, had believed in him in -those far-off days which he had just been seeing over again, and all his -boyhood and young manhood was rushing back on him. But now it was the -Governor who turned pale, seeing who the criminal was. - -“Jacques Grassette!” he cried in consternation and emotion, for under -another name the murderer had been tried and sentenced, nor had his -identity been established--the case was so clear, the defence had been -perfunctory, and Quebec was very far away. - -“M’sieu’!” was the respectful response, and Grassette’s fingers -twitched. - -“It was my sister’s son you killed, Grassette,” said the Governor in a -low, strained voice. - -“Nom de Dieu!” said Grassette hoarsely. - -“I did not know, Grassette,” the Governor went on “I did not know it was -you.” - -“Why did you come, m’sieu’?” - -“Call him ‘your Honour,”’ said the Sheriff sharply. Grassette’s -face hardened, and his look turned upon the Sheriff was savage and -forbidding. “I will speak as it please me. Who are you? What do I care? -To hang me--that is your business; but, for the rest, you spik to me -differen’. Who are you? Your father kep’ a tavern for thieves, vous -savez bien!” It was true that the Sheriff’s father had had no savoury -reputation in the West. - -The Governor turned his head away in pain and trouble, for the man’s -rage was not a thing to see--and they both came from the little parish -of St. Francis, and had passed many an hour together. - -“Never mind, Grassette,” he said gently. “Call me what you will. You’ve -got no feeling against me; and I can say with truth that I don’t want -your life for the life you took.” - -Grassette’s breast heaved. “He put me out of my work, the man I kill. He -pass the word against me, he hunt me out of the mountains, he call--tete -de diable! he call me a name so bad. Everything swim in my head, and I -kill him.” - -The Governor made a protesting gesture. “I understand. I am glad his -mother was dead. But do you not think how sudden it was? Now here, in -the thick of life, then, out there, beyond this world in the darkin -purgatory.” - -The brave old man had accomplished what everyone else, priest, lawyer, -Sheriff and watcher, had failed to do: he had shaken Grassette out of -his blank isolation and obdurate unrepentance, had touched some chord of -recognisable humanity. - -“It is done--well, I pay for it,” responded Grassette, setting his jaw. -“It is two deaths for me. Waiting and remembering, and then with the -Sheriff there the other--so quick, and all.” - -The Governor looked at him for some moments without speaking. The -Sheriff intervened again officiously. - -“His Honour has come to say something important to you,” he remarked -oracularly. - -“Hold you--does he need a Sheriff to tell him when to spik?” was -Grassette’s surly comment. Then he turned to the Governor. “Let us speak -in French,” he said in patois. “This rope-twister will not understan’. -He is no good--I spit at him.” - -The Governor nodded, and, despite the Sheriff’s protest, they spoke in -French, Grassette with his eyes intently fixed on the other, eagerly -listening. - -“I have come,” said the Governor, “to say to you, Grassette, that you -have still a chance of life.” - -He paused, and Grassette’s face took on a look of bewilderment and vague -anxiety. A chance of life--what did it mean? - -“Reprieve?” he asked in a hoarse voice. - -The Governor shook his head. “Not yet; but there is a chance. Something -has happened. A man’s life is in danger, or it may be he is dead; but -more likely he is alive. You took a life; perhaps you can save one now. -Keeley’s Gulch--the mine there.” - -“They have found it--gold?” asked Grassette, his eyes staring. He was -forgetting for a moment where and what he was. - -“He went to find it, the man whose life is in danger. He had heard from -a trapper who had been a miner once. While he was there, a landslip -came, and the opening to the mine was closed up--” - -“There were two ways in. Which one did he take?” cried Grassette. - -“The only one he could take, the only one he or anyone else knew. You -know the other way in--you only, they say.” - -“I found it--the easier, quick way in; a year ago I found it.” - -“Was it near the other entrance?” Grassette shook his head. “A mile -away.” - -“If the man is alive--and we think he is--you are the only person that -can save him. I have telegraphed the Government. They do not promise, -but they will reprieve, and save your life, if you find the man.” - -“Alive or dead?” - -“Alive or dead, for the act would be the same. I have an order to take -you to the Gulch, if you will go; and I am sure that you will have your -life, if you do it. I will promise--ah yes, Grassette, but it shall be -so! Public opinion will demand it. You will do it?” - -“To go free--altogether?” - -“Well, but if your life is saved, Grassette?” - -The dark face flushed, then grew almost repulsive again in its -sullenness. - -“Life--and this, in prison, shut in year after year. To do always what -some one else wills, to be a slave to a warder. To have men like -that over me that have been a boss of men--wasn’t it that drove me to -kill?--to be treated like dirt. And to go on with this, while outside -there is free life, and to go where you will at your own price-no! What -do I care for life! What is it to me! To live like this--ah, I would -break my head against these stone walls, I would choke myself with my -own hands! If I stayed here, I would kill again, I would kill--kill.” - -“Then to go free altogether--that would be the wish of all the world, -if you save this man’s life, if it can be saved. Will you not take the -chance? We all have to die some time or other, Grassette, some sooner, -some later; and when you go, will you not want to take to God in your -hands a life saved for a life taken? Have you forgotten God, Grassette? -We used to remember Him in the Church of St. Francis down there at -home.” - -There was a moment’s silence, in which Grassette’s head was thrust -forwards, his eyes staring into space. The old Seigneur had touched a -vulnerable corner in his nature. - -Presently he said in a low voice: “To be free altogether.... What is his -name? Who is he?” - -“His name is Bignold,” the Governor answered. He turned to the Sheriff -inquiringly. “That is it, is it not?” he asked in English again. - -“James Tarran Bignold,” answered the Sheriff. - -The effect of these words upon Grassette was remarkable. His body -appeared to stiffen, his face became rigid, he stared at the Governor -blankly, appalled, the colour left his face, and his mouth opened with -a curious and revolting grimace. The others drew back, startled, and -watched him. - -“Sang de Dieu!” he murmured at last, with a sudden gesture of misery and -rage. - -Then the Governor understood: he remembered that the name just given by -the Sheriff and himself was the name of the Englishman who had carried -off Grassette’s wife years ago. He stepped forwards and was about to -speak, but changed his mind. He would leave it all to Grassette; he -would not let the Sheriff know the truth, unless Grassette himself -disclosed the situation. He looked at Grassette with a look of poignant -pity and interest combined. In his own placid life he had never had any -tragic happening, his blood had run coolly, his days had been blessed by -an urbane fate; such scenes as this were but a spectacle to him; there -was no answering chord of human suffering in his own breast, to make him -realise what Grassette was undergoing now; but he had read widely, he -had been an acute observer of the world and its happenings, and he had -a natural human sympathy which had made many a man and woman eternally -grateful to him. - -What would Grassette do? It was a problem which had no precedent, and -the solution would be a revelation of the human mind and heart. What -would the man do? - -“Well, what is all this, Grassette?” asked the Sheriff brusquely. His -official and officious intervention, behind which was the tyranny of -the little man, given a power which he was incapable of wielding wisely, -would have roused Grassette to a savage reply a half-hour before, but -now it was met by a contemptuous wave of the hand, and Grassette kept -his eyes fixed on the Governor. - -“James Tarran Bignold!” Grassette said harshly, with eyes that searched -the Governor’s face; but they found no answering look there. The -Governor, then, did not remember that tragedy of his home and hearth, -and the man who had made of him an Ishmael. Still, Bignold had been -almost a stranger in the parish, and it was not curious if the Governor -had forgotten. - -“Bignold!” he repeated, but the Governor gave no response. - -“Yes, Bignold is his name, Grassette,” said the Sheriff. “You took a -life, and now, if you save one, that’ll balance things. As the Governor -says, there’ll be a reprieve anyhow. It’s pretty near the day, and this -isn’t a bad world to kick in, so long as you kick with one leg on the -ground, and--” - -The Governor hastily intervened upon the Sheriff’s brutal remarks. -“There is no time to be lost, Grassette. He has been ten days in the -mine.” - -Grassette’s was not a slow brain. For a man of such physical and bodily -bulk, he had more talents than are generally given. If his brain had -been slower, his hand also would have been slower to strike. But his -intelligence had been surcharged with hate these many years, and since -the day he had been deserted, it had ceased to control his actions--a -passionate and reckless wilfulness had governed it. But now, after -the first shock and stupefaction, it seemed to go back to where it was -before Marcile went from him, gather up the force and intelligence it -had then, and come forwards again to this supreme moment, with all that -life’s harsh experiences had done for it, with the education that misery -and misdoing give. Revolutions are often the work of instants, not -years, and the crucial test and problem by which Grassette was now faced -had lifted him into a new atmosphere, with a new capacity alive in him. -A moment ago his eyes had been bloodshot and swimming with hatred and -passion; now they grew, almost suddenly, hard and lurking and quiet, -with a strange, penetrating force and inquiry in them. - -“Bignold--where does he come from? What is he?” he asked the Sheriff. - -“He is an Englishman; he’s only been out here a few months. He’s been -shooting and prospecting; but he’s a better shooter than prospector. -He’s a stranger; that’s why all the folks out here want to save him if -it’s possible. It’s pretty hard dying in a strange land far away from -all that’s yours. Maybe he’s got a wife waiting for him over there.” - -“Nom de Dieu!” said Grassette with suppressed malice, under his breath. - -“Maybe there’s a wife waiting for him, and there’s her to think of. The -West’s hospitable, and this thing has taken hold of it; the West wants -to save this stranger, and it’s waiting for you, Grassette, to do its -work for it, you being the only man that can do it, the only one -that knows the other secret way into Keeley’s Gulch. Speak right out, -Grassette. It’s your chance for life. Speak out quick.” - -The last three words were uttered in the old slave-driving tone, though -the earlier part of the speech had been delivered oracularly, and had -brought again to Grassette’s eyes the reddish, sullen look which had -made them, a little while before, like those of some wounded, angered -animal at bay; but it vanished slowly, and there was silence for a -moment. The Sheriff’s words had left no vestige of doubt in Grassette’s -mind. This Bignold was the man who had taken Marcile away, first to the -English province, then into the States, where he had lost track of them, -then over to England. Marcile--where was Marcile now? - -In Keeley’s Gulch was the man who could tell him, the man who had ruined -his home and his life. Dead or alive, he was in Keeley’s Gulch, the man -who knew where Marcile was; and if he knew where Marcile was, and if she -was alive, and he was outside these prison walls, what would he do to -her? And if he was outside these prison walls, and in the Gulch, and the -man was there alive before him, what would he do? - -Outside these prison walls-to be out there in the sun, where life would -be easier to give up, if it had to be given up! An hour ago he had been -drifting on a sea of apathy, and had had his fill of life. An hour ago -he had had but one desire, and that was to die fighting, and he had even -pictured to himself a struggle in this narrow cell where he would compel -them to kill him, and so in any case let him escape the rope. Now he was -suddenly brought face to face with the great central issue of his -life, and the end, whatever that end might be, could not be the same in -meaning, though it might be the same concretely. If he elected to let -things be, then Bignold would die out there in the Gulch, starved, -anguished, and alone. If he went, he could save his own life by saving -Bignold, if Bignold was alive; or he could go--and not save Bignold’s -life or his own! What would he do? - -The Governor watched him with a face controlled to quietness, but with -an anxiety which made him pale in spite of himself. - -“What will you do, Grassette?” he said at last in a low voice, and with -a step forwards to him. “Will you not help to clear your conscience by -doing this thing? You don’t want to try and spite the world by not -doing it. You can make a lot of your life yet, if you are set free. Give -yourself, and give the world a chance. You haven’t used it right. Try -again.” - -Grassette imagined that the Governor did not remember who Bignold was, -and that this was an appeal against his despair, and against revenging -himself on the community which had applauded his sentence. If he went -to the Gulch, no one would know or could suspect the true situation, -everyone would be unprepared for that moment when Bignold and he would -face each other--and all that would happen then. - -Where was Marcile? Only Bignold knew. Alive or dead? Only Bignold knew. - -“Bien, I will do it, m’sieu’,” he said to the Governor. “I am to go -alone--eh?” - -The Sheriff shook his head. “No, two warders will go with you--and -myself.” - -A strange look passed over Grassette’s face. He seemed to hesitate for a -moment, then he said again: “Bon, I will go.” - -“Then there is, of course, the doctor,” said the Sheriff. - -“Bon,” said Grassette. “What time is it?” “Twelve o’clock,” answered the -Sheriff, and made a motion to the warder to open the door of the cell. - -“By sundown!” Grassette said, and he turned with a determined gesture to -leave the cell. - -At the gate of the prison, a fresh, sweet air caught his face. -Involuntarily he drew in a great draught of it, and his eyes seemed -to gaze out, almost wonderingly, over the grass and the trees to -the boundless horizon. Then he became aware of the shouts of the -crowd--shouts of welcome. This same crowd had greeted him with shouts of -execration when he had left the Court House after his sentence. He -stood still for a moment and looked at them, as it were only half -comprehending that they were cheering him now, and that voices were -saying, “Bravo, Grassette! Save him, and we’ll save you.” - -Cheer upon cheer, but he took no notice. He walked like one in a dream, -a long, strong step. He turned neither to left nor right, not even when -the friendly voice of one who had worked with him bade him: “Cheer up, -and do the trick.” He was busy working out a problem which no one but -himself could solve. He was only half conscious of his surroundings; he -was moving in a kind of detached world of his own, where the warders -and the Sheriff and those who followed were almost abstract and unreal -figures. He was living with a past which had been everlasting distant, -and had now become a vivid and buffeting present. He returned no answers -to the questions addressed to him, and would not talk, save when for a -little while they dismounted from their horses, and sat under the -shade of a great ash-tree for a few moments, and snatched a mouthful of -luncheon. Then he spoke a little and asked some questions, but lapsed -into a moody silence afterwards. His life and nature were being passed -through a fiery crucible. In all the years that had gone, he had had -an ungovernable desire to kill both Bignold and Marcile if he ever met -them, a primitive, savage desire to blot them out of life and being. His -fingers had ached for Marcile’s neck, that neck in which he had lain his -face so often in the transient, unforgettable days of their happiness. -If she was alive now--if she was still alive! Her story was hidden there -in Keeley’s Gulch with Bignold, and he was galloping hard to reach his -foe. As he went, by some strange alchemy of human experience, by that -new birth of his brain, the world seemed different from what it had ever -been before, at least since the day when he had found an empty home and -a shamed hearthstone. He got a new feeling toward it, and life appealed -to him as a thing that might have been so well worth living. But -since that was not to be, then he would see what he could do to get -compensation for all that he had lost, to take toll for the thing that -had spoiled him, and given him a savage nature and a raging temper, -which had driven him at last to kill a man who, in no real sense, had -injured him. - -Mile after mile they journeyed, a troop of interested people coming -after, the sun and the clear sweet air, the waving grass, the occasional -clearings where settlers had driven in the tent-pegs of home, the forest -now and then swallowing them, the mountains rising above them like a -blank wall, and then suddenly opening out before them; and the rustle -and scamper of squirrels and coyotes; and over their heads the whistle -of birds, the slow beat of wings of great wild-fowl. The tender sap of -youth was in this glowing and alert new world, and, by sudden contrast -with the prison walls which he had just left behind, the earth seemed -recreated, unfamiliar, compelling and companionable. Strange that in all -the years that had been since he had gone back to his abandoned home to -find Marcile gone, the world had had no beauty, no lure for him. In -the splendour of it all, he had only raged and stormed, hating his -fellowman, waiting, however hopelessly, for the day when he should see -Marcile and the man who had taken her from him. And yet now, under the -degradation of his crime and its penalty, and the unmanning influence of -being the helpless victim of the iron power of the law, rigid, ugly and -demoralising--now with the solution of his life’s great problem here -before him in the hills, with the man for whom he had waited so long -caverned in the earth, but a hand-reach away, as it were, his wrongs had -taken a new manifestation in him, and the thing that kept crying out in -him every moment was, Where is Marcile? - -It was four o’clock when they reached the pass which only Grassette -knew, the secret way into the Gulch. There was two hours’ walking -through the thick, primeval woods, where few had ever been, except the -ancient tribes which had once lorded it here; then came a sudden drop -into the earth, a short travel through a dim cave, and afterward a sheer -wall of stone enclosing a ravine where the rocks on either side nearly -met overhead. - -Here Grassette gave the signal to shout aloud, and the voice of the -Sheriff called out: “Hello, Bignold! - -“Hello! Hello, Bignold! Are you there?--Hello!” His voice rang out clear -and piercing, and then came a silence-a long, anxious silence. Again the -voice rang out: “Hello! Hello-o-o! Bignold! Bigno-o-ld!” - -They strained their ears. Grassette was flat on the ground, his ear -to the earth. Suddenly he got to his feet, his face set, his eyes -glittering. - -“He is there beyon’--I hear him,” he said, pointing farther down the -Gulch. “Water--he is near it.” - -“We heard nothing,” said the Sheriff, “not a sound.” “I hear ver’ good. -He is alive. I hear him--so,” responded Grassette; and his face had a -strange, fixed look which the others interpreted to be agitation at the -thought that he had saved his own life by finding Bignold--and alive; -which would put his own salvation beyond doubt. - -He broke away from them and hurried down the Gulch. The others followed -hard after, the Sheriff and the warders close behind; but he outstripped -them. - -Suddenly he stopped and stood still, looking at something on the ground. -They saw him lean forwards and his hands stretch out with a fierce -gesture. It was the attitude of a wild animal ready to spring. - -They were beside him in an instant, and saw at his feet Bignold worn to -a skeleton, with eyes starting from his head, and fixed on Grassette in -agony and stark fear. - -The Sheriff stooped to lift Bignold up, but Grassette waved them back -with a fierce gesture, standing over the dying man. - -“He spoil my home. He break me--I have my bill to settle here,” he said -in a voice hoarse and harsh. “It is so? It is so--eh? Spik!” he said to -Bignold. - -“Yes,” came feebly from the shrivelled lips. “Water! Water!” the -wretched man gasped. “I’m dying!” - -A sudden change came over Grassette. “Water--queeck!” he said. - -The Sheriff stooped and held a hatful of water to Bignold’s lips, while -another poured brandy from a flask into the water. - -Grassette watched them eagerly. When the dying man had swallowed a -little of the spirit and water, Grassette leaned over him again, and -the others drew away. They realised that these two men had an account to -settle, and there was no need for Grassette to take revenge, for Bignold -was going fast. - -“You stan’ far back,” said Grassette, and they fell away. - -Then he stooped down to the sunken, ashen face, over which death was -fast drawing its veil. “Marcile--where is Marcile?” he asked. - -The dying man’s lips opened. “God forgive me--God save my soul!” he -whispered. He was not concerned for Grassette now. - -“Queeck-queeck, where is Marcile?” Grassette said sharply. “Come back, -Bignold. Listen--where is Marcile?” - -He strained to hear the answer. Bignold was going, but his eyes opened -again, however, for this call seemed to pierce to his soul as it -struggled to be free. - -“Ten years--since--I saw her,” he whispered. “Good girl--Marcile. She -loves you, but she--is afraid.” He tried to say something more, but his -tongue refused its office. - -“Where is she-spik!” commanded Grassette in a tone of pleading and agony -now. - -Once more the flying spirit came back. A hand made a motion towards his -pocket, then lay still. - -Grassette felt hastily in the dead man’s pocket, drew forth a letter, -and with half-blinded eyes read the few lines it contained. It was dated -from a hospital in New York, and was signed: “Nurse Marcile.” - -With a moan of relief Grassette stood staring at the dead man. When the -others came to him again, his lips were moving, but they did not hear -what he was saying. They took up the body and moved away with it up the -ravine. - -“It’s all right, Grassette. You’ll be a freeman,” said the Sheriff. - -Grassette did not answer. He was thinking how long it would take him to -get to Marcile, when he was free. - -He had a true vision of beginning life again with Marcile. - - - - -A MAN, A FAMINE, AND A HEATHEN BOY - -Athabasca in the Far North is the scene of this story--Athabasca, one -of the most beautiful countries in the world in summer, but a cold, bare -land in winter. Yet even in winter it is not so bleak and bitter as the -districts south-west of it, for the Chinook winds steal through from the -Pacific and temper the fierceness of the frozen Rockies. Yet forty and -fifty degrees below zero is cold after all, and July strawberries in -this wild North land are hardly compensation for seven months of ice and -snow, no matter how clear and blue the sky, how sweet the sun during its -short journey in the day. Some days, too, the sun may not be seen even -when there is no storm, because of the fine, white, powdered frost in -the air. - -A day like this is called a poudre day; and woe to the man who tempts it -unthinkingly, because the light makes the delicate mist of frost shine -like silver. For that powder bites the skin white in short order, and -sometimes reckless men lose ears, or noses, or hands under its sharp -caress. But when it really storms in that Far North, then neither man -nor beast should be abroad--not even the Eskimo dogs; though times and -seasons can scarcely be chosen when travelling in Athabasca, for a storm -comes unawares. Upon the plains you will see a cloud arising, not in the -sky, but from the ground--a billowy surf of drifting snow; then another -white billow from the sky will sweep down and meet it, and you are -caught between. - -He who went to Athabasca to live a generation ago had to ask himself if -the long winter, spent chiefly indoors, with, maybe, a little trading -with the Indians, meagre sport, and scant sun, savages and half-breeds -the only companions, and out of all touch with the outside world, -letters coming but once a year; with frozen fish and meat, always -the same, as the staple items in a primitive fare; with danger from -starvation and marauding tribes; with endless monotony, in which men -sometimes go mad--he had to ask himself if these were to be cheerfully -endured because, in the short summer, the air is heavenly, the rivers -and lakes are full of fish, the flotilla of canoes of the fur-hunters is -pouring down, and all is gaiety and pleasant turmoil; because there is -good shooting in the autumn, and the smell of the land is like a garden, -and hardy fruits and flowers are at hand. - -That is a question which was asked William Rufus Holly once upon a time. - -William Rufus Holly, often called “Averdoopoy,” sometimes “Sleeping -Beauty,” always Billy Rufus, had had a good education. He had been to -high school and to college, and he had taken one or two prizes en route -to graduation; but no fame travelled with him, save that he was the -laziest man of any college year for a decade. He loved his little -porringer, which is to say that he ate a good deal; and he loved to read -books, which is not to say that he loved study; he hated getting out of -bed, and he was constantly gated for morning chapel. More than once he -had sweetly gone to sleep over his examination papers. This is not -to say that he failed at his examinations--on the contrary, he always -succeeded; but he only did enough to pass and no more; and he did -not wish to do more than pass. His going to sleep at examinations -was evidence that he was either indifferent or self-indulgent, and it -certainly showed that he was without nervousness. He invariably roused -himself, or his professor roused him, a half-hour before the papers -should be handed in, and, as it were by a mathematical calculation, he -had always done just enough to prevent him being plucked. - -He slept at lectures, he slept in hall, he slept as he waited his turn -to go to the wicket in a cricket match, and he invariably went to sleep -afterwards. He even did so on the day he had made the biggest score, -in the biggest game ever played between his college and the pick of the -country; but he first gorged himself with cake and tea. The day he took -his degree he had to be dragged from a huge grandfather’s chair, and -forced along in his ragged gown--“ten holes and twelve tatters”--to the -function in the convocation hall. He looked so fat and shiny, so balmy -and sleepy when he took his degree and was handed his prize for a poem -on Sir John Franklin, that the public laughed, and the college men in -the gallery began singing: - - “Bye O, my baby, - Father will come to you soo-oon!” - -He seemed not to care, but yawned in his hand as he put his prize book -under his arm through one of the holes in his gown, and in two minutes -was back in his room, and in another five was fast asleep. - -It was the general opinion that William Rufus Holly, fat, yellow-haired, -and twenty-four years old, was doomed to failure in life, in spite of -the fact that he had a little income of a thousand dollars a year, and -had made a century in an important game of cricket. Great, therefore, -was the surprise of the college, and afterward of the Province, when, at -the farewell dinner of the graduates, Sleeping Beauty announced, between -his little open-eyed naps, that he was going Far North as a missionary. - -At first it was thought he was joking, but when at last, in his calm and -dreamy look, they saw he meant what he said, they rose and carried him -round the room on a chair, making impromptu songs as they travelled. -They toasted Billy Rufus again and again, some of them laughing till -they cried at the thought of Averdoopoy going to the Arctic regions. But -an uneasy seriousness fell upon these “beautiful, bountiful, brilliant -boys,” as Holly called them later, when in a simple, honest, but -indolent speech he said he had applied for ordination. - -Six months later William Rufus Holly, a deacon in holy orders, journeyed -to Athabasca in the Far North. On his long journey there was plenty of -time to think. He was embarked on a career which must for ever keep him -in the wilds; for very seldom indeed does a missionary of the North ever -return to the crowded cities or take a permanent part in civilised life. - -What the loneliness of it would be he began to feel, as for hours and -hours he saw no human being on the plains; in the thrilling stillness -of the night; in fierce storms in the woods, when his half-breed guides -bent their heads to meet the wind and rain, and did not speak for hours; -in the long, adventurous journey on the river by day, in the cry of the -plaintive loon at night; in the scant food for every meal. Yet what the -pleasure would be he felt in the joyous air, the exquisite sunshine, the -flocks of wild-fowl flying North, honking on their course; in the song -of the half-breeds as they ran the rapids. Of course, he did not -think these things quite as they are written here--all at once and all -together; but in little pieces from time to time, feeling them rather -than saying them to himself. - -At least he did understand how serious a thing it was, his going as a -missionary into the Far North. Why did he do it? Was it a whim, or the -excited imagination of youth, or that prompting which the young often -have to make the world better? Or was it a fine spirit of adventure with -a good heart behind it? Perhaps it was a little of all these; but there -was also something more, and it was to his credit. - -Lazy as William Rufus Holly had been at school and college, he had -still thought a good deal, even when he seemed only sleeping; perhaps -he thought more because he slept so much, because he studied little and -read a great deal. He always knew what everybody thought--that he would -never do anything but play cricket till he got too heavy to run, and -then would sink into a slothful, fat, and useless middle and old age; -that his life would be a failure. And he knew that they were right; that -if he stayed where he could live an easy life, a fat and easy life he -would lead; that in a few years he would be good for nothing except to -eat and sleep--no more. One day, waking suddenly from a bad dream of -himself so fat as to be drawn about on a dray by monstrous fat oxen with -rings through their noses, led by monkeys, he began to wonder what he -should do--the hardest thing to do; for only the hardest life could -possibly save him from failure, and, in spite of all, he really did want -to make something of his life. He had been reading the story of Sir John -Franklin’s Arctic expedition, and all at once it came home to him that -the only thing for him to do was to go to the Far North and stay there, -coming back about once every ten years to tell the people in the cities -what was being done in the wilds. Then there came the inspiration to -write his poem on Sir John Franklin, and he had done so, winning the -college prize for poetry. But no one had seen any change in him in those -months; and, indeed, there had been little or no change, for he had -an equable and practical, though imaginative, disposition, despite -his avoirdupois, and his new purpose did not stir him yet from his -comfortable sloth. - -And in all the journey West and North he had not been stirred greatly -from his ease of body, for the journey was not much harder than playing -cricket every day, and there were only the thrill of the beautiful air, -the new people, and the new scenes to rouse him. As yet there was no -great responsibility. He scarcely realised what his life must be, until -one particular day. Then Sleeping Beauty waked wide up, and from that -day lost the name. Till then he had looked and borne himself like any -other traveller, unrecognised as a parson or “mikonaree.” He had not had -prayers in camp en route, he had not preached, he had held no meetings. -He was as yet William Rufus Holly, the cricketer, the laziest dreamer -of a college decade. His religion was simple and practical; he had never -had any morbid ideas; he had lived a healthy, natural, and honourable -life, until he went for a mikonaree, and if he had no cant, he had not -a clear idea of how many-sided, how responsible, his life must be--until -that one particular day. This is what happened then. - -From Fort O’Call, an abandoned post of the Hudson’s Bay Company on -the Peace River, nearly the whole tribe of the Athabasca Indians in -possession of the post now had come up the river, with their chief, -Knife-in-the-Wind, to meet the mikonaree. Factors of the Hudson’s Bay -Company, coureurs de bois, and voyageurs had come among them at times, -and once the renowned Father Lacombe, the Jesuit priest, had stayed -with them three months; but never to this day had they seen a Protestant -mikonaree, though once a factor, noted for his furious temper, his -powers of running, and his generosity, had preached to them. These men, -however, were both over fifty years old. The Athabascas did not hunger -for the Christian religion, but a courier from Edmonton had brought them -word that a mikonaree was coming to their country to stay, and they put -off their stoical manner and allowed themselves the luxury of curiosity. -That was why even the squaws and papooses came up the river with the -braves, all wondering if the stranger had brought gifts with him, all -eager for their shares; for it had been said by the courier of the tribe -that “Oshondonto,” their name for the newcomer, was bringing mysterious -loads of well-wrapped bales and skins. Upon a point below the first -rapids of the Little Manitou they waited with their camp-fires burning -and their pipe of peace. - -When the canoes bearing Oshondonto and his voyageurs shot the rapids to -the song of the river, - - “En roulant, ma boule roulant, - En roulant, ma boule!” - -with the shrill voices of the boatmen rising to meet the cry of the -startled water-fowl, the Athabascas crowded to the high banks. They -grunted “How!” in greeting, as the foremost canoe made for the shore. - -But if surprise could have changed the countenances of Indians, these -Athabascas would not have known one another when the missionary stepped -out upon the shore. They had looked to see a grey-bearded man like -the chief factor who quarrelled and prayed; but they found instead a -round-faced, clean-shaven youth, with big, good-natured eyes, yellow -hair, and a roundness of body like that of a month-old bear’s cub. They -expected to find a man who, like the factor, could speak their language, -and they found a cherub sort of youth who talked only English, French, -and Chinook--that common language of the North--and a few words of their -own language which he had learned on the way. - -Besides, Oshondonto was so absent-minded at the moment, so absorbed in -admiration of the garish scene before him, that he addressed the chief -in French, of which Knife-in-the-Wind knew but the one word cache, which -all the North knows. - -But presently William Rufus Holly recovered himself, and in stumbling -Chinook made himself understood. Opening a bale, he brought out beads -and tobacco and some bright red flannel, and two hundred Indians sat -round him and grunted “How!” and received his gifts with little comment. -Then the pipe of peace went round, and Oshondonto smoked it becomingly. - -But he saw that the Indians despised him for his youth, his fatness, his -yellow hair as soft as a girl’s, his cherub face, browned though it was -by the sun and weather. - -As he handed the pipe to Knife-in-the-Wind, an Indian called Silver -Tassel, with a cruel face, said grimly: - -“Why does Oshondonto travel to us?” - -William Rufus Holly’s eyes steadied on those of the Indian as he -replied in Chinook: “To teach the way to Manitou the Mighty, to tell the -Athabascas of the Great Chief who died to save the world.” - -“The story is told in many ways; which is right? There was the factor, -Word of Thunder. There is the song they sing at Edmonton--I have heard.” - -“The Great Chief is the same Chief,” answered the missionary. “If you -tell of Fort O’Call, and Knife-in-the-Wind tells of Fort O’Call, he and -you will speak different words, and one will put in one thing and one -will leave out another; men’s tongues are different. But Fort O’Call is -the-same, and the Great Chief is the same.” - -“It was a long time ago,” said Knife-in-the-Wind sourly, “many thousand -moons, as the pebbles in the river, the years.” - -“It is the same world, and it is the same Chief, and it was to save us,” - answered William Rufus Holly, smiling, yet with a fluttering heart, for -the first test of his life had come. - -In anger Knife-in-the-Wind thrust an arrow into the ground and said: - -“How can the white man who died thousands of moons ago in a far country -save the red man to-day?” - -“A strong man should bear so weak a tale,” broke in Silver Tassel -ruthlessly. “Are we children that the Great Chief sends a child as -messenger?” - -For a moment Billy Rufus did not know how to reply, and in the pause -Knife-in-the-Wind broke in two pieces the arrow he had thrust in the -ground in token of displeasure. - -Suddenly, as Oshondonto was about to speak, Silver Tassel sprang to -his feet, seized in his arms a lad of twelve who was standing near, and -running to the bank, dropped him into the swift current. - -“If Oshondonto be not a child, let him save the lad,” said Silver -Tassel, standing on the brink. - -Instantly William Rufus Holly was on his feet. His coat was off before -Silver Tassel’s words were out of his mouth, and crying, “In the name of -the Great White Chief!” he jumped into the rushing current. “In the name -of your Manitou, come on, Silver Tassel!” he called up from the water, -and struck out for the lad. - -Not pausing an instant, Silver Tassel sprang into the flood, into the -whirling eddies and dangerous current below the first rapids and above -the second. - -Then came the struggle for Wingo of the Cree tribe, a waif among -the Athabascas, whose father had been slain as they travelled, by a -wandering tribe of Blackfeet. Never was there a braver rivalry, although -the odds were with the Indian-in lightness, in brutal strength. With -the mikonaree, however, were skill, and that sort of strength which -the world calls “moral,” the strength of a good and desperate purpose. -Oshondonto knew that on the issue of this shameless business--this cruel -sport of Silver Tassel--would depend his future on the Peace River. As -he shot forward with strong strokes in the whirling torrent after the -helpless lad, who, only able to keep himself afloat, was being swept -down towards the rapids below, he glanced up to the bank along which the -Athabascas were running. He saw the garish colours of their dresses; -he saw the ignorant medicine man, with his mysterious bag, making -incantations; he saw the tepee of the chief, with its barbarous pennant -above; he saw the idle, naked children tearing at the entrails of -a calf; and he realised that this was a deadly tournament between -civilisation and barbarism. - -Silver Tassel was gaining on him, they were both overhauling the boy; it -was now to see which should reach Wingo first, which should take him to -shore. That is, if both were not carried under before they reached him; -that is, if, having reached him, they and he would ever get to shore; -for, lower down, before it reached the rapids, the current ran horribly -smooth and strong, and here and there were jagged rocks just beneath the -surface. - -Still Silver Tassel gained on him, as they both gained on the boy. -Oshondonto swam strong and hard, but he swam with his eye on the -struggle for the shore also; he was not putting forth his utmost -strength, for he knew it would be bitterly needed, perhaps to save his -own life by a last effort. - -Silver Tassel passed him when they were about fifty feet from the boy. -Shooting by on his side, with a long stroke and the plunge of his body -like a projectile, the dark face with the long black hair plastering it -turned towards his own, in fierce triumph Silver Tassel cried “How!” in -derision. - -Billy Rufus set his teeth and lay down to his work like a sportsman. His -face had lost its roses, and it was set and determined, but there was no -look of fear upon it, nor did his heart sink when a cry of triumph went -up from the crowd on the banks. The white man knew by old experience in -the cricket-field and in many a boat-race that it is well not to -halloo till you are out of the woods. His mettle was up, he was not the -Reverend William Rufus Holly, missionary, but Billy Rufus, the champion -cricketer, the sportsman playing a long game. - -Silver Tassel reached the boy, who was bruised and bleeding and at his -last gasp, and throwing an arm round him, struck out for the shore. The -current was very strong, and he battled fiercely as Billy Rufus, not far -above, moved down toward them at an angle. For a few yards Silver Tassel -was going strong, then his pace slackened, he seemed to sink lower in -the water, and his stroke became splashing and irregular. Suddenly he -struck a rock, which bruised him badly, and, swerving from his course, -he lost his stroke and let go the boy. - -By this time the mikonaree had swept beyond them, and he caught the -boy by his long hair as he was being swept below. Striking out for the -shore, he swam with bold, strong strokes, his judgment guiding him well -past rocks beneath the surface. Ten feet from shore he heard a cry of -alarm from above. It concerned Silver Tassel, he knew, but he could not -look round yet. - -In another moment the boy was dragged up the bank by strong hands, and -Billy Rufus swung round in the water towards Silver Tassel, who, in his -confused energy, had struck another rock, and, exhausted now, was being -swept towards the rapids. Silver Tassel’s shoulder scarcely showed, his -strength was gone. In a flash Billy Rufus saw there was but one thing to -do. He must run the rapids with Silver Tassel-there was no other way. It -would be a fight through the jaws of death; but no Indian’s eyes had a -better sense for river-life than William Rufus Holly’s. - -How he reached Silver Tassel, and drew the Indian’s arm over his own -shoulder; how they drove down into the boiling flood; how Billy Rufus’s -fat body was battered and torn and ran red with blood from twenty flesh -wounds; but how by luck beyond the telling he brought Silver Tassel -through safely into the quiet water a quarter of a mile below the -rapids, and was hauled out, both more dead than alive, is a tale still -told by the Athabascas around their camp-fire. The rapids are known -to-day as the Mikonaree Rapids. - -The end of this beginning of the young man’s career was that Silver -Tassel gave him the word of eternal friendship, Knife-in-the-Wind took -him into the tribe, and the boy Wingo became his very own, to share his -home, and his travels, no longer a waif among the Athabascas. - -After three days’ feasting, at the end of which the missionary held his -first service and preached his first sermon, to the accompaniment of -grunts of satisfaction from the whole tribe of Athabascas, William Rufus -Holly began his work in the Far North. - -The journey to Fort O’Call was a procession of triumph, for, as it was -summer, there was plenty of food, the missionary had been a success, and -he had distributed many gifts of beads and flannel. - -All went well for many moons, although converts were uncertain and -baptisms few, and the work was hard and the loneliness at times -terrible. But at last came dark days. - -One summer and autumn there had been poor fishing and shooting, the -caches of meat were fewer on the plains, and almost nothing had come -up to Fort O’Call from Edmonton, far below. The yearly supplies for the -missionary, paid for out of his private income--the bacon, beans, tea, -coffee and flour--had been raided by a band of hostile Indians, and he -viewed with deep concern the progress of the severe winter. Although -three years of hard, frugal life had made his muscles like iron, they -had only mellowed his temper, increased his flesh and rounded his face; -nor did he look an hour older than on the day when he had won Wingo for -his willing slave and devoted friend. - -He never resented the frequent ingratitude of the Indians; he said -little when they quarrelled over the small comforts his little income -brought them yearly from the South. He had been doctor, lawyer, judge -among them, although he interfered little in the larger disputes, and -was forced to shut his eyes to intertribal enmities. He had no deep -faith that he could quite civilise them; he knew that their conversion -was only on the surface, and he fell back on his personal influence with -them. By this he could check even the excesses of the worst man in the -tribe, his old enemy, Silver Tassel of the bad heart, who yet was ready -always to give a tooth for a tooth, and accepted the fact that he owed -Oshondonto his life. - -When famine crawled across the plains to the doors of the settlement and -housed itself at Fort O’Call, Silver Tassel acted badly, however, and -sowed fault-finding among the thoughtless of the tribe. - -“What manner of Great Spirit is it who lets the food of his chief -Oshondonto fall into the hands of the Blackfeet?” he said. “Oshondonto -says the Great Spirit hears. What has the Great Spirit to say? Let -Oshondonto ask.” - -Again, when they all were hungrier, he went among them with complaining -words. “If the white man’s Great Spirit can do all things, let him give -Oshondonto and the Athabascas food.” - -The missionary did not know of Silver Tassel’s foolish words, but he saw -the downcast face of Knife-in-the-Wind, the sullen looks of the people; -and he unpacked the box he had reserved jealously for the darkest days -that might come. For meal after meal he divided these delicacies among -them--morsels of biscuit, and tinned meats, and dried fruits. But his -eyes meanwhile were turned again and again to the storm raging without, -as it had raged for this the longest week he had ever spent. If it would -but slacken, a boat could go out to the nets set in the lake near by -some days before, when the sun of spring had melted the ice. From the -hour the nets had been set the storm had raged. On the day when the last -morsel of meat and biscuit had been given away the storm had not abated, -and he saw with misgiving the gloomy, stolid faces of the Indians round -him. One man, two children, and three women had died in a fortnight. -He dreaded to think what might happen, his heart ached at the looks of -gaunt suffering in the faces of all; he saw, for the first time, how -black and bitter Knife-in-the-Wind looked as Silver Tassel whispered to -him. - -With the colour all gone from his cheeks, he left the post and made his -way to the edge of the lake where his canoe was kept. Making it ready -for the launch, he came back to the Fort. Assembling the Indians, -who had watched his movements closely, he told them that he was going -through the storm to the nets on the lake, and asked for a volunteer to -go with him. - -No one replied. He pleaded-for the sake of the women and children. - -Then Knife-in-the-Wind spoke. “Oshondonto will die if he goes. It is a -fool’s journey--does the wolverine walk into an empty trap?” - -Billy Rufus spoke passionately now. His genial spirit fled; he -reproached them. - -Silver Tassel spoke up loudly. “Let Oshondonto’s Great Spirit carry him -to the nets alone, and back again with fish for the heathen the Great -Chief died to save.” - -“You have a wicked heart, Silver Tassel. You know well that one man -can’t handle the boat and the nets also. Is there no one of you--?” - -A figure shot forwards from a corner. “I will go with Oshondonto,” came -the voice of Wingo, the waif of the Crees. - -The eye of the mikonaree flashed round in contempt on the tribe. Then -suddenly it softened, and he said to the lad: “We will go together, -Wingo.” - -Taking the boy by the hand, he ran with him through the rough wind to -the shore, launched the canoe on the tossing lake, and paddled away -through the tempest. - -The bitter winds of an angry spring, the sleet and wet snow of a belated -winter, the floating blocks of ice crushing against the side of the -boat, the black water swishing over man and boy, the harsh, inclement -world near and far.... The passage made at last to the nets; the brave -Wingo steadying the canoe--a skilful hand sufficing where the strength -of a Samson would not have availed; the nets half full, and the breaking -cry of joy from the lips of the waif-a cry that pierced the storm and -brought back an answering cry from the crowd of Indians on the far -shore... The quarter-hour of danger in the tossing canoe; the nets too -heavy to be dragged, and fastened to the thwarts instead; the canoe -going shoreward jerkily, a cork on the waves with an anchor behind; -heavier seas and winds roaring down on them as they slowly near the -shore; and at last, in one awful moment, the canoe upset, and the man -and the boy in the water. ... Then both clinging to the upturned canoe -as it is driven nearer and nearer shore.... The boy washed off once, -twice, and the man with his arm round clinging-clinging, as the -shrieking storm answers to the calling of the Athabascas on the shore, -and drives craft and fish and man and boy down upon the banks; no savage -bold enough to plunge in to their rescue. ... At last a rope thrown, a -drowning man’s wrists wound round it, his teeth set in it--and now, at -last, a man and a heathen boy, both insensible, being carried to the -mikonaree’s but and laid upon two beds, one on either side of the small -room, as the red sun goes slowly down. ... The two still bodies on -bearskins in the hut, and a hundred superstitious Indians flying from -the face of death.... The two alone in the light of the flickering fire; -the many gone to feast on fish, the price of lives. - -But the price was not yet paid, for the man waked from -insensibility--waked to see himself with the body of the boy beside him -in the red light of the fires. - -For a moment his heart stopped beating, he turned sick and faint. -Deserted by those for whom he risked his life!... How long had he lain -there? What time was it? When was it that he had fought his way to the -nets and back again-hours maybe? And the dead boy there, Wingo, who had -risked his life, also dead--how long? His heart leaped--ah! not -hours, only minutes maybe. It was sundown as unconsciousness came on -him--Indians would not stay with the dead after sundown. Maybe it was -only ten minutes-five minutes--one minute ago since they left him!... - -His watch! Shaking fingers drew it out, wild eyes scanned it. It was -not stopped. Then it could have only been minutes ago. Trembling to his -feet, he staggered over to Wingo, he felt the body, he held a mirror to -the lips. Yes, surely there was light moisture on the glass. - -Then began another fight with death--William Rufus Holly struggling to -bring to life again Wingo, the waif of the Crees. - -The blood came back to his own heart with a rush as the mad desire to -save this life came on him. He talked to the dumb face, he prayed in -a kind of delirium, as he moved the arms up and down, as he tilted the -body, as he rubbed, chafed and strove. He forgot he was a missionary, -he almost cursed himself. “For them--for cowards, I risked his life, the -brave lad with no home. Oh, God! give him back to me!” he sobbed. “What -right had I to risk his life for theirs? I should have shot the first -man that refused to go.... Wingo, speak! Wake up! Come back!” - -The sweat poured from him in his desperation and weakness. He said to -himself that he had put this young life into the hazard without -cause. Had he, then, saved the lad from the rapids and Silver Tassel’s -brutality only to have him drag fish out of the jaws of death for Silver -Tassel’s meal? - -It seemed to him that he had been working for hours, though it was -in fact only a short time, when the eyes of the lad slowly opened and -closed again, and he began to breathe spasmodically. A cry of joy came -from the lips of the missionary, and he worked harder still. At last -the eyes opened wide, stayed open, saw the figure bent over him, and the -lips whispered, “Oshondonto--my master,” as a cup of brandy was held to -his lips. - -He had conquered the Athabascas for ever. Even Silver Tassel -acknowledged his power, and he as industriously spread abroad the -report that the mikonaree had raised Wingo from the dead, as he had sown -dissension during the famine. But the result was that the missionary -had power in the land, and the belief in him was so great, that, when -Knife-in-the-Wind died, the tribe came to ask him to raise their chief -from the dead. They never quite believed that he could not--not even -Silver Tassel, who now rules the Athabascas and is ruled by William -Rufus Holly: which is a very good thing for the Athabascas. - -Billy Rufus the cricketer had won the game, and somehow the Reverend -William Rufus Holly the missionary never repented the strong language -he used against the Athabascas, as he was bringing Wingo back to life, -though it was not what is called “strictly canonical.” - - - - -THE HEALING SPRINGS AND THE PIONEERS - -He came out of the mysterious South one summer day, driving before him a -few sheep, a cow, and a long-eared mule which carried his tent and other -necessaries, and camped outside the town on a knoll, at the base of -which was a thicket of close shrub. During the first day no one in -Jansen thought anything of it, for it was a land of pilgrimage, and -hundreds came and went on their journeys in search of free homesteads -and good water and pasturage. But when, after three days, he was -still there, Nicolle Terasse, who had little to do, and an insatiable -curiosity, went out to see him. He found a new sensation for Jansen. -This is what he said when he came back: - -“You want know ‘bout him, bagosh! Dat is somet’ing to see, dat -man--Ingles is his name. Sooch hair--mooch long an’ brown, and a leetla -beard not so brown, an’ a leather sole onto his feet, and a grey coat to -his ankles--yes, so like dat. An’ his voice--voila, it is like water in -a cave. He is a great man--I dunno not; but he spik at me like dis, ‘Is -dere sick, and cripple, and stay in-bed people here dat can’t get up?’ -he say. An’ I say, ‘Not plenty, but some-bagosh! Dere is dat Miss Greet, -an’ ole Ma’am Drouchy, an’ dat young Pete Hayes--an’ so on.’ ‘Well, -if they have faith I will heal them,’ he spik at me. ‘From de Healing -Springs dey shall rise to walk,’ he say. Bagosh, you not t’ink dat true? -Den you go see.” - -So Jansen turned out to see, and besides the man they found a curious -thing. At the foot of the knoll, in a space which he had cleared, was -a hot spring that bubbled and rose and sank, and drained away into the -thirsty ground. Luck had been with Ingles the Faith Healer. Whether he -knew of the existence of this spring, or whether he chanced upon it, he -did not say; but while he held Jansen in the palm of his hand, in the -feverish days that followed, there were many who attached mysterious -significance to it, who claimed for it supernatural origin. In any case, -the one man who had known of the existence of this spring was far away -from Jansen, and he did not return till a day of reckoning came for the -Faith Healer. - -Meanwhile Jansen made pilgrimage to the Springs of Healing, and at -unexpected times Ingles suddenly appeared in the town, and stood at -street corners; and in his “Patmian voice,” as Flood Rawley the lawyer -called it, warned the people to flee their sins, and purifying their -hearts, learn to cure all ills of mind and body, the weaknesses of the -sinful flesh and the “ancient evil” in their souls, by faith that saves. - -“‘Is not the life more than meat’” he asked them. “And if, peradventure, -there be those among you who have true belief in hearts all purged of -evil, and yet are maimed, or sick of body, come to me, and I will lay my -hands upon you, and I will heal you.” Thus he cried. - -There were those so wrought upon by his strange eloquence and spiritual -passion, so hypnotised by his physical and mental exaltation, that they -rose up from the hand-laying and the prayer eased of their ailments. -Others he called upon to lie in the hot spring at the foot of the hill -for varying periods, before the laying on of hands, and these also, -crippled, or rigid with troubles’ of the bone, announced that they were -healed. - -People flocked from other towns, and though, to some who had been cured, -their pains and sickness returned, there were a few who bore perfect -evidence to his teaching and healing, and followed him, “converted and -consecrated,” as though he were a new Messiah. In this corner of the -West was such a revival as none could remember--not even those who -had been to camp meetings in the East in their youth, and had seen the -Spirit descend upon hundreds and draw them to the anxious seat. - -Then came the great sensation--the Faith Healer converted Laura Sloly. -Upon which Jansen drew its breath painfully; for, while it was willing -to bend to the inspiration of the moment, and to be swept on a tide of -excitement into that enchanted field called Imagination, it wanted -to preserve its institutions--and Laura Sloly had come to be an -institution. Jansen had always plumed itself, and smiled, when she -passed; and even now the most sentimentally religious of them inwardly -anticipated the time when the town would return to its normal condition; -and that condition would not be normal if there were any change in -Laura Sloly. It mattered little whether most people were changed or not -because one state of their minds could not be less or more interesting -than another; but a change in Laura. Sloly could not be for the better. - -Her father had come to the West in the early days, and had prospered -by degrees until a town grew up beside his ranch; and though he did not -acquire as much permanent wealth from this golden chance as might have -been expected, and lost much he did make by speculation, still he had -his rich ranch left, and it, and he, and Laura were part of the history -of Jansen. Laura had been born at Jansen before even it had a name. -Next to her father she was the oldest inhabitant, and she had a prestige -which was given to no one else. - -Everything had conspired to make her a figure of moment and interest. -She was handsome in almost a mannish sort of way, being of such height -and straightness, and her brown eyes had a depth and fire in which -more than a few men had drowned themselves. Also, once she had saved -a settlement by riding ahead of a marauding Indian band to warn their -intended victims, and had averted another tragedy of pioneer life. -Pioneers proudly told strangers to Jansen of the girl of thirteen -who rode a hundred and twenty miles without food, and sank inside the -palisade of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s fort, as the gates closed -upon the settlers taking refuge, the victim of brain fever at last. -Cerebrospinal meningitis, the doctor from Winnipeg called it, and the -memory of that time when men and women would not sleep till her crisis -was past, was still fresh on the tongues of all. - -Then she had married at seventeen, and, within a year, had lost both her -husband and her baby, a child bereaved of her Playmates--for her -husband had been but twenty years old and was younger far than she -in everything. And since then, twelve years before, she had seen -generations of lovers pass into the land they thought delectable; and -their children flocked to her, hung about her, were carried off by her -to the ranch, and kept for days, against the laughing protests of their -parents. Flood Rawley called her the Pied Piper of Jansen, and indeed -she had a voice that fluted and piped, and yet had so whimsical a note, -that the hardest faces softened at the sound of it; and she did not keep -its best notes for the few. She was impartial, almost impersonal; no -woman was her enemy, and every man was her friend--and nothing more. She -had never had an accepted lover since the day her Playmates left her. -Every man except one had given up hope that he might win her; and though -he had been gone from Jansen for two years, and had loved her since the -days before the Playmates came and went, he never gave up hope, and was -now to return and say again what he had mutely said for years--what she -understood, and he knew she understood. - -Tim Denton had been a wild sort in his brief day. He was a rough -diamond, but he was a diamond, and was typical of the West--its -heart, its courage, its freedom, and its force; capable of exquisite -gentleness, strenuous to exaggeration, with a very primitive religion; -and the only religion Tim knew was that of human nature. Jansen did not -think Tim good enough--not within a comet shot--for Laura Sloly; but -they thought him better than any one else. - -But now Laura was a convert to the prophet of the Healing Springs, -and those people who still retain their heads in the eddy of religious -emotion were in despair. They dreaded to meet Laura; they kept away from -the “protracted meetings,” but were eager to hear about her and what -she said and did. What they heard allayed their worst fears. She still -smiled, and seemed as cheerful as before, they heard, and she neither -spoke nor prayed in public, but she led the singing always. Now the -anxious and the sceptical and the reactionary ventured out to see and -hear; and seeing and hearing gave them a satisfaction they hardly dared -express. She was more handsome than ever, and if her eyes glistened -with a light they had never seen before, and awed them, her lips -still smiled, and the old laugh came when she spoke to them. Their awe -increased. This was “getting religion” with a difference. - -But presently they received a shock. A whisper grew that Laura was in -love with the Faith Healer. Some woman’s instinct drove straight to the -centre of a disconcerting possibility, and in consternation she told her -husband; and Jansen husbands had a freemasonry of gossip. An hour, and -all Jansen knew, or thought they knew; and the “saved” rejoiced; and the -rest of the population, represented by Nicolle Terasse at one end and -Flood Rawley at the other, flew to arms. No vigilance committee was -ever more determined and secret and organised than the unconverted -civic patriots, who were determined to restore Jansen to its old-time -condition. They pointed out cold-bloodedly that the Faith Healer had -failed three times where he had succeeded once; and that, admitting the -successes, there was no proof that his religion was their cause. There -were such things as hypnotism and magnetism and will-power, and abnormal -mental stimulus on the part of the healed--to say nothing of the Healing -Springs. - -Carefully laying their plans, they quietly spread the rumour that -Ingles had promised to restore to health old Mary Jewell, who had been -bedridden ten years, and had sent word and prayed to have him lay his -hands upon her--Catholic though she was. The Faith Healer, face to face -with this supreme and definite test, would have retreated from it but -for Laura Sloly. She expected him to do it, believed that he could, said -that he would, herself arranged the day and the hour, and sang so much -exaltation into him, that at last a spurious power seemed to possess -him. He felt that there had entered into him something that could be -depended on, not the mere flow of natural magnetism fed by an outdoor -life and a temperament of great emotional force, and chance, and -suggestion--and other things. If, at first, he had influenced Laura, -some ill-controlled, latent idealism in him, working on a latent poetry -and spirituality in her, somehow bringing her into nearer touch with her -lost Playmates than she had been in the long years that had passed; she, -in turn, had made his unrationalised brain reel; had caught him up into -a higher air, on no wings of his own; had added another lover to her -company of lovers--and the first impostor she had ever had. She who -had known only honest men as friends, in one blind moment lost her -perspicuous sense; her instinct seemed asleep. She believed in the man -and in his healing. Was there anything more than that? - -The day of the great test came, hot, brilliant, vivid. The air was of -a delicate sharpness, and, as it came toward evening, the glamour of an -August when the reapers reap was upon Jansen; and its people gathered -round the house of Mary Jewell to await the miracle of faith. Apart -from the emotional many who sang hymns and spiritual songs were a few -determined men, bent on doing justice to Jansen though the heavens -might fall. Whether or no Laura Sloly was in love with the Faith -Healer, Jansen must look to its own honour--and hers. In any case, this -peripatetic saint at Sloly’s Ranch--the idea was intolerable; women must -be saved in spite of themselves. - -Laura was now in the house by the side of the bedridden Mary Jewell, -waiting, confident, smiling, as she held the wasted hand on the -coverlet. With her was a minister of the Baptist persuasion, who -was swimming with the tide, and who approved of the Faith Healer’s -immersions in the hot Healing Springs; also a medical student who had -pretended belief in Ingles, and two women weeping with unnecessary -remorse for human failings of no dire kind. The windows were open, and -those outside could see. Presently, in a lull of the singing, there was -a stir in the crowd, and then, sudden loud greetings: - -“My, if it ain’t Tim Denton! Jerusalem! You back, Tim!” - -These and other phrases caught the ear of Laura Sloly in the sick-room. -A strange look flashed across her face, and the depth of her eyes was -troubled for a moment, as to the face of the old comes a tremor at the -note of some long-forgotten song. Then she steadied herself and waited, -catching bits of the loud talk which still floated towards her from -without. - -“What’s up? Some one getting married--or a legacy, or a saw-off? Why, -what a lot of Sunday-go-to-meeting folks to be sure!” Tim laughed -loudly. - -After which the quick tongue of Nicolle Terasse: “You want know? Tiens, -be quiet; here he come. He cure you body and soul, ver’ queeck--yes.” - -The crowd swayed and parted, and slowly, bare head uplifted, face -looking to neither right nor left, the Faith Healer made his way to the -door of the little house. The crowd hushed. Some were awed, some were -overpoweringly interested, some were cruelly patient. Nicolle Terasse -and others were whispering loudly to Tim Denton. That was the only -sound, until the Healer got to the door. Then, on the steps, he turned -to the multitude. - -“Peace be to you all, and upon this house,” he said and stepped through -the doorway. - -Tim Denton, who had been staring at the face of the Healer, stood for -an instant like one with all his senses arrested. Then he gasped, and -exclaimed, “Well, I’m eternally--” and broke off with a low laugh, which -was at first mirthful, and then became ominous and hard. - -“Oh, magnificent--magnificent--jerickety!” he said into the sky above -him. - -His friends who were not “saved,” closed in on him to find the meaning -of his words, but he pulled himself together, looked blankly at them, -and asked them questions. They told him so much more than he cared to -hear, that his face flushed a deep red--the bronze of it most like the -colour of Laura Sloly’s hair; then he turned pale. Men saw that he was -roused beyond any feeling in themselves. - -“‘Sh!” he said. “Let’s see what he can do.” With the many who were -silently praying, as they had been, bidden to do, the invincible ones -leant forwards, watching the little room where healing--or tragedy--was -afoot. As in a picture, framed by the window, they saw the kneeling -figures, the Healer standing with outstretched arms. They heard his -voice, sonorous and appealing, then commanding--and yet Mary Jewell did -not rise from her bed and walk. Again, and yet again, the voice rang -out, and still the woman lay motionless. Then he laid his hands upon -her, and again he commanded her to rise. - -There was a faint movement, a desperate struggle to obey, but Nature and -Time and Disease had their way. Yet again there was the call. An agony -stirred the bed. Then another great Healer came between, and mercifully -dealt the sufferer a blow--Death has a gentle hand sometimes. Mary -Jewell was bedridden still--and for ever. - -Like a wind from the mountains the chill knowledge of death wailed -through the window, and over the heads of the crowd. All the figures -were upright now in the little room. Then those outside saw Laura Sloly -lean over and close the sightless eyes. This done, she came to the -door and opened it, and motioned for the Healer to leave. He hesitated, -hearing the harsh murmur from the outskirts of the crowd. Once again she -motioned, and he came. With a face deadly pale she surveyed the people -before her silently for a moment, her eyes all huge and staring. - -Presently she turned to Ingles and spoke to him quickly in a low voice; -then, descending the steps, passed out through the lane made for her by -the crowd, he following with shaking limbs and bowed bead. - -Warning words had passed among the few invincible ones who waited where -the Healer must pass into the open, and there was absolute stillness as -Laura advanced. Their work was to come--quiet and swift and sure; but -not yet. - -Only one face Laura saw, as she led the way to the moment’s safety--Tim -Denton’s; and it was as stricken as her own. She passed, then turned, -and looked at him again. He understood; she wanted him. - -He waited till she sprang into her waggon, after the Healer had mounted -his mule and ridden away with ever-quickening pace into the prairie. -Then he turned to the set, fierce men beside him. - -“Leave him alone,” he said, “leave him to me. I know him. You hear? -Ain’t I no rights? I tell you I knew him--South. You leave him to me.” - -They nodded, and he sprang into his saddle and rode away. They watched -the figure of the Healer growing smaller in the dusty distance. - -“Tim’ll go to her,” one said, “and perhaps they’ll let the snake get -off. Hadn’t we best make sure?” - -“Perhaps you’d better let him vamoose,” said Flood Rawley anxiously. -“Jansen is a law-abiding place!” The reply was decisive. Jansen had -its honour to keep. It was the home of the Pioneers--Laura Sloly was a -Pioneer. - -Tim Denton was a Pioneer, with all the comradeship which lay in the -word, and he was that sort of lover who has seen one woman, and can -never see another--not the product of the most modern civilisation. -Before Laura had had Playmates he had given all he had to give; he had -waited and hoped ever since; and when the ruthless gossips had said -to him before Mary Jewell’s house that she was in love with the Faith -Healer, nothing changed in him. For the man, for Ingles, Tim belonged -to a primitive breed, and love was not in his heart. As he rode out to -Sloly’s Ranch, he ground his teeth in rage. But Laura had called him to -her, and: “Well, what you say goes, Laura,” he muttered at the end of a -long hour of human passion and its repression. “If he’s to go scot-free, -then he’s got to go; but the boys yonder’ll drop on me, if he gets away. -Can’t you see what a swab he is, Laura?” - -The brown eyes of the girl looked at him gently. The struggle between -them was over; she had had her way--to save the preacher, impostor -though he was; and now she felt, as she had never felt before in the -same fashion, that this man was a man of men. - -“Tim, you do not understand,” she urged. “You say he was a landsharp in -the South, and that he had to leave-” - -“He had to vamoose, or take tar and feathers.” - -“But he had to leave. And he came here preaching and healing; and he is -a hypocrite and a fraud--I know that now, my eyes are opened. He didn’t -do what he said he could do, and it killed Mary Jewell--the shock; and -there were other things he said he could do, and he didn’t do them. -Perhaps he is all bad, as you say--I don’t think so. But he did some -good things, and through him I’ve felt as I’ve never felt before about -God and life, and about Walt and the baby--as though I’ll see them -again, sure. I’ve never felt that before. It was all as if they were -lost in the hills, and no trail home, or out to where they are. Like as -not God was working in him all the time, Tim; and he failed because he -counted too much on the little he had, and made up for what he hadn’t by -what he pretended.” - -“He can pretend to himself, or God Almighty, or that lot down there”--he -jerked a finger towards the town--“but to you, a girl, and a Pioneer--” - -A flash of humour shot into her eyes at his last words, then they -filled with tears, through which the smile shone. To pretend to “a -Pioneer”--the splendid vanity and egotism of the West! - -“He didn’t pretend to me, Tim. People don’t usually have to pretend to -like me.” - -“You know what I’m driving at.” - -“Yes, yes, I know. And whatever he is, you’ve said that you will -save him. I’m straight, you know that. Somehow, what I felt from his -preaching--well, everything got sort of mixed up with him, and he -was--was different. It was like the long dream of Walt and the baby, and -he a part of it. I don’t know what I felt, or what I might have felt -for him. I’m a woman--I can’t understand. But I know what I feel now. -I never want to see him again on earth--or in Heaven. It needn’t be -necessary even in Heaven; but what happened between God and me through -him stays, Tim; and so you must help him get away safe. It’s in your -hands--you say they left it to you.” - -“I don’t trust that too much.” - -Suddenly he pointed out of the window towards the town. “See, I’m right; -there they are, a dozen of ‘em mounted. They’re off, to run him down.” - -Her face paled; she glanced towards the Hill of Healing. “He’s got an -hour’s start,” she said; “he’ll get into the mountains and be safe.” - -“If they don’t catch him ‘fore that.” - -“Or if you don’t get to him first,” she said, with nervous insistence. - -He turned to her with a hard look; then, as he met her soft, fearless, -beautiful eyes, his own grew gentle. “It takes a lot of doing. Yet I’ll -do it for you, Laura,” he said. “But it’s hard on the Pioneers.” Once -more her humour flashed, and it seemed to him that “getting religion” - was not so depressing after all--wouldn’t be, anyhow, when this nasty -job was over. “The Pioneers will get over it, Tim,” she rejoined. -“They’ve swallowed a lot in their time. Heaven’s gate will have to be -pretty wide to let in a real Pioneer,” she added. “He takes up so much -room--ah, Timothy Denton!” she added, with an outburst of whimsical -merriment. - -“It hasn’t spoiled you--being converted, has it?” he said, and gave a -quick little laugh, which somehow did more for his ancient cause with -her than all he had ever said or done. Then he stepped outside and swung -into his saddle. - -It had been a hard and anxious ride, but Tim had won, and was keeping -his promise. The night had fallen before he got to the mountains, which -he and the Pioneers had seen the Faith Healer enter. They had had four -miles’ start of Tim, and had ridden fiercely, and they entered the gulch -into which the refugee had disappeared still two miles ahead. - -The invincibles had seen Tim coming, but they had determined to make a -sure thing of it, and would themselves do what was necessary with the -impostor, and take no chances. So they pressed their horses, and he saw -them swallowed by the trees, as darkness gathered. Changing his course, -he entered the familiar hills, which he knew better than any pioneer of -Jansen, and rode a diagonal course over the trail they would take. -But night fell suddenly, and there was nothing to do but to wait till -morning. There was comfort in this--the others must also wait, and the -refugee could not go far. In any case, he must make for settlement or -perish, since he had left behind his sheep and his cow. - -It fell out better than Tim hoped. The Pioneers were as good hunters as -was he, their instinct was as sure, their scouts and trackers were many, -and he was but one. They found the Faith Healer by a little stream, -eating bread and honey, and, like an ancient woodlander drinking from -a horn--relics of his rank imposture. He made no resistance. They tried -him formally, if perfunctorily; he admitted his imposture, and begged -for his life. Then they stripped him naked, tied a bit of canvas round -his waist, fastened him to a tree, and were about to complete his -punishment when Tim Denton burst upon them. - -Whether the rage Tim showed was all real or not; whether his accusations -of bad faith came from so deeply wounded a spirit as he would have them -believe, he was not likely to tell; but he claimed the prisoner as his -own, and declined to say what he meant to do. - -When, however, they saw the abject terror of the Faith Healer as he -begged not to be left alone with Tim--for they had not meant death, -and Ingles thought he read death in Tim’s ferocious eyes--they laughed -cynically, and left it to Tim to uphold the honour of Jansen and the -Pioneers. - -As they disappeared, the last thing they saw was Tim with his back to -them, his hands on his hips, and a knife clasped in his fingers. - -“He’ll lift his scalp and make a monk of him,” chuckled the oldest and -hardest of them. - -“Dat Tim will cut his heart out, I t’ink-bagosh!” said Nicolle Terasse, -and took a drink of white-whiskey. For a long time Tim stood looking at -the other, until no sound came from the woods, whither the Pioneers -had gone. Then at last, slowly, and with no roughness, as the -terror-stricken impostor shrank and withered, he cut the cords. - -“Dress yourself,” he said shortly, and sat down beside the stream, and -washed his face and hands, as though to cleanse them from contamination. -He appeared to take no notice of the other, though his ears keenly noted -every movement. - -The impostor dressed nervously, yet slowly; he scarce comprehended -anything, except that he was not in immediate danger. When he had -finished, he stood looking at Tim, who was still seated on a log plunged -in meditation. - -It seemed hours before Tim turned round, and now his face was quiet, -if set and determined. He walked slowly over, and stood looking at his -victim for some time without speaking. The other’s eyes dropped, and -a greyness stole over his features. This steely calm was even more -frightening than the ferocity which had previously been in his captor’s -face. At length the tense silence was broken. - -“Wasn’t the old game good enough? Was it played out? Why did you take to -this? Why did you do it, Scranton?” - -The voice quavered a little in reply. “I don’t know. Something sort of -pushed me into it.” - -“How did you come to start it?” - -There was a long silence, then the husky reply came. “I got a sickener -last time--” - -“Yes, I remember, at Waywing.” - -“I got into the desert, and had hard times--awful for a while. I hadn’t -enough to eat, and I didn’t know whether I’d die by hunger, or fever, or -Indians--or snakes.” - -“Oh, you were seeing snakes!” said Tim grimly. - -“Not the kind you mean; I hadn’t anything to drink--” - -“No, you never did drink, I remember--just was crooked, and slopped over -women. Well, about the snakes?” - -“I caught them to eat, and they were poison-snakes often. And I wasn’t -quick at first to get them safe by the neck--they’re quick, too.” - -Tim laughed inwardly. “Getting your food by the sweat of your brow--and -a snake in it, same as Adam! Well, was it in the desert you got your -taste for honey, too, same as John the Baptist--that was his name, if I -recomember?” He looked at the tin of honey on the ground. - -“Not in the desert, but when I got to the grass-country.” - -“How long were you in the desert?” - -“Close to a year.” - -Tim’s eyes opened wider. He saw that the man was speaking the truth. - -“Got to thinking in the desert, and sort of willing things to come to -pass, and mooning along, you, and the sky, and the vultures, and the hot -hills, and the snakes, and the flowers--eh?” - -“There weren’t any flowers till I got to the grass-country.” - -“Oh, cuss me, if you ain’t simple for your kind! I know all about that. -And when you got to the grass-country, you just picked up the honey, and -the flowers, and a calf, and a lamb, and a mule here and there, ‘without -money and without price,’ and walked on--that it?” - -The other shrank before the steel in the voice, and nodded his head. - -“But you kept thinking in the grass-country of what you’d felt and said -and done--and willed, in the desert, I suppose?” - -Again the other nodded. - -“It seemed to you in the desert, as if you’d saved your own life a -hundred times, as if you’d just willed food and drink and safety to -come; as if Providence had been at your elbow?” - -“It was like a dream, and it stayed with me. I had to think in the -desert things I’d never thought before,” was the half-abstracted answer. - -“You felt good in the desert?” The other hung his head in shame. - -“Makes you seem pretty small, doesn’t it? You didn’t stay long enough, -I guess, to get what you were feeling for; you started in on the new -racket too soon. You never got really possessed that you was a sinner. I -expect that’s it.” - -The other made no reply. - -“Well, I don’t know much about such things. I was loose brought up; but -I’ve a friend”--Laura was before his eyes--“that says religion’s all -right, and long ago as I can remember my mother used to pray three times -a day--with grace at meals, too. I know there’s a lot in it for them -that need it; and there seems to be a lot of folks needing it, if I’m -to judge by folks down there at Jansen, specially when there’s the -laying-on of hands and the Healing Springs. Oh, that was a pigsty game, -Scranton, that about God giving you the Healing Springs, like Moses and -the rock! Why, I discovered them springs myself two years ago, before I -went South, and I guess God wasn’t helping me any--not after I’ve kept -out of His way as I have. But, anyhow, religion’s real; that’s my sense -of it; and you can get it, I bet, if you try. I’ve seen it got. A friend -of mine got it--got it under your preaching; not from you; but you -was the accident that brought it about, I expect. It’s funny--it’s -merakilous, but it’s so. Kneel down!” he added, with peremptory -suddenness. “Kneel, Scranton!” - -In fear the other knelt. - -“You’re going to get religion now--here. You’re going to pray for what -you didn’t get--and almost got--in the desert. You’re going to ask -forgiveness for all your damn tricks, and pray like a fanning-mill for -the spirit to come down. You ain’t a scoundrel at heart--a friend of -mine says so. You’re a weak vessel, cracked, perhaps. You’ve got to -be saved, and start right over again--and ‘Praise God from whom all -blessings flow!’ Pray--pray, Scranton, and tell the whole truth, and -get it--get religion. Pray like blazes. You go on, and pray out loud. -Remember the desert, and Mary Jewell, and your mother--did you have a -mother, Scranton--say, did you have a mother, lad?” - -Tim’s voice suddenly lowered before the last word, for the Faith Healer -had broken down in a torrent of tears. - -“Oh, my mother--O God!” he groaned. - -“Say, that’s right--that’s right--go on,” said the other, and drew back -a little, and sat down on a log. The man on his knees was convulsed with -misery. Denton, the world, disappeared. He prayed in agony. Presently -Tim moved uneasily, then got up and walked about; and at last, with a -strange, awed look, when an hour was past, he stole back into the shadow -of the trees, while still the wounded soul poured out its misery and -repentance. - -Time moved on. A curious shyness possessed Tim now, a thing which he -had never felt in his life. He moved about self-consciously, awkwardly, -until at last there was a sudden silence over by the brook. - -Tim looked, and saw the face of the kneeling man cleared, and quiet and -shining. He hesitated, then stepped out, and came over. - -“Have you got it?” he asked quietly. “It’s noon now.” - -“May God help me to redeem my past,” answered the other in a new voice. - -“You’ve got it--sure?” Tim’s voice was meditative. “God has spoken to -me,” was the simple answer. “I’ve got a friend’ll be glad to hear that,” - he said; and once more, in imagination, he saw Laura Sloly standing at -the door of her home, with a light in her eyes he had never seen before. - -“You’ll want some money for your journey?” Tim asked. - -“I want nothing but to go away--far away,” was the low reply. - -“Well, you’ve lived in the desert--I guess you can live in the -grass-country,” came the dry response. “Good-bye-and good luck, -Scranton.” - -Tim turned to go, moved on a few steps, then looked back. - -“Don’t be afraid--they’ll not follow,” he said. “I’ll fix it for you all -right.” - -But the man appeared not to hear; he was still on his knees. - -Tim faced the woods once more. - -He was about to mount his horse when he heard a step behind him. He -turned sharply--and faced Laura. “I couldn’t rest. I came out this -morning. I’ve seen everything,” she said. - -“You didn’t trust me,” he said heavily. - -“I never did anything else,” she answered. - -He gazed half-fearfully into her eyes. “Well?” he asked. “I’ve done my -best, as I said I would.” - -“Tim,” she said, and slipped a hand in his, “would you mind the -religion--if you had me?” - - - - -THE LITTLE WIDOW OF JANSEN - -Her advent to Jansen was propitious. Smallpox in its most virulent form -had broken out in the French-Canadian portion of the town, and, coming -with some professional nurses from the East, herself an amateur, to -attend the sufferers, she worked with such skill and devotion that the -official thanks of the Corporation were offered her, together with a -tiny gold watch, the gift of grateful citizens. But she still remained -on at Jansen, saying always, however, that she was “going East in the -spring.” - -Five years had passed, and still she had not gone East, but remained -perched in the rooms she had first taken, over the Imperial Bank, while -the town grew up swiftly round her. And even when the young bank -manager married, and wished to take over the rooms, she sent him to the -right-about from his own premises in her gay, masterful way. The young -manager behaved well in the circumstances, because he had asked her to -marry him, and she had dismissed him with a warning against challenging -his own happiness--that was the way she had put it. Perhaps he was -galled the less because others had striven for the same prize, and had -been thrust back, with an almost tender misgiving as to their sense of -self-preservation and sanity. Some of them were eligible enough, and all -were of some position in the West. Yet she smiled them firmly away, to -the wonder of Jansen, and to its satisfaction, for was it not a tribute -to all that she would distinguish no particular unit by her permanent -favour? But for one so sprightly and almost frivolous in manner at -times, the self-denial seemed incongruous. She was unconventional enough -to sit on the side-walk with a half-dozen children round her -blowing bubbles, or to romp in any garden, or in the street, playing -Puss-in-the-ring; yet this only made her more popular. Jansen’s -admiration was at its highest, however, when she rode in the annual -steeplechase with the best horsemen of the province. She had the gift of -doing as well as of being. - -“‘Tis the light heart she has, and slippin’ in and out of things like a -humming-bird, no easier to ketch, and no longer to stay,” said Finden, -the rich Irish landbroker, suggestively to Father Bourassa, the huge -French-Canadian priest who had worked with her through all the dark -weeks of the smallpox epidemic, and who knew what lay beneath the outer -gaiety. She had been buoyant of spirit beside the beds of the sick, and -her words were full of raillery and humour, yet there was ever a gentle -note behind all; and the priest had seen her eyes shining with tears, as -she bent over some stricken sufferer bound upon an interminable journey. - -“Bedad! as bright a little spark as ever struck off the steel,” added -Finden to the priest, with a sidelong, inquisitive look, “but a heart no -bigger than a marrowfat pea-selfishness, all self. Keepin’ herself for -herself when there’s manny a good man needin’ her. Mother o’ Moses, how -manny! From Terry O’Ryan, brother of a peer, at Latouche, to Bernard -Bapty, son of a millionaire, at Vancouver, there’s a string o’ them. All -pride and self; and as fair a lot they’ve been as ever entered for the -Marriage Cup. Now, isn’t that so, father?” - -Finden’s brogue did not come from a plebeian origin. It was part of his -commercial equipment, an asset of his boyhood spent among the peasants -on the family estate in Galway. - -Father Bourassa fanned himself with the black broadbrim hat he wore, and -looked benignly but quizzically on the wiry, sharp-faced Irishman. - -“You t’ink her heart is leetla. But perhaps it is your mind not so big -enough to see--hein?” The priest laughed noiselessly, showing -white teeth. “Was it so selfish in Madame to refuse the name of -Finden--n’est-ce pas?” - -Finden flushed, then burst into a laugh. “I’d almost forgotten I was one -of them--the first almost. Blessed be he that expects nothing, for he’ll -get it, sure. It was my duty, and I did it. Was she to feel that Jansen -did not price her high? Bedad, father, I rose betimes and did it, before -anny man should say he set me the lead. Before the carpet in the parlour -was down, and with the bare boards soundin’ to my words, I offered her -the name of Finden.” - -“And so--the first of the long line! Bien, it is an honour.” The priest -paused a moment, looked at Finden with a curious reflective look, and -then said: “And so you t’ink there is no one; that she will say yes not -at all--no?” - -They were sitting on Father Bourassa’s veranda, on the outskirts of -the town, above the great river, along which had travelled millions of -bygone people, fighting, roaming, hunting, trapping; and they could hear -it rushing past, see the swirling eddies, the impetuous currents, the -occasional rafts moving majestically down the stream. They were facing -the wild North, where civilisation was hacking and hewing and ploughing -its way to newer and newer cities, in an empire ever spreading to the -Pole. - -Finden’s glance loitered on this scene before he replied. At length, -screwing up one eye, and with a suggestive smile, he answered: “Sure, -it’s all a matter of time, to the selfishest woman. ‘Tis not the same -with women as with men; you see, they don’t get younger--that’s a point. -But”--he gave a meaning glance at the priest--“but perhaps she’s not -going to wait for that, after all. And there he rides, a fine figure of -a man, too, if I have to say it!” - -“M’sieu’ Varley?” the priest responded, and watched a galloping horseman -to whom Finden had pointed, till he rounded the corner of a little wood. - -“Varley, the great London surgeon, sure! Say, father, it’s a hundred to -one she’d take him, if--” - -There was a curious look in Father Bourassa’s face, a cloud in his eyes. -He sighed. “London, it is ver’ far away,” he remarked obliquely. - -“What’s to that? If she is with the right man, near or far is nothing.” - -“So far--from home,” said the priest reflectively, but his eyes -furtively watched the other’s face. - -“But home’s where man and wife are.” - -The priest now looked him straight in the eyes. “Then, as you say, she -will not marry M’sieu’ Varley--hein?” - -The humour died out of Finden’s face. His eyes met the priest’s eyes -steadily. “Did I say that? Then my tongue wasn’t making a fool of me, -after all. How did you guess I knew--everything, father?” - -“A priest knows many t’ings--so.” - -There was a moment of gloom, then the Irishman brightened. He came -straight to the heart of the mystery around which they had been -maneuvering. “Have you seen her husband--Meydon--this year? It isn’t his -usual time to come yet.” - -Father Bourassa’s eyes drew those of his friend into, the light of a new -understanding and revelation. They understood and trusted each other. - -“Helas! He is there in the hospital,” he answered, and nodded towards -a building not far away, which had been part of an old Hudson’s Bay -Company’s fort. It had been hastily adapted as a hospital for the -smallpox victims. - -“Oh, it’s Meydon, is it, that bad case I heard of to-day?” - -The priest nodded again and ‘pointed. “Voila, Madame Meydon, she is -coming. She has seen him--her hoosban’.” - -Finden’s eyes followed the gesture. The little widow of Jansen was -coming from the hospital, walking slowly towards the river. - -“As purty a woman, too--as purty and as straight bewhiles. What is the -matter with him--with Meydon?” Finden asked, after a moment. - -“An accident in the woods--so. He arrive, it is las’ night, from Great -Slave Lake.” - -Finden sighed. “Ten years ago he was a man to look at twice--before he -did It and got away. Now his own mother wouldn’t know him--bad ‘cess -to him! I knew him from the cradle almost. I spotted him here by a -knife-cut I gave him in the hand when we were lads together. A divil of -a timper always both of us had, but the good-nature was with me, and I -didn’t drink and gamble and carry a pistol. It’s ten years since he did -the killing, down in Quebec, and I don’t suppose the police will get -him now. He’s been counted dead. I recognised him here the night after I -asked her how she liked the name of Finden. She doesn’t know that I -ever knew him. And he didn’t recognise me-twenty-five years since we met -before! It would be better if he went under the sod. Is he pretty sick, -father?” - -“He will die unless the surgeon’s knife it cure him before twenty-four -hours, and--” - -“And Doctor Brydon is sick, and Doctor Hadley away at Winnipeg, and this -is two hundred miles from nowhere! It looks as if the police’ll never -get him, eh?” - -“You have not tell any one--never?” - -Finden laughed. “Though I’m not a priest, I can lock myself up as tight -as anny. There’s no tongue that’s so tied, when tying’s needed, as the -one that babbles most bewhiles. Babbling covers a lot of secrets.” - -“So you t’ink it better Meydon should die, as Hadley is away and Brydon -is sick-hein?” - -“Oh, I think--” - -Finden stopped short, for a horse’s hoofs sounded on the turf beside -the house, and presently Varley, the great London surgeon, rounded the -corner and stopped his horse in front of the veranda. - -He lifted his hat to the priest. “I hear there’s a bad case at the -hospital,” he said. - -“It is ver’ dangerous,” answered Father Bourassa; “but, voila, come in! -There is something cool to drink. Ah yes, he is ver’ bad, that man from -the Great Slave Lake.” - -Inside the house, with the cooling drinks, Varley pressed his questions, -and presently, much interested, told at some length of singular cases -which had passed through his hands--one a man with his neck broken, who -had lived for six months afterward. - -“Broken as a man’s neck is broken by hanging--dislocation, really--the -disjointing of the medulla oblongata, if you don’t mind technicalities,” - he said. “But I kept him living just the same. Time enough for him -to repent in and get ready to go. A most interesting case. He was a -criminal, too, and wanted to die; but you have to keep life going if you -can, to the last inch of resistance.” - -The priest looked thoughtfully out of the window; Finden’s eyes were -screwed up in a questioning way, but neither made any response to -Varley’s remarks. There was a long minute’s silence. They were all three -roused by hearing a light footstep on the veranda. - -Father Bourassa put down his glass and hastened into the hallway. -Finden caught a glimpse of a woman’s figure, and, without a word, passed -abruptly from the dining-room where they were, into the priest’s study, -leaving Varley alone. Varley turned to look after him, stared, and -shrugged his shoulders. - -“The manners of the West,” he said good-humouredly, and turned again to -the hallway, from whence came the sound of the priest’s voice. -Presently there was another voice--a woman’s. He flushed slightly and -involuntarily straightened himself. - -“Valerie,” he murmured. - -An instant afterwards she entered the room with the priest. She was -dressed in a severely simple suit of grey, which set off to advantage -her slim, graceful figure. There seemed no reason why she should have -been called the little widow of Jansen, for she was not small, but -she was very finely and delicately made, and the name had been but an -expression of Jansen’s paternal feeling for her. She had always had a -good deal of fresh colour, but to-day she seemed pale, though her eyes -had a strange disturbing light. It was not that they brightened on -seeing this man before her; they had been brighter, burningly bright, -when she left the hospital, where, since it had been built, she had been -the one visitor of authority--Jansen had given her that honour. She had -a gift of smiling, and she smiled now, but it came from grace of mind -rather than from humour. As Finden had said, “She was for ever acting, -and never doin’ any harm by it.” - -Certainly she was doing no harm by it now; nevertheless, it was acting. -Could it be otherwise, with what was behind her life--a husband who had -ruined her youth, had committed homicide, had escaped capture, but -who had not subsequently died, as the world believed he had done, so -circumstantial was the evidence. He was not man enough to make the -accepted belief in his death a fact. What could she do but act, since -the day she got a letter from the Far North, which took her out to -Jansen, nominally to nurse those stricken with smallpox under Father -Bourassa’s care, actually to be where her wretched husband could come to -her once a year, as he had asked with an impossible selfishness? - -Each year she had seen him for an hour or less, giving him money, -speaking to him over a gulf so wide that it seemed sometimes as though -her voice could not be heard across it; each year opening a grave to -look at the embalmed face of one who had long since died in shame, which -only brought back the cruellest of all memories, that which one would -give one’s best years to forget. With a fortitude beyond description she -had faced it, gently, quietly, but firmly faced it--firmly, because she -had to be firm in keeping him within those bounds the invasion of -which would have killed her. And after the first struggle with his -unchangeable brutality it had been easier: for into his degenerate brain -there had come a faint understanding of the real situation and of her. -He had kept his side of the gulf, but gloating on this touch between the -old luxurious, indulgent life, with its refined vices, and this present -coarse, hard life, where pleasures were few and gross. The free Northern -life of toil and hardship had not refined him. He greedily hung over -this treasure, which was not for his spending, yet was his own--as -though in a bank he had hoards of money which he might not withdraw. - -So the years had gone on, with their recurrent dreaded anniversaries, -carrying misery almost too great to be borne by this woman mated to the -loathed phantom of a sad, dead life; and when this black day of each -year was over, for a few days afterwards she went nowhere, was seen -by none. Yet, when she did appear again, it was with her old laughing -manner, her cheerful and teasing words, her quick response to the -emotions of others. - -So it had gone till Varley had come to follow the open air life for four -months, after a heavy illness due to blood-poisoning got in his surgical -work in London. She had been able to live her life without too great a -struggle till he came. Other men had flattered her vanity, had given her -a sense of power, had made her understand her possibilities, but nothing -more--nothing of what Varley brought with him. And before three months -had gone, she knew that no man had ever interested her as Varley had -done. Ten years before, she would not have appreciated or understood -him, this intellectual, clean-shaven, rigidly abstemious man, whose -pleasures belonged to the fishing-rod and the gun and the horse, and -who had come to be so great a friend of him who had been her best -friend--Father Bourassa. Father Bourassa had come to know the truth--not -from her, for she had ever been a Protestant, but from her husband, who, -Catholic by birth and a renegade from all religion, had had a moment of -spurious emotion, when he went and confessed to Father Bourassa and -got absolution, pleading for the priest’s care of his wife. Afterwards -Father Bourassa made up his mind that the confession had a purpose -behind it other than repentance, and he deeply resented the use to which -he thought he was being put--a kind of spy upon the beautiful woman -whom Jansen loved, and who, in spite of any outward flippancy, was above -reproach. - -In vital things the instinct becomes abnormally acute, and, one day, -when the priest looked at her commiseratingly, she had divined what -moved him. However it was, she drove him into a corner with a question -to which he dare not answer yes, but to which he might not answer no, -and did not; and she realised that he knew the truth, and she was the -better for his knowing, though her secret was no longer a secret. She -was not aware that Finden also knew. Then Varley came, bringing a new -joy and interest in her life, and a new suffering also, for she realised -that if she were free, and Varley asked her to marry him, she would -consent. - -But when he did ask her, she said no with a pang that cut her heart in -two. He had stayed his four months, and it was now six months, and he -was going at last-tomorrow. He had stayed to give her time to learn to -say yes, and to take her back with him to London; and she knew that he -would speak again to-day, and that she must say no again; but she had -kept him from saying the words till now. And the man who had ruined her -life and had poisoned her true spirit was come back broken and battered. -He was hanging between life and death; and now--for he was going -to-morrow--Varley would speak again. - -The half-hour she had just spent in the hospital with Meydon had tried -her cruelly. She had left the building in a vortex of conflicting -emotions, with the call of duty and of honour ringing through a thousand -other voices of temptation and desire, the inner pleadings for a little -happiness while yet she was young. After she married Meydon, there had -only been a few short weeks of joy before her black disillusion came, -and she had realised how bitter must be her martyrdom. - -When she left the hospital, she seemed moving in a dream, as one, -intoxicated by some elixir, might move unheeding among event and -accident and vexing life and roaring multitudes. And all the while the -river flowing through the endless prairies, high-banked, ennobled by -living woods, lipped with green, kept surging in her ears, inviting her, -alluring her--alluring her with a force too deep and powerful for weak -human nature to bear for long. It would ease her pain, it said; it would -still the tumult and the storm; it would solve her problem, it would -give her peace. But as she moved along the river-bank among the trees, -she met the little niece of the priest, who lived in his house, singing -as though she was born but to sing, a song which Finden had written and -Father Bourassa had set to music. Did not the distant West know Father -Bourassa’s gift, and did not Protestants attend Mass to hear him play -the organ afterwards? The fresh, clear voice of the child rang through -the trees, stealing the stricken heart away from the lure of the river: - - “Will you come back home, where the young larks are singin’? - The door is open wide, and the bells of Lynn are ringin’; - There’s a little lake I know, - And a boat you used to row - To the shore beyond that’s quiet--will you come back home? - - Will you come back, darlin’? Never heed the pain and blightin’, - Never trouble that you’re wounded, that you bear the scars of - fightin’; - Here’s the luck o’ Heaven to you, - Here’s the hand of love will brew you - The cup of peace--ah, darlin’, will you come back home?” - -She stood listening for a few moments, and, under the spell of the -fresh, young voice, the homely, heart-searching words, and the intimate -sweetness of the woods, the despairing apathy lifted slowly away. -She started forwards again with a new understanding, her footsteps -quickened. She would go to Father Bourassa. He would understand. She -would tell him all. He would help her to do what now she knew she must -do, ask Leonard Varley to save her husband’s life--Leonard Varley to -save her husband’s life! - -When she stepped upon the veranda of the priest’s house, she did not -know that Varley was inside. She had no time to think. She was ushered -into the room where he was, with the confusing fact of his presence -fresh upon her. She had had but a word or two with the priest, but -enough for him to know what she meant to do, and that it must be done at -once. - -Varley advanced to meet her. She shuddered inwardly to think what a -difference there was between the fallen creature she had left behind -in the hospital and this tall, dark, self-contained man, whose name was -familiar in the surgeries of Europe, who had climbed from being the son -of a clockmaker to his present distinguished place. - -“Have you come for absolution, also?” he asked with a smile; “or is it -to get a bill of excommunication against your only enemy--there couldn’t -be more than one?” - -Cheerful as his words were, he was shrewdly observing her, for her -paleness, and the strange light in her eyes, gave him a sense of -anxiety. He wondered what trouble was on her. - -“Excommunication?” he repeated. - -The unintended truth went home. She winced, even as she responded with -that quaint note in her voice which gave humour to her speech. “Yes, -excommunication,” she replied; “but why an enemy? Do we not need to -excommunicate our friends sometimes?” - -“That is a hard saying,” he answered soberly. Tears sprang to her eyes, -but she mastered herself, and brought the crisis abruptly. - -“I want you to save a man’s life,” she said, with her eyes looking -straight into his. “Will you do it?” - -His face grew grave and eager. “I want you to save a man’s happiness,” - he answered. “Will you do it?” - -“That man yonder will die unless your skill saves him,” she urged. - -“This man here will go away unhappy and alone, unless your heart -befriends him,” he replied, coming closer to her. - -“At sunrise to-morrow he goes.” He tried to take her hand. - -“Oh, please, please,” she pleaded, with a quick, protesting gesture. -“Sunrise is far off, but the man’s fate is near, and you must save him. -You only can do so, for Doctor Hadley is away, and Doctor Brydon is -sick, and in any case Doctor Brydon dare not attempt the operation -alone. It is too critical and difficult, he says.” - -“So I have heard,” he answered, with a new note in his voice, his -professional instinct roused in spite of himself. “Who is this man? What -interests you in him?” - -“To how many unknown people have you given your skill for nothing--your -skill and all your experience to utter strangers, no matter how low or -poor! Is it not so? Well, I cannot give to strangers what you have given -to so many, but I can help in my own way.” - -“You want me to see the man at once?” - -“If you will.” - -“What is his name? I know of his accident and the circumstances.” - -She hesitated for an instant, then said, “He is called Draper--a trapper -and woodsman.” - -“But I was going away to-morrow at sunrise. All my arrangements are -made,” he urged, his eyes holding hers, his passion swimming in his eyes -again. - -“But you will not see a man die, if you can save him?” she pleaded, -unable now to meet his look, its mastery and its depth. - -Her heart had almost leaped with joy at the suggestion that he could not -stay; but as suddenly self-reproach and shame filled her mind, and she -had challenged him so. But yet, what right had she to sacrifice this man -she loved to the perverted criminal who had spoiled her youth and taken -away from her every dear illusion of her life and heart? By every right -of justice and humanity she was no more the wife of Henry Meydon than if -she had never seen him. He had forfeited every claim upon her, dragged -in the mire her unspotted life--unspotted, for in all temptation, in her -defenceless position, she had kept the whole commandment; she had, while -at the mercy of her own temperament, fought her way through all, with -a weeping heart and laughing lips. Had she not longed for a little -home with a great love, and a strong, true man? Ah, it had been lonely, -bitterly lonely! Yet she had remained true to the scoundrel, from whom -she could not free herself without putting him in the grasp of the law -to atone for his crime. She was punished for his crimes; she was -denied the exercise of her womanhood in order to shield him. Still she -remembered that once she had loved him, those years ago, when he first -won her heart from those so much better than he, who loved her so much -more honestly; and this memory had helped her in a way. She had tried to -be true to it, that dead, lost thing, of which this man who came once a -year to see her, and now, lying with his life at stake in the hospital, -was the repellent ghost. - -“Ah, you will not see him die?” she urged. - -“It seems to move you greatly what happens to this man,” he said, his -determined dark eyes searching hers, for she baffled him. If she could -feel so much for a “casual,” why not a little more feeling for him? -Suddenly, as he drew her eyes to him again, there came the conviction -that they were full of feeling for him. They were sending a message, -an appealing, passionate message, which told him more than he had ever -heard from her or seen in her face before. Yes, she was his! Without a -spoken word she had told him so. What, then, held her back? But women -were a race by themselves, and he knew that he must wait till she chose -to have him know what she had unintentionally conveyed but now. - -“Yes, I am moved,” she continued slowly. “Who can tell what this man -might do with his life, if it is saved! Don’t you think of that? It -isn’t the importance of a life that’s at stake; it’s the importance of -living; and we do not live alone, do we?” - -His mind was made up. “I will not, cannot promise anything till I have -seen him. But I will go and see him, and I’ll send you word later what I -can do, or not do. Will that satisfy you? If I cannot do it, I will come -to say good-by.” - -Her face was set with suppressed feeling. She held out her hand to him -impulsively, and was about to speak, but suddenly caught the hand away -again from his thrilling grasp and, turning hurriedly, left the room. In -the hall she met Father Bourassa. - -“Go with him to the hospital,” she whispered, and disappeared through -the doorway. - -Immediately after she had gone, a man came driving hard to bring Father -Bourassa to visit a dying Catholic in the prairie, and it was Finden who -accompanied Varley to the hospital, waited for him till his examination -of the “casual” was concluded, and met him outside. - -“Can it be done?” he asked of Varley. “I’ll take word to Father -Bourassa.” - -“It can be done--it will be done,” answered Varley absently. “I do not -understand the man. He has been in a different sphere of life. He tried -to hide it, but the speech--occasionally! I wonder.” - -“You wonder if he’s worth saving?” - -Varley shrugged his shoulders impatiently. “No, that’s not what I -meant.” - -Finden smiled to himself. “Is it a difficult case?” he asked. - -“Critical and delicate; but it has been my specialty.” - -“One of the local doctors couldn’t do it, I suppose?” - -“They would be foolish to try.” - -“And you are going away at sunrise to-morrow?” - -“Who told you that?” Varley’s voice was abrupt, impatient. - -“I heard you say so-everybody knows it.... That’s a bad man yonder, -Varley.” He jerked his thumb towards the hospital. “A terrible bad man, -he’s been. A gentleman once, and fell down--fell down hard. He’s done -more harm than most men. He’s broken a woman’s heart and spoilt her -life, and, if he lives, there’s no chance for her, none at all. He -killed a man, and the law wants him; and she can’t free herself without -ruining him; and she can’t marry the man she loves because of that -villain yonder, crying for his life to be saved. By Josh and by Joan, -but it’s a shame, a dirty shame, it is!” - -Suddenly Varley turned and gripped his arm with fingers of steel. - -“His name--his real name?” - -“His name’s Meydon--and a dirty shame it is, Varley.” - -Varley was white. He had been leading his horse and talking to Finden. -He mounted quickly now, and was about to ride away, but stopped short -again. “Who knows--who knows the truth?” he asked. - -“Father Bourassa and me--no others,” he answered. “I knew Meydon thirty -years ago.” - -There was a moment’s hesitation, then Varley said hoarsely, “Tell -me--tell me all.” - -When all was told, he turned his horse towards the wide waste of the -prairie, and galloped away. Finden watched him till he was lost to view -beyond the bluff. - -“Now, a man like that, you can’t guess what he’ll do,” he said -reflectively. “He’s a high-stepper, and there’s no telling what -foolishness will get hold of him. It’d be safer if he got lost on -the prairie for twenty-four hours. He said that Meydon’s only got -twenty-four hours, if the trick isn’t done! Well--” - -He took a penny from his pocket. “I’ll toss for it. Heads he does it, -and tails he doesn’t.” - -He tossed. It came down heads. “Well, there’s one more fool in the world -than I thought,” he said philosophically, as though he had settled the -question; as though the man riding away into the prairie with a dark -problem to be solved had told the penny what he meant to do. - -Mrs. Meydon, Father Bourassa, and Finden stood in the little -waiting-room of the hospital at Jansen, one at each window, and watched -the wild thunderstorm which had broken over the prairie. The white -heliographs of the elements flashed their warnings across the black sky, -and the roaring artillery of the thunder came after, making the circle -of prairie and tree and stream a theatre of anger and conflict. The -streets of Jansen were washed with flood, and the green and gold things -of garden and field and harvest crumbled beneath the sheets of rain. - -The faces at the window of the little room of the hospital, however, -were but half-conscious of the storm; it seemed only an accompaniment of -their thoughts, to typify the elements of tragedy surrounding them. - -For Varley there had been but one thing to do. A life might be saved, -and it was his duty to save it. He had ridden back from the prairie as -the sun was setting the night before, and had made all arrangements at -the hospital, giving orders that Meydon should have no food whatever -till the operation was performed the next afternoon, and nothing to -drink except a little brandy-and-water. - -The operation was performed successfully, and Varley had issued from -the operating-room with the look of a man who had gone through an ordeal -which had taxed his nerve to the utmost, to find Valerie Meydon waiting, -with a piteous, dazed look in her eyes. But this look passed when she -heard him say, “All right!” The words brought a sense of relief, for -if he had failed it would have seemed almost unbearable in the -circumstances--the cup of trembling must be drunk to the dregs. - -Few words had passed between them, and he had gone, while she remained -behind with Father Bourassa, till the patient should wake from the sleep -into which he had fallen when Varley left. - -But within two hours they sent for Varley again, for Meydon was in -evident danger. Varley had come, and had now been with the patient for -some time. - -At last the door opened and Varley came in quickly. He beckoned to Mrs. -Meydon and to Father Bourassa. “He wishes to speak with you,” he said to -her. “There is little time.” - -Her eyes scarcely saw him, as she left the room and passed to where -Meydon lay nerveless, but with wide-open eyes, waiting for her. The -eyes closed, however, before she reached the bed. Presently they opened -again, but the lids remained fixed. He did not hear what she said. - - ...................... - -In the little waiting-room, Finden said to Varley, “What happened?” - -“Food was absolutely forbidden, but he got it from another patient early -this morning while the nurse was out for a moment. It has killed him.” - -“‘Twas the least he could do, but no credit’s due him. It was to be. I’m -not envying Father Bourassa nor her there with him.” - -Varley made no reply. He was watching the receding storm with eyes which -told nothing. - -Finden spoke once more, but Varley did not hear him. Presently the door -opened and Father Bourassa entered. He made a gesture of the hand to -signify that all was over. - -Outside, the sun was breaking through the clouds upon the Western -prairie, and there floated through the evening air the sound of a -child’s voice singing beneath the trees that fringed the river: - - “Will you come back, darlin’? Never heed the pain and blightin’, - Never trouble that you’re wounded, that you bear the scars of - fightin’; - Here’s the luck o’ Heaven to you, - Here’s the hand of love will brew you - The cup of peace-ah, darlin’, will you come back home?” - - - - -WATCHING THE RISE OF ORION - -“In all the wide border his steed was the best,” and the name and fame -of Terence O’Ryan were known from Strathcona to Qu’appelle. He had -ambition of several kinds, and he had the virtue of not caring who knew -of it. He had no guile, and little money; but never a day’s work was -too hard for him, and he took bad luck, when it came, with a jerk of -the shoulder and a good-natured surprise on his clean-shaven face that -suited well his wide grey eyes and large, luxurious mouth. He had an -estate, half ranch, half farm, with a French Canadian manager named -Vigon, an old prospector who viewed every foot of land in the world with -the eye of the discoverer. Gold, coal, iron, oil, he searched for them -everywhere, making sure that sooner or later he would find them. -Once Vigon had found coal. That was when he worked for a man called -Constantine Jopp, and had given him great profit; but he, the -discoverer, had been put off with a horse and a hundred dollars. He was -now as devoted to Terence O’Ryan as he had been faithful to Constantine -Jopp, whom he cursed waking and sleeping. - -In his time O’Ryan had speculated, and lost; he had floated a coal mine, -and “been had”; he had run for the local legislature, had been elected, -and then unseated for bribery committed by an agent; he had run races at -Regina, and won--he had won for three years in succession; and this had -kept him going and restored his finances when they were at their worst. -He was, in truth, the best rider in the country, and, so far, was the -owner also of the best three-year-old that the West had produced. He -achieved popularity without effort. The West laughed at his enterprises -and loved him; he was at once a public moral and a hero. It was a legend -of the West that his forbears had been kings in Ireland like Brian -Borhoime. He did not contradict this; he never contradicted anything. -His challenge to all fun and satire and misrepresentation was, “What’ll -be the differ a hundred years from now!” - -He did not use this phrase, however, towards one experience--the -advent of Miss Molly Mackinder, the heiress, and the challenge that -reverberated through the West after her arrival. Philosophy deserted him -then; he fell back on the primary emotions of mankind. - -A month after Miss Mackinder’s arrival at La Touche a dramatic -performance was given at the old fort, in which the officers of the -Mounted Police took part, together with many civilians who fancied -themselves. By that time the district had realised that Terry O’Ryan -had surrendered to what they called “the laying on of hands” by Molly -Mackinder. It was not certain, however, that the surrender was complete, -because O’Ryan had been wounded before, and yet had not been taken -captive altogether. His complete surrender seemed now more certain -to the public because the lady had a fortune of two hundred thousand -dollars, and that amount of money would be useful to an ambitious man in -the growing West. It would, as Gow Johnson said, “Let him sit back and -view the landscape o’er, before he puts his ploughshare in the mud.” - -There was an outdoor scene in the play produced by the impetuous -amateurs, and dialogue had been interpolated by three “imps of fame” at -the suggestion of Constantine Jopp, one of the three, who bore malice -towards O’Ryan, though this his colleagues did not know distinctly. The -scene was a camp-fire--a starlit night, a colloquy between the three, -upon which the hero of the drama, played by Terry O’Ryan, should break, -after having, unknown to them, but in sight of the audience, overheard -their kind of intentions towards himself. - -The night came. When the curtain rose for the third act there was -exposed a star-sown sky, in which the galaxy of Orion was shown with -distinctness, each star sharply twinkling from the electric power -behind-a pretty scene evoking great applause. O’Ryan had never seen this -back curtain--they had taken care that he should not--and, standing in -the wings awaiting his cue, he was unprepared for the laughter of the -audience, first low and uncertain, then growing, then insistent, and -now a peal of ungovernable mirth, as one by one they understood the -significance of the stars of Orion on the back curtain. - -O’Ryan got his cue, and came on to an outburst of applause which shook -the walls. La Touche rose at him, among them Miss Molly Mackinder in the -front row with the notables. - -He did not see the back curtain, or Orion blazing in the ultramarine -blue. According to the stage directions, he was to steal along the trees -at the wings, and listen to the talk of the men at the fire plotting -against him, who were presently to pretend good comradeship to his face. -It was a vigorous melodrama with some touches of true Western feeling. -After listening for a moment, O’Ryan was to creep up the stage again -towards the back curtain, giving a cue for his appearance. - -When the hilarious applause at his entrance had somewhat subsided, the -three took up their parable, but it was not the parable of the play. -They used dialogue not in the original. It had a significance which the -audience were not slow to appreciate, and went far to turn “The Sunburst -Trail” at this point into a comedy-farce. When this new dialogue began, -O’Ryan could scarcely trust his ears, or realise what was happening. - -“Ah, look,” said Dicky Fergus at the fire, “as fine a night as ever I -saw in the West! The sky’s a picture. You could almost hand the stars -down, they’re so near.” - -“What’s that clump together on the right--what are they called in -astronomy?” asked Constantine Jopp, with a leer. - -“Orion is the name--a beauty, ain’t it?” answered Fergus. - -“I’ve been watching Orion rise,” said the third--Holden was his name. -“Many’s the time I’ve watched Orion rising. Orion’s the star for me. -Say, he wipes ‘em all out--right out. Watch him rising now.” - -By a manipulation of the lights Orion moved up the back curtain slowly, -and blazed with light nearer the zenith. And La Touche had more than the -worth of its money in this opening to the third act of the play. O’Ryan -was a favourite, at whom La Touche loved to jeer, and the parable of the -stars convulsed them. - -At the first words O’Ryan put a hand on himself and tried to grasp the -meaning of it all, but his entrance and the subsequent applause had -confused him. Presently, however, he turned to the back curtain, as -Orion moved slowly up the heavens, and found the key to the situation. -He gasped. Then he listened to the dialogue which had nothing to do with -“The Sunburst Trail.” - -“What did Orion do, and why does he rise? Has he got to rise? Why was -the gent called Orion in them far-off days?” asked Holden. - -“He did some hunting in his time--with a club,” Fergus replied. “He kept -making hits, he did. Orion was a spoiler. When he took the field there -was no room for the rest of the race. Why does he rise? Because it is a -habit. They could always get a rise out of Orion. The Athens Eirenicon -said that yeast might fail to rise, but touch the button and Orion would -rise like a bird.” - -At that instant the galaxy jerked up the back curtain again, and when -the audience could control itself, Constantine Jopp, grinning meanly, -asked: - -“Why does he wear the girdle?” - -“It is not a girdle--it is a belt,” was Dicky Fergus’s reply. “The -gods gave it to him because he was a favourite. There was a lady called -Artemis--she was the last of them. But he went visiting with Eos, -another lady of previous acquaintance, down at a place called Ortygia, -and Artemis shot him dead with a shaft Apollo had given her; but she -didn’t marry Apollo neither. She laid Orion out on the sky, with his -glittering belt, around him. And Orion keeps on rising.” - -“Will he ever stop rising?” asked Holden. - -Followed for the conspirators a disconcerting moment; for, when the -laughter had subsided, a lazy voice came from the back of the hall, -“He’ll stop long enough to play with Apollo a little, I guess.” - -It was Gow Johnson who had spoken, and no man knew Terry O’Ryan better, -or could gauge more truly the course he would take. He had been in many -an enterprise, many a brush with O’Ryan, and his friendship would bear -any strain. - -O’Ryan recovered himself from the moment he saw the back curtain, and -he did not find any fun in the thing. It took a hold on him out of -all proportion to its importance. He realised that he had come to -the parting of the ways in his life. It suddenly came upon him that -something had been lacking in him in the past; and that his want of -success in many things had not been wholly due to bad luck. He had been -eager, enterprising, a genius almost at seeing good things; and yet -others had reaped where he had sown. He had believed too much in his -fellow-man. For the first time in his life he resented the friendly, -almost affectionate satire of his many friends. It was amusing, it -was delightful; but down beneath it all there was a little touch of -ridicule. He had more brains than any of them, and he had known it in -a way; he had led them sometimes, too, as on raids against -cattle-stealers, and in a brush with half-breeds and Indians; as when -he stood for the legislature; but he felt now for the first time that -he had not made the most of himself, that there was something hurting to -self-respect in this prank played upon him. When he came to that point -his resentment went higher. He thought of Molly Mackinder, and he heard -all too acutely the vague veiled references to her in their satire. By -the time Gow Johnson spoke he had mastered himself, however, and had -made up his mind. He stood still for a moment. - -“Now, please, my cue,” he said quietly and satirically from the trees -near the wings. - -He was smiling, but Gow Johnson’s prognostication was right; and ere -long the audience realised that he was right. There was standing before -them not the Terry O’Ryan they had known, but another. He threw himself -fully into his part--a young rancher made deputy sheriff, who by the -occasional exercise of his duty had incurred the hatred of a small -floating population that lived by fraud, violence, and cattle-stealing. -The conspiracy was to raid his cattle, to lure him to pursuit, to ambush -him, and kill him. Terry now played the part with a naturalness -and force which soon lifted the play away from the farcical element -introduced into it by those who had interpolated the gibes at himself. -They had gone a step too far. - -“He’s going large,” said Gow Johnson, as the act drew near its close, -and the climax neared, where O’Ryan was to enter upon a physical -struggle with his assailants. “His blood’s up. There’ll be hell to pay.” - -To Gow Johnson the play had instantly become real, and O’Ryan an injured -man at bay, the victim of the act--not of the fictitious characters of -the play, but of the three men, Fergus, Holden, and Constantine Jopp, -who had planned the discomfiture of O’Ryan; and he felt that the -victim’s resentment would fall heaviest on Constantine Jopp, the bully, -an old schoolmate of Terry’s. - -Jopp was older than O’Ryan by three years, which in men is little, but -in boys, at a certain time of life, is much. It means, generally, weight -and height, an advantage in a scrimmage. Constantine Jopp had been the -plague and tyrant of O’Ryan’s boyhood. He was now a big, leering fellow -with much money of his own, got chiefly from the coal discovered on his -place by Vigon, the half-breed French Canadian. He had a sense of dark -and malicious humour, a long horse-like face, with little beady eyes and -a huge frame. - -Again and again had Terry fought him as a boy at school, and often he -had been badly whipped, but he had never refused the challenge of an -insult when he was twelve and Jopp fifteen. The climax to their enmity -at school had come one day when Terry was seized with a cramp while -bathing, and after having gone down twice was rescued by Jopp, who -dragged him out by the hair of the head. He had been restored to -consciousness on the bank and carried to his home, where he lay ill for -days. During the course of the slight fever which followed the accident -his hair was cut close to his head. Impetuous always, his first thought -was to go and thank Constantine Jopp for having saved his life. As soon -as he was able he went forth to find his rescuer, and met him suddenly -on turning a corner of the street. Before he could stammer out the -gratitude that was in his heart, Jopp, eyeing him with a sneering smile, -said drawlingly: - -“If you’d had your hair cut like that I couldn’t have got you out, -could I? Holy, what a sight! Next time I’ll take you by the scruff, -putty-face--bah!” - -That was enough for Terry. He had swallowed the insult, stuttered his -thanks to the jeering laugh of the lank bully, and had gone home and -cried in shame and rage. - -It was the one real shadow in his life. Ill luck and good luck had been -taken with an equable mind; but the fact that he must, while he lived, -own the supreme debt of his life to a boy and afterwards to a man whom -he hated by instinct was a constant cloud on him. Jopp owned him. For -some years they did not meet, and then at last they again were thrown -together in the West, when Jopp settled at La Touche. It was gall and -wormwood to Terry, but he steeled himself to be friendly, although the -man was as great a bully as the boy, as offensive in mind and character; -but withal acute and able in his way, and with a reputation for -commercial sharpness which would be called by another name in a -different civilisation. They met constantly, and O’Ryan always put -a hand on himself, and forced himself to be friendly. Once when Jopp -became desperately ill there had been--though he fought it down, and -condemned himself in every term of reproach--a sense of relief in the -thought that perhaps his ancient debt would now be cancelled. It had -gone on so long. And Constantine Jopp had never lost an opportunity of -vexing him, of torturing him, of giving veiled thrusts, which he knew -O’Ryan could not resent. It was the constant pin-prick of a mean soul, -who had an advantage of which he could never be dispossessed--unless the -ledger was balanced in some inscrutable way. - -Apparently bent on amusement only, and hiding his hatred from his -colleagues, Jopp had been the instigator and begetter of the huge joke -of the play; but it was the brains of Dick Fergus which had carried it -out, written the dialogue, and planned the electric appliances of the -back curtain--for he was an engineer and electrician. Neither he nor -Holden had known the old antipathy of Terry and Constantine Jopp. There -was only one man who knew the whole truth, and that was Gow Johnson, to -whom Terry had once told all. At the last moment Fergus had interpolated -certain points in the dialogue which were not even included at -rehearsal. These referred to Apollo. He had a shrewd notion that Jopp -had an idea of marrying Molly Mackinder if he could, cousins though they -were; and he was also aware that Jopp, knowing Molly’s liking for Terry, -had tried to poison her mind against him, through suggestive gossip -about a little widow at Jansen, thirty miles away. He had in so far -succeeded that, on the very day of the performance, Molly had declined -to be driven home from the race-course by Terry, despite the fact that -Terry had won the chief race and owned the only dog-cart in the West. - -As the day went on Fergus realised, as had Gow Johnson, that Jopp had -raised a demon. The air was electric. The play was drawing near to its -climax--an attempt to capture the deputy sheriff, tie him to a tree, and -leave him bound and gagged alone in the waste. There was a glitter -in Terry’s eyes, belying the lips which smiled in keeping with the -character he presented. A look of hardness was stamped on his face, and -the outlines of the temples were as sharp as the chin was set and the -voice slow and penetrating. - -Molly Mackinder’s eyes were riveted on him. She sat very still, her -hands clasped in her lap, watching his every move. Instinct told her -that Terry was holding himself in; that some latent fierceness and iron -force in him had emerged into life; and that he meant to have revenge -on Constantine Jopp one way or another, and that soon; for she had heard -the rumour flying through the hall that her cousin was the cause of the -practical joke just played. From hints she had had from Constantine that -very day she knew that the rumour was the truth; and she recalled now -with shrinking dislike the grimace accompanying the suggestion. She -had not resented it then, being herself angry with Terry because of the -little widow at Jansen. - -Presently the silence in the hall became acute; the senses of the -audience were strained to the utmost. The acting before them was more -realistic than anything they had ever seen, or were ever likely to see -again in La Touche. All three conspirators, Fergus, Holden, and Jopp, -realised that O’Ryan’s acting had behind it an animal anger which -transformed him. When he looked into their eyes it was with a steely -directness harder and fiercer than was observed by the audience. Once -there was occasion for O’Ryan to catch Fergus by the arm, and Fergus -winced from the grip. When standing in the wings with Terry he ventured -to apologise playfully for the joke, but Terry made no answer; and once -again he had whispered good-naturedly as they stood together on the -stage; but the reply had been a low, scornful laugh. Fergus realised -that a critical moment was at hand. The play provided for some dialogue -between Jopp and Terry, and he observed with anxiety that Terry now -interpolated certain phrases meant to warn Constantine, and to excite -him to anger also. - -The moment came upon them sooner than the text of the play warranted. -O’Ryan deliberately left out several sentences, and gave a later cue, -and the struggle for his capture was precipitated. Terry meant to make -the struggle real. So thrilling had been the scene that to an extent the -audience was prepared for what followed; but they did not grasp the full -reality--that the play was now only a vehicle for a personal issue of a -desperate character. No one had ever seen O’Ryan angry; and now that the -demon of rage was on him, directed by a will suddenly grown to its full -height, they saw not only a powerful character in a powerful melodrama, -but a man of wild force. When the three desperadoes closed in on O’Ryan, -and, with a blow from the shoulder which was not a pretence, he sent -Holden into a far corner gasping for breath and moaning with pain, -the audience broke out into wild cheering. It was superb acting, -they thought. As most of them had never seen the play, they were not -surprised when Holden did not again join the attack on the -deputy sheriff. Those who did know the drama--among them Molly -Mackinder--became dismayed, then anxious. Fergus and Jopp knew well from -the blow O’Ryan had given that, unless they could drag him down, the end -must be disaster to some one. They were struggling with him for personal -safety now. The play was forgotten, though mechanically O’Ryan and -Fergus repeated the exclamations and the few phrases belonging to the -part. Jopp was silent, fighting with a malice which belongs to only -half-breed, or half-bred, natures; and from far back in his own nature -the distant Indian strain in him was working in savage hatred. The two -were desperately hanging on to O’Ryan like pumas on a grizzly, when -suddenly, with a twist he had learned from Ogami the Jap on the Smoky -River, the slim Fergus was slung backward to the ground with the tendons -of his arm strained and the arm itself useless for further work. There -remained now Constantine Jopp, heavier and more powerful than O’Ryan. - -For O’Ryan the theatre, the people, disappeared. He was a boy again on -the village green, with the bully before him who had tortured his young -days. He forgot the old debt to the foe who saved his life; he forgot -everything, except that once again, as of old, Constantine Jopp was -fighting him, with long, strong arms trying to bring him to the ground. -Jopp’s superior height gave him an advantage in a close grip; the -strength of his gorilla-like arms was difficult to withstand. Both were -forgetful of the world, and the two other injured men, silent and awed, -were watching the fight, in which one of them, at least, was powerless -to take part. - -The audience was breathless. Most now saw the grim reality of the scene -before them; and when at last O’Ryan’s powerful right hand got a grip -upon the throat of Jopp, and they saw the grip tighten, tighten, and -Jopp’s face go from red to purple, a hundred people gasped. Excited men -made as though to move toward the stage; but the majority still believed -that it all belonged to the play, and shouted “Sit down!” - -Suddenly the voice of Gow Johnson was heard “Don’t kill him--let go, -boy!” - -The voice rang out with sharp anxiety, and pierced the fog of passion -and rage in which O’Ryan was moving. He realised what he was doing, the -real sense of it came upon him. Suddenly he let go the lank throat of -his enemy, and, by a supreme effort, flung him across the stage, where -Jopp lay resting on his hands, his bleared eyes looking at Terry with -the fear and horror still in them which had come with that tightening -grip on his throat. - -Silence fell suddenly on the theatre. The audience was standing. A -woman sobbed somewhere in a far corner, but the rest were dismayed and -speechless. A few steps before them all was Molly Mackinder, white and -frightened, but in her eyes was a look of understanding as she gazed at -Terry. Breathing hard, Terry stood still in the middle of the stage, -the red fog not yet gone out of his eyes, his hands clasped at his side, -vaguely realising the audience again. Behind him was the back curtain in -which the lights of Orion twinkled aggressively. The three men who had -attacked him were still where he had thrown them. - -The silence was intense, the strain oppressive. But now a drawling voice -came from the back of the hall. “Are you watching the rise of Orion?” it -said. It was the voice of Gow Johnson. - -The strain was broken; the audience dissolved in laughter; but it was -not hilarious; it was the nervous laughter of relief, touched off by a -native humour always present in the dweller of the prairie. - -“I beg your pardon,” said Terry quietly and abstractedly to the -audience. - -And the scene-shifter bethought himself and let down the curtain. - -The fourth act was not played that night. The people had had more than -the worth of their money. In a few moments the stage was crowded with -people from the audience, but both Jopp and O’Ryan had disappeared. - -Among the visitors to the stage was Molly Mackinder. There was a meaning -smile upon her face as she said to Dicky Fergus: - -“It was quite wonderful, wasn’t it--like a scene out of the -classics--the gladiators or something?” - -Fergus gave a wary smile as he answered: “Yes. I felt like saying Ave -Caesar, Ave! and I watched to see Artemis drop her handkerchief.” - -“She dropped it, but you were too busy to pick it up. It would have -been a useful sling for your arm,” she added with thoughtful malice. -“It seemed so real--you all acted so well, so appropriately. And how you -keep it up!” she added, as he cringed when some one knocked against his -elbow, hurting the injured tendons. - -Fergus looked at her meditatively before he answered. “Oh, I think we’ll -likely keep it up for some time,” he rejoined ironically. - -“Then the play isn’t finished?” she added. “There is another act? Yes, I -thought there was, the programme said four.” - -“Oh yes, there’s another act,” he answered, “but it isn’t to be played -now; and I’m not in it.” - -“No, I suppose you are not in it. You really weren’t in the last act. -Who will be in it?” - -Fergus suddenly laughed outright, as he looked at Holden expostulating -intently to a crowd of people round him. “Well, honour bright, I don’t -think there’ll be anybody in it except little Conny Jopp and gentle -Terry O’Ryan; and Conny mayn’t be in it very long. But he’ll be in it -for a while, I guess. You see, the curtain came down in the middle of a -situation, not at the end of it. The curtain has to rise again.” - -“Perhaps Orion will rise again--you think so?” She laughed in satire; -for Dicky Fergus had made love to her during the last three months with -unsuppressed activity, and she knew him in his sentimental moments; -which is fatal. It is fatal if, in a duet, one breathes fire and the -other frost. - -“If you want my opinion,” he said in a lower voice, as they moved -towards the door, while people tried to listen to them--“if you want -it straight, I think Orion has risen--right up where shines the evening -star--Oh, say, now,” he broke off, “haven’t you had enough fun out of -me? I tell you, it was touch and go. He nearly broke my arm--would -have done it, if I hadn’t gone limp to him; and your cousin Conny Jopp, -little Conny Jopp, was as near Kingdom Come as a man wants at his age. -I saw an elephant go ‘must’ once in India, and it was as like O’Ryan as -putty is to dough. It isn’t all over either, for O’Ryan will forget and -forgive, and Jopp won’t. He’s your cousin, but he’s a sulker. If he has -to sit up nights to do it, he’ll try to get back on O’Ryan. He’ll sit -up nights, but he’ll do it, if he can. And whatever it is, it won’t be -pretty.” - -Outside the door they met Gow Johnson, excitement in his eyes. He heard -Fergus’s last words. - -“He’ll see Orion rising if he sits up nights,” Gow Johnson said. “The -game is with Terry--at last.” Then he called to the dispersing gossiping -crowd: “Hold on--hold on, you people. I’ve got news for you. Folks, this -is O’Ryan’s night. It’s his in the starry firmament. Look at him -shine,” he cried, stretching out his arm towards the heavens, where the -glittering galaxy hung near the zenith. “Terry O’Ryan, our O’Ryan--he’s -struck oil--on his ranch it’s been struck. Old Vigon found it. Terry’s -got his own at last. O’Ryan’s in it--in it alone. Now, let’s hear the -prairie-whisper,” he shouted, in a great raucous voice. “Let’s hear the -prairie-whisper. What is it?” - -The crowd responded in a hoarse shout for O’Ryan and his fortune. Even -the women shouted--all except Molly Mackinder. She was wondering if -O’Ryan risen would be the same to her as O’Ryan rising. She got into her -carriage with a sigh, though she said to the few friends with her: - -“If it’s true, it’s splendid. He deserves it too. Oh, I’m glad--I’m so -glad.” She laughed; but the laugh was a little hysterical. - -She was both glad and sorry. Yet as she drove home over the prairie she -was silent. Far off in the east was a bright light. It was a bonfire -built on O’Ryan’s ranch, near where he had struck oil--struck it rich. -The light grew and grew, and the prairie was alive with people hurrying -towards it. La Touche should have had the news hours earlier, but the -half-breed French-Canadian, Vigon, who had made the discovery, and had -started for La Touche with the news, went suddenly off his head with -excitement, and had ridden away into the prairie fiercely shouting -his joy to an invisible world. The news had been brought in later by a -farmhand. - -Terry O’Ryan had really struck oil, and his ranch was a scene of decent -revelry, of which Gow Johnson was master. But the central figure of -it all, the man who had, in truth, risen like a star, had become to La -Touche all at once its notoriety as well as its favourite, its great -man as well as its friend, he was nowhere to be found. He had been seen -riding full speed into the prairie towards the Kourmash Wood, and the -starlit night had swallowed him. Constantine Jopp had also disappeared; -but at first no one gave that thought or consideration. - -As the night went on, however, a feeling began to stir which it is not -good to rouse in frontier lands. It is sure to exhibit itself in forms -more objective than are found in great populations where methods of -punishment are various, and even when deadly are often refined. But -society in new places has only limited resources, and is thrown back -on primary ways and means. La Touche was no exception, and the keener -spirits, to whom O’Ryan had ever been “a white man,” and who so rejoiced -in his good luck now that they drank his health a hundred times in his -own whiskey and cider, were simmering with desire for a public reproval -of Constantine Jopp’s conduct. Though it was pointed out to them by -the astute Gow Johnson that Fergus and Holden had participated in the -colossal joke of the play, they had learned indirectly also the whole -truth concerning the past of the two men. They realised that Fergus and -Holden had been duped by Jopp into the escapade. Their primitive sense -of justice exonerated the humourists and arraigned the one malicious -man. As the night wore on they decided on the punishment to be meted out -by La Touche to the man who had not “acted on the square.” - -Gow Johnson saw, too late, that he had roused a spirit as hard to -appease as the demon roused in O’Ryan earlier in the evening. He would -have enjoyed the battue of punishment under ordinary circumstances; but -he knew that Miss Molly Mackinder would be humiliated and indignant -at the half-savage penalty they meant to exact. He had determined that -O’Ryan should marry her; and this might be an obstruction in the path. -It was true that O’Ryan now would be a rich man--one of the richest in -the West, unless all signs failed; but meanwhile a union of fortunes -would only be an added benefit. Besides, he had seen that O’Ryan was in -earnest, and what O’Ryan wanted he himself wanted even more strongly. -He was not concerned greatly for O’Ryan’s absence. He guessed that Terry -had ridden away into the night to work off the dark spirit that was on -him, to have it out with himself. Gow Johnson was a philosopher. He was -twenty years older than O’Ryan, and he had studied his friend as a pious -monk his missal. - -He was right in his judgment. When Terry left the theatre he was like -one in a dream, every nerve in his body at tension, his head aflame, -his pulses throbbing. For miles he rode away into the waste along the -northern trail, ever away from La Touche and his own home. He did not -know of the great good fortune that had come to him; and if, in this -hour, he had known, he would not have cared. As he rode on and on -remorse drew him into its grasp. Shame seized him that he had let -passion be his master, that he had lost his self-control, had taken a -revenge out of all proportion to the injury and insult to himself. It -did not ease his mind that he knew Constantine Jopp had done the thing -out of meanness and malice; for he was alive to-night in the light of -the stars, with the sweet crisp air blowing in his face, because of an -act of courage on the part of his schooldays’ foe. He remembered now -that, when he was drowning, he had clung to Jopp with frenzied arms and -had endangered the bully’s life also. The long torture of owing -this debt to so mean a soul was on him still, was rooted in him; but -suddenly, in the silent searching night, some spirit whispered in his -ear that this was the price which he must pay for his life saved to the -world, a compromise with the Inexorable Thing. On the verge of oblivion -and the end, he had been snatched back by relenting Fate, which requires -something for something given, when laws are overridden and doom -defeated. Yes, the price he was meant to pay was gratitude to one of -shrivelled soul and innate antipathy; and he had not been man enough -to see the trial through to the end! With a little increased strain put -upon his vanity and pride he had run amuck. Like some heathen gladiator -he had ravaged in the ring. He had gone down into the basements of human -life and there made a cockpit for his animal rage, till, in the contest, -brain and intellect had been saturated by the fumes and sweat of fleshly -fury. - -How quiet the night was, how soothing to the fevered mind and body, how -the cool air laved the heated head and flushed the lungs of the rheum of -passion! He rode on and on, farther and farther away from home, his -back upon the scenes where his daily deeds were done. It was long past -midnight before he turned his horse’s head again homeward. - -Buried in his thoughts, now calm and determined, with a new life grown -up in him, a new strength different from the mastering force which gave -him a strength in the theatre like one in delirium, he noticed nothing. -He was only conscious of the omniscient night and its warm penetrating -friendliness; as, in a great trouble, when no words can be spoken, a -cool kind palm steals into the trembling hand of misery and stills it, -gives it strength and life and an even pulse. He was now master in the -house of his soul, and had no fear or doubt as to the future, or as to -his course. - -His first duty was to go to Constantine Jopp, and speak his regret like -a man. And after that it would be his duty to carry a double debt his -life long for the life saved, for the wrong done. He owed an apology to -La Touche, and he was scarcely aware that the native gentlemanliness in -him had said through his fever of passion over the footlights: “I beg -your pardon.” In his heart he felt that he had offered a mean affront -to every person present, to the town where his interests lay, where his -heart lay. - -Where his heart lay--Molly Mackinder! He knew now that vanity had -something to do, if not all to do, with his violent acts, and though -there suddenly shot through his mind, as he rode back, a savage thrill -at the remembrance of how he had handled the three, it was only a -passing emotion. He was bent on putting himself right with Jopp and with -La Touche. With the former his way was clear; he did not yet see his way -as to La Touche. How would he be able to make the amende honorable to La -Touche? - -By and by he became somewhat less absorbed and enveloped by the -comforting night. He saw the glimmer of red light afar, and vaguely -wondered what it was. It was in the direction of O’Ryan’s Ranch, but -he thought nothing of it, because it burned steadily. It was probably a -fire lighted by settlers trailing to the farther north. While the night -wore on he rode as slowly back to the town as he had galloped from it -like a centaur with a captive. - -Again and again Molly Mackinder’s face came before him; but he -resolutely shut it out of his thoughts. He felt that he had no right -to think of her until he had “done the right thing” by Jopp and by La -Touche. Yet the look in her face as the curtain came down, it was not -that of one indifferent to him or to what he did. He neared the town -half-way between midnight and morning. Almost unconsciously avoiding the -main streets, he rode a roundabout way towards the little house where -Constantine Jopp lived. He could hear loud noises in the streets, -singing, and hoarse shouts. Then silence came, then shouts, and silence -again. It was all quiet as he rode up to Jopp’s house, standing on the -outskirts of the town. There was a bright light in the window of a room. - -Jopp, then, was still up. He would not wait till tomorrow. He would do -the right thing now. He would put things straight with his foe before -he slept; he would do it at any sacrifice to his pride. He had conquered -his pride. - -He dismounted, threw the bridle over a post, and, going into the garden, -knocked gently at the door. There was no response. He knocked again, and -listened intently. Now he heard a sound-like a smothered cry or groan. -He opened the door quickly and entered. It was dark. In another room -beyond was a light. From it came the same sound he had heard before, but -louder; also there was a shuffling footstep. Springing forward to the -half-open door, he pushed it wide, and met the terror-stricken eyes of -Constantine Jopp--the same look that he had seen at the theatre when his -hands were on Jopp’s throat, but more ghastly. - -Jopp was bound to a chair by a lasso. Both arms were fastened to the -chair-arm, and beneath them, on the floor, were bowls into which blood -dripped from his punctured wrists. - -He had hardly taken it all in--the work of an instant--when he saw -crouched in a corner, madness in his eyes, his half-breed Vigon. He -grasped the situation in a flash. Vigon had gone mad, had lain in wait -in Jopp’s house, and when the man he hated had seated himself in the -chair, had lassoed him, bound him, and was slowly bleeding him to death. - -He had no time to think. Before he could act Vigon was upon him also, -frenzy in his eyes, a knife clutched in his hand. Reason had fled, and -he only saw in O’Ryan the frustrator of his revenge. He had watched the -drip, drip from his victim’s wrists with a dreadful joy. - -They were man and man, but O’Ryan found in this grisly contest a vaster -trial of strength than in the fight upon the stage a few hours ago. The -first lunge that Vigon made struck him on the tip of the shoulder, and -drew blood; but he caught the hand holding the knife in an iron grasp, -while the half-breed, with superhuman strength, tried in vain for -the long brown throat of the man for whom he had struck oil. As they -struggled and twisted, the eyes of the victim in the chair watched them -with agonised emotions. For him it was life or death. He could not cry -out--his mouth was gagged; but to O’Ryan his groans were like a distant -echo of his own hoarse gasps as he fought his desperate fight. Terry -was as one in an awful dream battling with vague impersonal powers which -slowly strangled his life, yet held him back in torture from the final -surrender. - -For minutes they struggled. At last O’Ryan’s strength came to the point -of breaking, for Vigon was a powerful man, and to this was added a -madman’s energy. He felt that the end was coming. But all at once, -through the groans of the victim in the chair, Terry became conscious of -noises outside--such noises as he had heard before he entered the house, -only nearer and louder. At the same time he heard a horse’s hoofs, then -a knock at the door, and a voice calling: “Jopp! Jopp!” - -He made a last desperate struggle, and shouted hoarsely. - -An instant later there were footsteps in the room, followed by a cry of -fright and amazement. - -It was Gow Johnson. He had come to warn Constantine Jopp that a crowd -were come to tar and feather him, and to get him away on his own horse. - -Now he sprang to the front door, called to the approaching crowd for -help, then ran back to help O’Ryan. A moment later a dozen men had Vigon -secure, and had released Constantine Jopp, now almost dead from loss of -blood. - -As they took the gag from his mouth and tied their handkerchiefs round -his bleeding wrists, Jopp sobbed aloud. His eyes were fixed on Terry -O’Ryan. Terry met the look, and grasped the limp hand lying on the -chair-arm. - -“I’m sorry, O’Ryan, I’m sorry for all I’ve done to you,” Jopp sobbed. “I -was a sneak, but I want to own it. I want to be square now. You can tar -and feather me, if you like. I deserve it.” He looked at the others. “I -deserve it,” he repeated. - -“That’s what the boys had thought would be appropriate,” said Gow -Johnson with a dry chuckle, and the crowd looked at each other and -winked. The wink was kindly, however. “To own up and take your gruel” - was the easiest way to touch the men of the prairie. - -A half-hour later the roisterers, who had meant to carry Constantine -Jopp on a rail, carried Terry O’Ryan on their shoulders through the -town, against his will. As they passed the house where Miss Mackinder -lived some one shouted: - -“Are you watching the rise of Orion?” - -Many a time thereafter Terry O’Ryan and Molly Mackinder looked at the -galaxy in the evening sky with laughter and with pride. It had played -its part with Fate against Constantine Jopp and the little widow at -Jansen. It had never shone so brightly as on the night when Vigon struck -oil on O’Ryan’s ranch. But Vigon had no memory of that. Such is the -irony of life. - - - - -THE ERROR OF THE DAY - -The “Error of the Day” may be defined as “The difference between the -distance or range which must be put upon the sights in order to hit the -target and the actual distance from the gun to the target.”--Admiralty -Note. - -A great naval gun never fires twice alike. It varies from day to day, -and expert allowance has to be made in sighting every time it is fired. -Variations in atmosphere, condition of ammunition, and the wear of the -gun are the contributory causes to the ever-varying “Error of the Day.” - - ......................... - -“Say, ain’t he pretty?” - -“A Jim-dandy-oh, my!” - -“What’s his price in the open market?” - -“Thirty millions-I think not.” - -Then was heard the voice of Billy Goat--his name was William Goatry - - “Out in the cold world, out in the street; - Nothing to wear, and nothing to eat, - Fatherless, motherless, sadly I roam, - Child of misfortune, I’m driven from home.” - -A loud laugh followed, for Billy Goat was a popular person at Kowatin in -the Saskatchewan country. He had an inimitable drollery, heightened by -a cast in his eye, a very large mouth, and a round, good-humoured face; -also he had a hand and arm like iron, and was altogether a great man on -a “spree.” - -There had been a two days’ spree at Kowatin, for no other reason than -that there had been great excitement over the capture and the subsequent -escape of a prairie-rover, who had robbed the contractor’s money-chest -at the rail-head on the Canadian Pacific Railroad. Forty miles from -Kowatin he had been caught by, and escaped from, the tall, brown-eyed -man with the hard-bitten face who leaned against the open window of the -tavern, looking indifferently at the jeering crowd before him. For a -police officer he was not unpopular with them, but he had been a failure -for once, and, as Billy Goat had said: “It tickled us to death to see a -rider of the plains off his trolley--on the cold, cold ground, same as -you and me.” - -They did not undervalue him. If he had been less a man than he was, -they would not have taken the trouble to cover him with their drunken -ribaldry. He had scored off them in the past in just such sprees as -this, when he had the power to do so, and used the power good-naturedly -and quietly--but used it. - -Then, he was Sergeant Foyle of the Royal North-West Mounted Police, on -duty in a district as large as the United Kingdom. And he had no greater -admirer than Billy Goat, who now reviled him. Not without cause, in -a way, for he had reviled himself to this extent, that when the -prairie-rover, Halbeck, escaped on the way to Prince Albert, after six -months’ hunt for him and a final capture in the Kowatin district, Foyle -resigned the Force before the Commissioner could reproach him or call -him to account. Usually so exact, so certain of his target, some care -had not been taken, he had miscalculated, and there had been the Error -of the Day. Whatever it was, it had seemed to him fatal; and he had -turned his face from the barrack yard. - -Then he had made his way to the Happy Land Hotel at Kowatin, to begin -life as “a free and independent gent on the loose,” as Billy Goat had -said. To resign had seemed extreme; because, though the Commissioner was -vexed at Halbeck’s escape, Foyle was the best non-commissioned officer -in the Force. He had frightened horse thieves and bogus land-agents and -speculators out of the country; had fearlessly tracked down a criminal -or a band of criminals when the odds were heavy against him. He carried -on his cheek the scars of two bullets, and there was one white lock in -his brown hair, where an arrow had torn the scalp away as, alone, he -drove into the Post a score of Indians, fresh from raiding the cattle of -an immigrant trailing north. - -Now he was out of work, or so it seemed; he had stepped down from -his scarlet-coated dignity, from the place of guardian and guide of -civilisation, into the idleness of a tavern stoop. - -As the little group swayed round him, and Billy Goat started another -song, Foyle roused himself as though to move away--he was waiting for -the mail-stage to take him south: - - “Oh, father, dear father, come home with me now, - The clock in the steeple strikes one; - You said you were coming right home from the shop - As soon as your day’s work was done. - Come home--come home--” - -The song arrested him, and he leaned back against the window again. A -curious look came into his eyes, a look that had nothing to do with the -acts of the people before him. It was searching into a scene beyond this -bright sunlight and the far green-brown grass, and the little oasis -of trees in the distance marking a homestead and the dust of the -wagon-wheels, out on the trail beyond the grain-elevator-beyond the blue -horizon’s rim, quivering in the heat, and into regions where this crisp, -clear, life-giving, life-saving air never blew. - - “You said you were coming right home from the shop - As soon as your day’s work was done. - Come home--come home--” - -He remembered when he had first heard this song in a play called ‘Ten -Nights in a Bar-room’, many years before, and how it had wrenched his -heart and soul, and covered him with a sudden cloud of shame and anger. -For his father had been a drunkard, and his brother had grown up a -drunkard, that brother whom he had not seen for ten years until--until-- - -He shuddered, closed his eyes, as though to shut out something that the -mind saw. He had had a rough life, he had become inured to the seamy -side of things--there was a seamy side even in this clean, free, wide -land; and he had no sentimentality; though something seemed to hurt and -shame him now. - - “As soon as your day’s work was done. - Come home--come home--” - -The crowd was uproarious. The exhilaration had become a kind of -delirium. Men were losing their heads; there was an element of -irresponsibility in the new outbreak likely to breed some violent act, -which every man of them would lament when sober again. - -Nettlewood Foyle watched the dust rising from the wheels of the stage, -which had passed the elevator and was nearing the Prairie Home Hotel far -down the street. He would soon leave behind him this noisy ribaldry of -which he was the centre. He tossed his cheroot away. Suddenly he heard a -low voice behind him. - -“Why don’t you hit out, sergeant?” it said. - -He started almost violently, and turned round. Then his face flushed, -his eyes blurred with feeling and deep surprise, and his lips parted in -a whispered exclamation and greeting. - -A girl’s face from the shade of the sitting-room was looking out at him, -half-smiling, but with heightened colour and a suppressed agitation. The -girl was not more than twenty-five, graceful, supple, and strong. Her -chin was dimpled; across her right temple was a slight scar. She had -eyes of a wonderful deep blue; they seemed to swim with light. As Foyle -gazed at her for a moment dumfounded, with a quizzical suggestion and -smiling still a little more, she said: - -“You used to be a little quicker, Nett.” The voice appeared to attempt -unconcern; but it quivered from a force of feeling underneath. It was so -long since she had seen him. - -He was about to reply, but, at the instant, a reveller pushed him with -a foot behind the knees so that they were sprung forward. The crowd -laughed--all save Billy Goat, who knew his man. - -Like lightning, and with cold fury in his eyes, Foyle caught the tall -cattleman by the forearm, and, with a swift, dexterous twist, had the -fellow in his power. - -“Down--down, to your knees, you skunk,” he said in a low, fierce voice. - -The knees of the big man bent,--Foyle had not taken lessons of Ogami, -the Jap, for nothing--they bent, and the cattleman squealed, so intense -was the pain. It was break or bend; and he bent--to the ground and lay -there. Foyle stood over him for a moment, a hard light in his eyes, and -then, as if bethinking himself, he looked at the other roisterers, and -said: - -“There’s a limit, and he reached it. Your mouths are your own, and you -can blow off to suit your fancy, but if any one thinks I’m a tame coyote -to be poked with a stick--!” He broke off, stooped over, and helped -the man before him to his feet. The arm had been strained, and the big -fellow nursed it. - -“Hell, but you’re a twister!” the cattleman said with a grimace of pain. - -Billy Goat was a gentleman, after his kind, and he liked Sergeant Foyle -with a great liking. He turned to the crowd and spoke. - -“Say, boys, this mine’s worked out. Let’s leave the Happy Land to Foyle. -Boys, what is he--what--is he? What--is--Sergeant Foyle--boys?” - -The roar of the song they all knew came in reply, as Billy Goat waved -his arms about like the wild leader of a wild orchestra: - - “Sergeant Foyle, oh, he’s a knocker from the West, - He’s a chase-me-Charley, come-and-kiss-me tiger from the zoo; - He’s a dandy on the pinch, and he’s got a double cinch - On the gent that’s going careless, and he’ll soon cinch you: - And he’ll soon--and he’ll soon--cinch you!” - -Foyle watched them go, dancing, stumbling, calling back at him, as they -moved towards the Prairie Home Hotel: - - “And he’ll soon-and he’ll soon-cinch you!” - -His under lip came out, his eyes half-closed, as he watched them. “I’ve -done my last cinch. I’ve done my last cinch,” he murmured. - -Then, suddenly, the look in his face changed, the eyes swam as they -had done a minute before at the sight of the girl in the room behind. -Whatever his trouble was, that face had obscured it in a flash, and -the pools of feeling far down in the depths of a lonely nature had been -stirred. Recognition, memory, tenderness, desire swam in his face, made -generous and kind the hard lines of the strong mouth. In an instant he -had swung himself over the window-sill. The girl had drawn away now into -a more shaded corner of the room, and she regarded him with a mingled -anxiety and eagerness. Was she afraid of something? Did she fear -that--she knew not quite what, but it had to do with a long ago. - -“It was time you hit out, Nett,” she said, half shyly. “You’re more -patient than you used to be, but you’re surer. My, that was a twist you -gave him, Nett. Aren’t you glad to see me?” she added hastily, and with -an effort to hide her agitation. - -He reached out and took her hand with a strange shyness, and a -self-consciousness which was alien to his nature. The touch of her hand -thrilled him. Their eyes met. She dropped hers. Then he gathered him -self together. “Glad to see you? Of course, of course, I’m glad. You -stunned me, Jo. Why, do you know where you are? You’re a thousand miles -from home. I can’t get it through my head, not really. What brings -you here? It’s ten years--ten years since I saw you, and you were only -fifteen, but a fifteen that was as good as twenty.” - -He scanned her face closely. “What’s that scar on your forehead, Jo? You -hadn’t that--then.” - -“I ran up against something,” she said evasively, her eyes glittering, -“and it left that scar. Does it look so bad?” - -“No, you’d never notice it, if you weren’t looking close as I am. You -see, I knew your face so well ten years ago.” - -He shook his head with a forced kind of smile. It became him, however, -for he smiled rarely; and the smile was like a lantern turned on his -face; it gave light and warmth to its quiet strength-or hardness. - -“You were always quizzing,” she said with an attempt at a laugh--“always -trying to find out things. That’s why you made them reckon with you out -here. You always could see behind things; always would have your own -way; always were meant to be a success.” - -She was beginning to get control of herself again, was trying hard to -keep things on the surface. “You were meant to succeed--you had to,” she -added. - -“I’ve been a failure--a dead failure,” he answered slowly. “So they say. -So they said. You heard them, Jo.” - -He jerked his head towards the open window. - -“Oh, those drunken fools!” she exclaimed indignantly, and her face -hardened. “How I hate drink! It spoils everything.” - -There was silence for a moment. They were both thinking of the same -thing--of the same man. He repeated a question. - -“What brings you out here, Jo?” he asked gently. “Dorland,” she -answered, her face setting into determination and anxiety. - -His face became pinched. “Dorl!” he said heavily. “What for, Jo? What do -you want with Dorl?” - -“When Cynthy died she left her five hundred dollars a year to the baby, -and--” - -“Yes, yes, I know. Well, Jo?” - -“Well, it was all right for five years--Dorland paid it in; but for five -years he hasn’t paid anything. He’s taken it, stolen it from his own -child by his own honest wife. I’ve come to get it--anyway, to stop him -from doing it any more. His own child--it puts murder in my heart, Nett! -I could kill him.” - -He nodded grimly. “That’s likely. And you’ve kept, Dorl’s child with -your own money all these years?” - -“I’ve got four hundred dollars a year, Nett, you know; and I’ve been -dressmaking--they say I’ve got taste,” she added, with a whimsical -smile. - -Nett nodded his head. “Five years. That’s twenty-five hundred dollars -he’s stolen from his own child. It’s eight years old now, isn’t it?” - -“Bobby is eight and a half,” she answered. - -“And his schooling, and his clothing, and everything; and you have to -pay for it all?” - -“Oh, I don’t mind, Nett, it isn’t that. Bobby is Cynthy’s child; and I -love him--love him; but I want him to have his rights. Dorl must give up -his hold on that money--or--” - -He nodded gravely. “Or you’ll set the law on him?” - -“It’s one thing or the other. Better to do it now when Bobby is young -and can’t understand.” - -“Or read the newspapers,” he commented thoughtfully. - -“I don’t think I’ve a hard heart,” she continued, “but I’d like to -punish him, if it wasn’t that he’s your brother, Nett; and if it wasn’t -for Bobby. Dorland was dreadfully cruel, even to Cynthy.” - -“How did you know he was up here?” he asked. “From the lawyer that pays -over the money. Dorland has had it sent out here to Kowatin this two -years. And he sent word to the lawyer a month ago that he wanted it to -get here as usual. The letter left the same day as I did, and it got -here yesterday with me, I suppose. He’ll be after it-perhaps to-day. He -wouldn’t let it wait long, Dorl wouldn’t.” - -Foyle started. “To-day--to-day--” - -There was a gleam in his eyes, a setting of the lips, a line sinking -into the forehead between the eyes. - -“I’ve been watching for him all day, and I’ll watch till he comes. I’m -going to say some things to him that he won’t forget. I’m going to get -Bobby’s money, or have the law do it--unless you think I’m a brute, -Nett.” She looked at him wistfully. - -“That’s all right. Don’t worry about me, Jo. He’s my brother, but I know -him--I know him through and through. He’s done everything that a man can -do and not be hanged. A thief, a drunkard, and a brute--and he killed a -man out here,” he added hoarsely. “I found it out myself--myself. It was -murder.” - -Suddenly, as he looked at her, an idea seemed to flash into his mind. -He came very near and looked at her closely. Then he reached over and -almost touched the scar on her forehead. - -“Did he do that, Jo?” - -For an instant she was silent and looked down at the floor. Presently -she raised her eyes, her face suffused. Once or twice she tried to -speak, but failed. At last she gained courage and said: - -“After Cynthy’s death I kept house for him for a year, taking care -of little Bobby. I loved Bobby so--he has Cynthy’s eyes. One day -Dorland--oh, Nett, of course I oughtn’t to have stayed there, I know it -now; but I was only sixteen, and what did I understand! And my mother -was dead. One day--oh, please, Nett, you can guess. He said something to -me. I made him leave the house. Before I could make plans what to do, he -came back mad with drink. I went for Bobby, to get out of the house, but -he caught hold of me. I struck him in the face, and he threw me against -the edge of the open door. It made the scar.” - -Foyle’s face was white. “Why did you never write and tell me that, Jo? -You know that I--” He stopped suddenly. - -“You had gone out of our lives down there. I didn’t know where you were -for a long time; and then--then it was all right about Bobby and me, -except that Bobby didn’t get the money that was his. But now--” - -Foyle’s voice was hoarse and low. “He made that scar, and he--and you -only sixteen--Oh, my God!” Suddenly his face reddened, and he choked -with shame and anger. “And he’s my brother!” was all that he could say. - -“Do you see him up here ever?” she asked pityingly. - -“I never saw him till a week ago.” A moment, then he added: “The letter -wasn’t to be sent here in his own name, was it?” - -She nodded. “Yes, in his own name, Dorland W. Foyle. Didn’t he go by -that name when you saw him?” - -There was an oppressive silence, in which she saw that something moved -him strangely, and then he answered: “No, he was going by the name of -Halbeck--Hiram Halbeck.” - -The girl gasped. Then the whole thing burst upon her. “Hiram Halbeck! -Hiram Halbeck, the thief--I read it all in the papers--the thief that -you caught, and that got away. And you’ve left the Mounted Police -because of it--oh, Nett!” Her eyes were full of tears, her face was -drawn and grey. - -He nodded. “I didn’t know who he was till I arrested him,” he said. -“Then, afterward, I thought of his child, and let him get away; and for -my poor old mother’s sake. She never knew how bad he was even as a -boy. But I remember how he used to steal and drink the brandy from her -bedside, when she had the fever. She never knew the worst of him. But -I let him away in the night, Jo, and I resigned, and they thought that -Halbeck had beaten me, had escaped. Of course I couldn’t stay in the -Force, having done that. But, by the heaven above us, if I had him here -now, I’d do the thing--do it, so help me God!” - -“Why should you ruin your life for him?” she said, with an outburst -of indignation. All that was in her heart welled up in her eyes at the -thought of what Foyle was. “You must not do it. You shall not do it. He -must pay for his wickedness, not you. It would be a sin. You and what -becomes of you mean so much.” Suddenly with a flash of purpose she -added: “He will come for that letter, Nett. He would run any kind of -risk to get a dollar. He will come here for that letter--perhaps today.” - -He shook his head moodily, oppressed by the trouble that was on him. -“He’s not likely to venture here, after what’s happened.” - -“You don’t know him as well as I do, Nett. He is so vain he’d do it, -just to show that he could. He’d’ probably come in the evening. Does any -one know him here? So many people pass through Kowatin every day. Has -any one seen him?” - -“Only Billy Goatry,” he answered, working his way to a solution of the -dark problem. “Only Billy Goatry knows him. The fellow that led the -singing--that was Goatry.” - -“There he is now,” he added, as Billy Goat passed the window. - -She came and laid a hand on his arm. “We’ve got to settle things with -him,” she said. “If Dorl comes, Nett--” - -There was silence for a moment, then he caught her hand in his and held -it. “If he comes, leave him to me, Jo. You will leave him to me?” he -added anxiously. - -“Yes,” she answered. “You’ll do what’s right-by Bobby?” - -“And by Dorl, too,” he replied strangely. There were loud footsteps -without. - -“It’s Goatry,” said Foyle. “You stay here. I’ll tell him everything. -He’s all right; he’s a true friend. He’ll not interfere.” - -The handle of the door turned slowly. “You keep watch on the -post-office, Jo,” he added. - -Goatry came round the opening door with a grin. “Hope I don’t intrude,” - he said, stealing a half-leering look at the girl. As soon as he saw her -face, however, he straightened himself up and took on different manners. -He had not been so intoxicated as he had made, out, and he seemed only -“mellow” as he stood before them, with his corrugated face and queer, -quaint look, the eye with the cast in it blinking faster than the other. - -“It’s all right, Goatry,” said Foyle. “This lady is, one of my family -from the East.” - -“Goin’ on by stage?” Goatry said vaguely, as they shook hands. - -She did not reply, for she was looking down the street, and presently -she started as she gazed. She laid a hand suddenly on Foyle’s arm. - -“See--he’s come,” she said in a whisper, and as though not realising -Goatry’s presence. “He’s come.” - -Goatry looked as well as Foyle. “Halbeck--the devil!” he said. - -Foyle turned to him. “Stand by, Goatry. I want you to keep a shut mouth. -I’ve work to do.” - -Goatry held out his hand. “I’m with you. If you get him this time, clamp -him, clamp him like a tooth in a harrow.” - -Halbeck had stopped his horse at the post-office door. Dismounting he -looked quickly round, then drew the reins over the horse’s head, letting -them trail, as is the custom of the West. - -A few swift words passed between Goatry and Foyle. “I’ll do this myself, -Jo,” he whispered to the girl presently. “Go into another room. I’ll -bring him here.” - -In another minute Goatry was leading the horse away from the -post-office, while Foyle stood waiting quietly at the door. The -departing footsteps of the horse brought Halbeck swiftly to the doorway, -with a letter in his hand. - -“Hi, there, you damned sucker!” he called after Goatry, and then saw -Foyle waiting. - -“What the hell--!” he said fiercely, his hand on something in his hip -pocket. - -“Keep quiet, Dorl. I want to have a little talk with you. Take your hand -away from that gun--take it away,” he added with a meaning not to be -misunderstood. - -Halbeck knew that one shout would have the town on him, and he did not -know what card his brother was going to play. He let his arm drop to his -side. “What’s your game? What do you want?” he asked surlily. - -“Come over to the Happy Land Hotel,” Foyle answered, and in the light of -what was in his mind his words had a grim irony. - -With a snarl Halbeck stepped out. Goatry, who had handed the horse over -to the hostler, watched them coming. - -“Why did I never notice the likeness before?” Goatry said to himself. -“But, gosh! what a difference in the men. Foyle’s going to double cinch -him this time, I guess.” - -He followed them inside the hall of the Happy Land. When they stepped -into the sitting-room, he stood at the door waiting. The hotel was -entirely empty, the roisterers at the Prairie Home having drawn off -the idlers and spectators. The barman was nodding behind the bar, the -proprietor was moving about in the backyard inspecting a horse. There -was a cheerful warmth everywhere, the air was like an elixir, the -pungent smell of a pine-tree at the door gave a kind of medicament to -the indrawn breath. And to Billy Goat, who sometimes sang in the choir -of a church not a hundred miles away--for people agreed to forget his -occasional sprees--there came, he knew not why, the words of a hymn he -had sung only the preceding Sunday: - - “As pants the hart for cooling streams, - When heated in the chase--” - -The words kept ringing in his ears as he listened to the conversation -inside the room--the partition was thin, the door thinner, and he heard -much. Foyle had asked him not to intervene, but only to stand by and -await the issue of this final conference. He meant, however, to take a -hand in, if he thought he was needed, and he kept his ear glued to the -door. If he thought Foyle needed him--his fingers were on the handle of -the door. - -“Now, hurry up! What do you want with me?” asked Halbeck of his brother. - -“Take your time,” said ex-Sergeant Foyle, as he drew the blind -three-quarters down, so that they could not be seen from the street. - -“I’m in a hurry, I tell you. I’ve got my plans. I’m going South. I’ve -only just time to catch the Canadian Pacific three days from now, riding -hard.” - -“You’re not going South, Dorl.” - -“Where am I going, then?” was the sneering reply. “Not farther than the -Happy Land.” - -“What the devil’s all this? You don’t mean you’re trying to arrest me -again, after letting me go?” - -“You don’t need to ask. You’re my prisoner. You’re my prisoner,” he said -in a louder voice--“until you free yourself.” - -“I’ll do that damn quick, then,” said the other, his hand flying to his -hip. - -“Sit down,” was the sharp rejoinder, and a pistol was in his face before -he could draw his own weapon. “Put your gun on the table,” Foyle said -quietly. Halbeck did so. There was no other way. - -Foyle drew it over to himself. His brother made a motion to rise. - -“Sit still, Dorl,” came the warning voice. - -White with rage, the freebooter sat still, his dissipated face and heavy -angry lips looking like a debauched and villainous caricature of his -brother before him. - -“Yes, I suppose you’d have potted me, Dorl,” said the ex-sergeant. - -“You’d have thought no more of doing that than you did of killing -Linley, the ranchman; than you did of trying to ruin Jo Byndon, your -wife’s sister, when she was sixteen years old, when she was caring for -your child--giving her life for the child you brought into the world.” - -“What in the name of hell--it’s a lie!” - -“Don’t bluster. I know the truth.” - -“Who told you-the truth?” - -“She did--to-day--an hour ago.” - -“She here--out here?” There was a new cowed note in the voice. - -“She is in the next room.” - -“What did she come here for?” - -“To make you do right by your own child. I wonder what a jury of decent -men would think about a man who robbed his child for five years, and -let that child be fed and clothed and cared for by the girl he tried to -destroy, the girl he taught what sin there was in the world.” - -“She put you up to this. She was always in love with you, and you know -it.” - -There was a dangerous look in Foyle’s eyes, and his jaw set hard. “There -would be no shame in a decent woman caring for me, even if it was -true. I haven’t put myself outside the boundary as you have. You’re -my brother, but you’re the worst scoundrel in the country--the worst -unhanged. Put on the table there the letter in your pocket. It holds -five hundred dollars belonging to your child. There’s twenty-five -hundred dollars more to be accounted for.” - -The other hesitated, then with an oath threw the letter on the table. -“I’ll pay the rest as soon as I can, if you’ll stop this damned -tomfoolery,” he said sullenly, for he saw that he was in a hole. - -“You’ll pay it, I suppose, out of what you stole from the C.P.R. -contractor’s chest. No, I don’t think that will do.” - -“You want me to go to prison, then?” - -“I think not. The truth would come out at the trial--the whole -truth--the murder, and all. There’s your child Bobby. You’ve done him -enough wrong already. Do you want him--but it doesn’t matter whether -you do or not--do you want him to carry through life the fact that his -father was a jail-bird and a murderer, just as Jo Byndon carries the -scar you made when you threw her against the door?” - -“What do you want with me, then?” The man sank slowly and heavily back -into the chair. - -“There is a way--have you never thought of it? When you threatened -others as you did me, and life seemed such a little thing in -others--can’t you think?” - -Bewildered, the man looked around helplessly. In the silence which -followed Foyle’s words his brain was struggling to see a way out. -Foyle’s further words seemed to come from a great distance. - -“It’s not too late to do the decent thing. You’ll never repent of all -you’ve done; you’ll never do different.” - -The old reckless, irresponsible spirit revived in the man; he had both -courage and bravado, he was not hopeless yet of finding an escape from -the net. He would not beg, he would struggle. - -“I’ve lived as I meant to, and I’m not going to snivel or repent now. -It’s all a rotten business, anyhow,” he rejoined. - -With a sudden resolution the ex-sergeant put his own pistol in his -pocket, then pushed Halbeck’s pistol over towards him on the table. -Halbeck’s eyes lighted eagerly, grew red with excitement, then a change -passed over them. They now settled on the pistol, and stayed. He heard -Foyle’s voice. “It’s with you to do what you ought to do. Of course -you can kill me. My pistol’s in my pocket. But I don’t think you will. -You’ve murdered one man. You won’t load your soul up with another. -Besides, if you kill me, you will never get away from Kowatin alive. But -it’s with you--take your choice. It’s me or you.” - -Halbeck’s fingers crept out and found the pistol. “Do your duty, Dorl,” - said the ex-sergeant as he turned his back on his brother. - -The door of the room opened, and Goatry stepped inside softly. He had -work to do, if need be, and his face showed it. Halbeck did not see him. - -There was a demon in Halbeck’s eyes, as his brother stood, his back -turned, taking his chances. A large mirror hung on the wall opposite -Halbeck. Goatry was watching Halbeck’s face in the glass, and saw the -danger. He measured his distance. - -All at once Halbeck caught Goatry’s face in the mirror. The dark devilry -faded out of his eyes. His lips moved in a whispered oath. Every way was -blocked. - -With a sudden wild resolution he raised the pistol to his head. It -cracked, and he fell back heavily in the chair. There was a red trickle -at the temple. - -He had chosen the best way out. - -“He had the pluck,” said Goatry, as Foyle swung round with a face of -misery. - -A moment afterward came a rush of people. Goatry kept them back. - -“Sergeant Foyle arrested Halbeck, and Halbeck’s shot himself,” Goatry -explained to them. - -A white-faced girl with a scar on her temple made her way into the room. - -“Come away-come away, Jo,” said the voice of the man she loved; and he -did not let her see the lifeless figure in the chair. - -Three days later the plains swallowed them, as they made their way with -Billy Goatry to the headquarters of the Riders of the Plains, where -Sergeant Foyle was asked to reconsider his resignation: which he did. - - - - -THE WHISPERER - - “And thou shalt be brought down and shalt speak out of the ground, - and thy speech shall be low out of the dust, and thy voice shall be - as of one that hath a familiar spirit out of the ground, and thy - speech shall whisper out of the dust.” - -The harvest was all in, and, as far as eye could observe nothing -remained of the golden sea of wheat which had covered the wide prairie -save the yellow stubble, the bed of an ocean of wealth which had been -gathered. Here, the yellow level was broken by a dark patch of fallow -land, there, by a covert of trees also tinged with yellow, or deepening -to crimson and mauve--the harbinger of autumn. The sun had not the -insistent and intensive strength of more southerly climes; it was -buoyant, confident and heartening, and it shone in a turquoise vault -which covered and endeared the wide, even world beneath. Now and then -a flock of wild ducks whirred past, making for the marshes or the -innumerable lakes that vitalised the expanse, or buzzards hunched -heavily along, frightened from some far resort by eager sportsmen. - -That was above; but beneath, on a level with the unlifted eye, were -houses here and there, looking in the vastness like dolls’ habitations. -Many of the houses stood blank and staring in the expanse, but some -had trees, and others little oases of green. Everywhere prosperity, -everywhere the strings of life pulled taut, signs that energy had been -straining on the leash. - -Yet there was one spot where it seemed that deadness made encampment. It -could not be seen in the sweep of the eye, you must have travelled and -looked vigilantly to find it; but it was there--a lake shimmering in the -eager sun, washing against a reedy shore, a little river running into -the reedy lake at one end and out at, the other, a small, dilapidated -house half hid in a wood that stretched for half a mile or so upon a -rising ground. In front of the house, not far from the lake, a man was -lying asleep upon the ground, a rough felt hat drawn over his eyes. - -Like the house, the man seemed dilapidated also: a slovenly, -ill-dressed, demoralised figure he looked, even with his face covered. -He seemed in a deep sleep. Wild ducks settled on the lake not far from -him with a swish and flutter; a coyote ran past, veering as it saw the -recumbent figure; a prairie hen rustled by with a shrill cluck, but he -seemed oblivious to all. If asleep, he was evidently dreaming, for now -and then he started, or his body twitched, and a muttering came from -beneath the hat. - -The battered house, the absence of barn or stable or garden, or any -token of thrift or energy, marked the man as an excrescence in this -theatre of hope and fruitful toil. It all belonged to some degenerate -land, some exhausted civilisation, not to this field of vigour where -life rang like silver. - -So the man lay for hour upon hour. He slept as though he had been upon a -long journey in which the body was worn to helplessness. Or was it that -sleep of the worn-out spirit which, tortured by remembrance and -remorse, at last sinks into the depths where the conscious vexes the -unconscious--a little of fire, a little of ice, and now and then the -turn of the screw? - -The day marched nobly on towards evening, growing out of its blue and -silver into a pervasive golden gleam; the bare, greyish houses on the -prairie were transformed into miniature palaces of light. Presently a -girl came out of the woods behind, looking at the neglected house with a -half-pitying curiosity. She carried in one hand a fishing rod which -had been telescoped till it was no bigger than a cane; in the other she -carried a small fishing basket. Her father’s shooting and fishing camp -was a few miles away by a lake of greater size than this which she -approached. She had tired of the gay company in camp, brought up for -sport from beyond the American border where she also belonged, and she -had come to explore the river running into this reedy lake. She turned -from the house and came nearer to the lake, shaking her head, as though -compassionating the poor, folk who lived there. She was beautiful. Her -hair was brown, going to tawny, but in this soft light which enwrapped -her, she was in a sort of topaz flame. As she came on, suddenly she -stopped as though transfixed. She saw the man--and saw also a tragedy -afoot. - -The man stirred violently in his sleep, cried out, and started up. As -he did so, a snake, disturbed in its travel past him, suddenly raised -itself in anger. Startled out of sleep by some inner torture, the man -heard the sinister rattle he knew so well, and gazed paralysed. - -The girl had been but a few feet away when she first saw the man and -his angry foe. An instant, then, with the instinct of the woods and the -plains, and the courage that has habitation everywhere, dropping her -basket she sprang forward noiselessly. The short, telescoped fishing rod -she carried swung round her head and completed its next half-circle at -the head of the reptile, even as it was about to strike. The blow was -sure, and with half-severed head the snake fell dead upon the ground -beside the man. - -He was like one who has been projected from one world to another, dazed, -stricken, fearful. Presently the look of agonised dismay gave way to -such an expression of relief as might come upon the face of a reprieved -victim about to be given to the fire, or to the knife that flays. The -place of dreams from which he had emerged was like hell, and this was -some world of peace that he had not known these many years. Always one -had been at his elbow--“a familiar spirit out of the ground”--whispering -in his ear. He had been down in the abysses of life. - -He glanced again at the girl, and realised what she had done: she had -saved his life. Whether it had been worth saving was another question; -but he had been near to the brink, had looked in, and the animal in -him had shrunk back from the precipice in a confused agony of fear. He -staggered to his feet. - -“Where do you come from?” he said, pulling his coat closer to hide the -ragged waistcoat underneath, and adjusting his worn and dirty hat--in -his youth he had been vain and ambitious and good-looking also. - -He asked his question in no impertinent tone, but in the low voice of -one who “shall whisper out of the dust.” He had not yet recovered from -the first impression of his awakening, that the world in which he now -stood was not a real world. - -She understood, and half in pity and half in conquered repugnance said: - -“I come from a camp beyond”--she indicated the direction by a -gesture. “I had been fishing”--she took up the basket--“and chanced on -you--then.” She glanced at the snake significantly. - -“You killed it in the nick of time,” he said, in a voice that still -spoke of the ground, but with a note of half-shamed gratitude. “I want -to thank you,” he added. “You were brave. It would have turned on you -if you had missed. I know them. I’ve killed five.” He spoke very slowly, -huskily. - -“Well, you are safe--that is the chief thing,” she rejoined, making -as though to depart. But presently she turned back. “Why are you so -dreadfully poor--and everything?” she asked gently. - -His eye wandered over the lake and back again before he answered her, -in a dull, heavy tone: “I’ve had bad luck, and, when you get down, there -are plenty to kick you farther.” - -“You weren’t always poor as you are now--I mean long ago, when you were -young.” - -“I’m not so old,” he rejoined sluggishly--“only thirty-four.” - -She could not suppress her astonishment. She looked at the hair already -grey, the hard, pinched face, the lustreless eyes. - -“Yet it must seem long to you,” she said with meaning. Now he laughed--a -laugh sodden and mirthless. He was thinking of his boyhood. Everything, -save one or two spots all fire or all darkness, was dim in his -debilitated mind. - -“Too far to go back,” he said, with a gleam of the intelligence which -had been strong in him once. - -She caught the gleam. She had wisdom beyond her years. It was the -greater because her mother was dead, and she had had so much wealth to -dispense, for her father was rich beyond counting, and she controlled -his household, and helped to regulate his charities. She saw that he was -not of the labouring classes, that he had known better days; his speech, -if abrupt and cheerless, was grammatical. - -“If you cannot go back, you can go forwards,” she said firmly. “Why -should you be the only man in this beautiful land who lives like this, -who is idle when there is so much to do, who sleeps in the daytime when -there is so much time to sleep at night?” - -A faint flush came on the greyish, colourless face. “I don’t sleep at -night,” he returned moodily. - -“Why don’t you sleep?” she asked. - -He did not answer, but stirred the body of the snake with his foot. The -tail moved; he stamped upon the head with almost frenzied violence, out -of keeping with his sluggishness. - -She turned away, yet looked back once more--she felt tragedy around her. -“It is never too late to mend,” she said, and moved on, but stopped; for -a young man came running from the woods towards her. - -“I’ve had a hunt--such a hunt for you,” the young man said eagerly, -then stopped short when he saw to whom she had been talking. A look of -disgust came upon his face as he drew her away, his hand on her arm. - -“In Heaven’s name, why did you talk to that man?” he said. “You ought -not to have trusted yourself near him.” - -“What has he done?” she asked. “Is he so bad?” - -“I’ve heard about him. I inquired the other day. He was once in a better -position as a ranchman--ten years ago; but he came into some money one -day, and he changed at once. He never had a good character; even -before he got his money he used to gamble, and was getting a bad name. -Afterwards he began drinking, and he took to gambling harder than ever. -Presently his money all went and he had to work; but his bad habits had -fastened on him, and now he lives from hand to mouth, sometimes working -for a month, sometimes idle for months. There’s something sinister about -him, there’s some mystery; for poverty or drink even--and he doesn’t -drink much now--couldn’t make him what he is. He doesn’t seek company, -and he walks sometimes endless miles talking to himself, going as hard -as he can. How did you come to speak to him, Grace?” - -She told him all, with a curious abstraction in her voice, for she was -thinking of the man from a standpoint which her companion could not -realise. She was also trying to verify something in her memory. Ten -years ago, so her lover had just said, the poor wretch behind them had -been a different man; and there had shot into her mind the face of a -ranchman she had seen with her father, the railway king, one evening -when his “special” had stopped at a railway station on his tour through -Montana--ten years ago. Why did the face of the ranchman which had fixed -itself on her memory then, because he had come on the evening of her -birthday and had spoiled it for her, having taken her father away from -her for an hour--why did his face come to her now? What had it to do -with the face of this outcast she had just left? - -“What is his name?” she asked at last. - -“Roger Lygon,” he answered. - -“Roger Lygon,” she repeated mechanically. Something in the man chained -her thought--his face that moment when her hand saved him and the awful -fear left him, and a glimmer of light came into his eyes. - -But her lover beside her broke into song. He was happy with her. -Everything was before him, her beauty, her wealth, herself. He could not -dwell upon dismal things; his voice rang out on the sharp sweet evening -air: - - “‘Oh, where did you get them, the bonny, bonny roses - That blossom in your cheeks, and the morning in your eyes?’ - ‘I got them on the North Trail, the road that never closes, - That widens to the seven gold gates of paradise.’ - ‘O come, let us camp in the North Trail together, - With the night-fires lit and the tent-pegs down.’” - -Left alone, the man by the reedy lake stood watching them until they -were out of view. The song came back to him, echoing across the waters: - - “O come, let us camp on the North Trail together, - With the night-fires lit and the tent-pegs down.” - -The sunset glow, the girl’s presence, had given him a moment’s illusion, -had absorbed him for a moment, acting on his deadened nature like a -narcotic at once soothing and stimulating. As some wild animal in -a forgotten land, coming upon ruins of a vast civilisation, towers, -temples, and palaces, in the golden glow of an Eastern evening, stands -abashed and vaguely wondering, having neither reason to understand, nor -feeling to enjoy, yet is arrested and abashed, so he stood. He had lived -the last three years so much alone, had been cut off so completely from -his kind--had lived so much alone. Yet to-night, at last, he would not -be alone. - -Some one was coming to-night, some one whom he had not seen for a long -time. Letters had passed, the object of the visit had been defined, and -he had spent the intervening days since the last letter had arrived, now -agitated, now apathetic and sullen, now struggling with some invisible -being that kept whispering in his ear, saying to him, “It was the price -of fire, and blood, and shame. You did it--you--you--you! You are down, -and you will never get up. You can only go lower still--fire, and blood, -and shame!” - -Criminal as he was he had never become hardened, he had only become -degraded. Crime was not his vocation. He had no gift for it; still the -crime he had committed had never been discovered--the crime that he -did with others. There were himself and Dupont and another. Dupont was -coming to-night--Dupont who had profited by the crime, and had not spent -his profits, but had built upon them to further profit; for Dupont was -avaricious and prudent, and a born criminal. Dupont had never had any -compunctions or remorse, had never lost a night’s sleep because of what -they two had done, instigated thereto by the other, who had paid them so -well for the dark thing. - -The other was Henderley, the financier. He was worse perhaps than -Dupont, for he was in a different sphere of life, was rich beyond -counting, and had been early nurtured in quiet Christian surroundings. -The spirit of ambition, rivalry, and the methods of a degenerate and -cruel finance had seized him, mastered him; so that, under the cloak -of power--as a toreador hides the blade under the red cloth before his -enemy the toro--he held a sword of capital which did cruel and vicious -things, at last becoming criminal also. Henderley had incited and paid; -the others, Dupont and Lygon, had acted and received. Henderley had had -no remorse, none at any rate that weighed upon him; for he had got used -to ruining rivals, and seeing strong men go down, and those who had -fought him come to beg or borrow of him in the end. He had seen more -than one commit suicide, and those they loved go down and farther down, -and he had helped these up a little, but not enough to put them near his -own plane again; and he could not see--it never occurred to him--that he -had done any evil to them. Dupont thought upon his crimes now and then, -and his heart hardened, for he had no moral feeling; Henderley did -not think at all. It was left to the man of the reedy lake to pay the -penalty of apprehension, to suffer the effects of crime upon a nature -not naturally criminal. - -Again and again, how many hundreds of times, had Roger Lygon seen in -his sleep--had even seen awake so did hallucination possess him--the new -cattle trail he had fired for scores of miles. The fire had destroyed -the grass over millions of acres, two houses had been burned and three -people had lost their lives; all to satisfy the savage desire of one -man, to destroy the chance of a cattle trade over a great section of -country for the railway which was to compete with his own--an act which, -in the end, was futile, failed of its purpose. Dupont and Lygon had been -paid their price, and had disappeared, and been forgotten--they were but -pawns in his game--and there was no proof against Henderley. Henderley -had forgotten. Lygon wished to forget, but Dupont remembered, and meant -now to reap fresh profit by the remembrance. - -Dupont was coming to-night, and the hatchet of crime was to be dug up -again. So it had been planned. As the shadows fell, Lygon roused himself -from his trance with a shiver. It was not cold, but in him there was a -nervous agitation, making him cold from head to foot; his body seemed -as impoverished as his mind. Looking with heavy-lidded eyes across the -prairie, he saw in the distance the barracks of the Riders of the Plains -and the jail near by, and his shuddering ceased. There was where he -belonged, within four stone walls; yet here he was free to go where he -willed, to live as he willed, with no eye upon him. With no eye upon -him? There was no eye, but there was the Whisperer whom he could never -drive away. Morning and night he heard the words, “You--you--you! Fire, -and blood, and shame!” He had snatched sleep when he could find it, -after long, long hours of tramping over the plains, ostensibly to shoot -wild fowl, but in truth to bring on a great bodily fatigue--and sleep. -His sleep only came then in the first watches of the night. As the night -wore on the Whisperer began again, as the cloud of weariness lifted a -little from him, and the senses were released from the heavy sedative of -unnatural exertion. - - ......................... - -The dusk deepened. The moon slowly rose. He cooked his scanty meal, and -took a deep draught from a horn of whiskey from beneath a board in the -flooring. He had not the courage to face Dupont without it, nor yet -to forget what he must forget, if he was to do the work Dupont came -to arrange--he must forget the girl who had saved his life and the -influence of those strange moments in which she had spoken down to him, -in the abyss where he had been lying. - -He sat in the doorway, a fire gleaming behind him; he drank in the good -air as though his lungs were thirsty for it, and saw the silver glitter -of the moon upon the water. Not a breath of wind stirred, and the -shining path the moon made upon the reedy lake fascinated his eye. -Everything was so still except that whisper louder in his ear than it -had ever been before. - -Suddenly, upon the silver path upon the lake there shot a silent canoe, -with a figure as silently paddling towards him. He gazed for a moment -dismayed, and then got to his feet with a jerk. - -“Dupont,” he said mechanically. - -The canoe swished among the reeds and rushes, scraped on the shore, and -a tall, burly figure sprang from it, and stood still, looking at the -house. - -“Qui reste la--Lygon?” he asked. - -“Dupont,” was the nervous, hesitating reply. Dupont came forwards -quickly. “Ah, ben, here we are again--so,” he grunted cheerily. - -Entering the house they sat before the fire, holding their hands to the -warmth from force of habit, though the night was not cold. - -“Ben, you will do it to-night--then?” Dupont said. “Sacre, it is time!” - -“Do what?” rejoined the other heavily. - -An angry light leapt into Dupont’s eyes. “You not unnerstan’ my -letters-bah! You know it all right, so queeck.” - -The other remained silent, staring into the fire with wide, searching -eyes. - -Dupont put a hand on him. “You ketch my idee queeck. We mus’ have more -money from that Henderley--certainlee. It is ten years, and he t’ink -it is all right. He t’ink we come no more becos’ he give five t’ousan’ -dollars to us each. That was to do the t’ing, to fire the country. -Now we want another ten t’ousan’ to us each, to forget we do it for -him--hein?” - -Still there was no reply. Dupont went on, watching the other furtively, -for he did not like this silence. But he would not resent it till he was -sure there was good cause. - -“It comes to suit us. He is over there at the Old Man Lak’, where you -can get at him easy, not like in the city where he lif’. Over in the -States, he laugh mebbe, becos’ he is at home, an’ can buy off the law. -But here--it is Canadaw, an’ they not care eef he have hunder’ meellion -dollar. He know that--sure. Eef you say you not care a dam to go to -jail, so you can put him there, too, becos’ you have not’ing, an’ so dam -seeck of everyt’ing, he will t’ink ten t’ousan’ dollar same as one cent -to Nic Dupont--ben sur!” - -Lygon nodded his head, still holding his hands to the blaze. With ten -thousand dollars he could get away into--into another world somewhere, -some world where he could forget; as he forgot for a moment this -afternoon when the girl said to him, “It is never too late to mend.” - -Now as he thought of her, he pulled his coat together, and arranged the -rough scarf at his neck involuntarily. Ten thousand dollars--but ten -thousand dollars by blackmail, hush-money, the reward of fire, and -blood, and shame! Was it to go on? Was he to commit a new crime? - -He stirred, as though to shake off the net that he felt twisting round -him, in the hands of the robust and powerful Dupont, on whom crime -sat so lightly, who had flourished while he, Lygon, had gone lower and -lower. Ten years ago he had been the better man, had taken the lead, was -the master, Dupont the obedient confederate, the tool. Now, Dupont, once -the rough river-driver, grown prosperous in a large way for him--who -might yet be mayor of his town in Quebec--he held the rod of rule. Lygon -was conscious that the fifty dollars sent him every New Year for five -years by Dupont had been sent with a purpose, and that he was now -Dupont’s tool. Debilitated, demoralised, how could he, even if he -wished, struggle against this powerful confederate, as powerful in will -as in body? Yet if he had his own way he would not go to Henderley. He -had lived with “a familiar spirit” so long, he feared the issue of this -next excursion into the fens of crime. - -Dupont was on his feet now. “He will be here only three days more--I haf -find it so. To-night it mus’ be done. As we go I will tell you what -to say. I will wait at the Forks, an’ we will come back togedder. His -cheque will do. Eef he gif at all, the cheque is all right. He will -not stop it. Eef he haf the money, it is better--sacre--yes. Eef he not -gif--well, I will tell you, there is the other railway man he try -to hurt, how would he like--But I will tell you on the river. -Main’enant--queeck, we go.” - -Without a word Lygon took down another coat and put it on. Doing so he -concealed a weapon quickly as Dupont stooped to pick a coal for his pipe -from the blaze. Lygon had no fixed purpose in taking a weapon with him; -it was only a vague instinct of caution that moved him. - -In the canoe on the river, in an almost speechless apathy, he heard -Dupont’s voice giving him instructions. - - ....................... - -Henderley, the financier, had just finished his game of whist and -dismissed his friends--it was equivalent to dismissal, rough yet genial -as he seemed to be, so did immense wealth and its accompanying power -affect his relations with those about him. In everything he was -“considered.” He was in good humour, for he had won all the evening, and -with a smile he rubbed his hands among the notes--three thousand dollars -it was. It was like a man with a pocket full of money, chuckling over -a coin he has found in the street. Presently he heard a rustle of the -inner tent-curtain and swung round. He faced the man from the reedy -lake. - -Instinctively he glanced round for a weapon, mechanically his hands -firmly grasped the chair in front of him. - -He had been in danger of his life many times, and he had no fear. He had -been threatened with assassination more than once, and he had got used -to the idea of danger; life to him was only a game. - -He kept his nerve; he did not call out; he looked his visitor in the -eyes. - -“What are you doing here? Who are you?” he said. - -“Don’t you know me?” answered Lygon, gazing intently at him. - -Face to face with the man who had tempted him to crime, Lygon had a new -sense of boldness, a sudden feeling of reprisal, a rushing desire to put -the screw upon him. At sight of this millionaire with the pile of notes -before him there vanished the sickening hesitation of the afternoon, of -the journey with Dupont. The look of the robust, healthy financier was -like acid in a wound; it maddened him. - -“You will know me better soon,” Lygon added, his head twitching with -excitement. - -Henderley recognised him now. He gripped the armchair spasmodically, -but presently regained a complete composure. He knew the game that was -forward here; and he also thought that if once he yielded to blackmail -there would never be an end to it. He made no pretence, but came -straight to the point. - -“You can do nothing; there is no proof,” he said with firm assurance. - -“There is Dupont,” answered Lygon doggedly. - -“Who is Dupont?” - -“The French Canadian who helped me--I divided with him.” - -“You said the man who helped you died. You wrote that to me. I suppose -you are lying now.” - -Henderley coolly straightened the notes on the table, smoothing out -the wrinkles, arranging them according to their denominations with an -apparently interested eye; yet he was vigilantly watching the outcast -before him. To yield to blackmail would be fatal; not to yield to it--he -could not see his way. He had long ago forgotten the fire, and blood, -and shame. No Whisperer reminded him of that black page in the history -of his life; he had been immune of conscience. He could not understand -this man before him. It was as bad a case of human degradation as ever -he had seen--he remembered the stalwart, if dissipated, ranchman who had -acted on his instigation. He knew now that he had made a foolish blunder -then, that the scheme had been one of his failures; but he had never -looked on it as with eyes reproving crime. As a hundred thoughts tending -towards the solution of the problem by which he was faced, flashed -through his mind, and he rejected them all, he repeated mechanically the -phrase, “I suppose you are lying now.” - -“Dupont is here--not a mile away,” was the reply. “He will give proof. -He would go to jail or to the gallows to put you there, if you do not -pay. He is a devil--Dupont.” - -Still the great man could not see his way out. He must temporise for a -little longer, for rashness might bring scandal or noise; and near by -was his daughter, the apple of his eye. - -“What do you want? How much did you figure you could get out of me, if I -let you bleed me?” he asked sneeringly and coolly. “Come now, how much?” - -Lygon, in whom a blind hatred of the man still raged, was about to -reply, when he heard a voice calling, “Daddy, Daddy!” - -Suddenly the red, half-insane light died down in Lygon’s eyes. He saw -the snake upon the ground by the reedy lake, the girl standing over -it--the girl with the tawny hair. This was her voice. - -Henderley had made a step towards a curtain opening into another room -of the great tent, but before he could reach it the curtain was pushed -back, and the girl entered with a smile. - -“May I come in?” she said; then stood still astonished; seeing Lygon. - -“Oh!” she exclaimed. “Oh--you!” - -All at once a look came into her face which stirred it as a flying -insect stirs the water of a pool. On the instant she remembered that she -had seen the man before. - -It was ten years ago in Montana on the night of her birthday. Her father -had been called away to talk with this man, and she had seen him from -the steps of the “special.” It was only the caricature of the once -strong, erect ranchman that she saw, but there was no mistake, she -recognised him now. - -Lygon, dumfounded, looked from her to her father, and he saw now in -Henderley’s eyes a fear that was not to be misunderstood. - -Here was where Henderley could be smitten, could be brought to his -knees. It was the vulnerable part of him. Lygon could see that he was -stunned. The great financier was in his power. He looked back again to -the girl, and her face was full of trouble. - -A sharp suspicion was in her heart that somehow or other her father was -responsible for this man’s degradation and ruin. She looked Lygon in the -eyes. - -“Did you want to see me?” she asked. - -She scarcely knew why she said it; but she was sensible of trouble, -maybe of tragedy, somewhere; and she had a vague dread of she knew not -what, for hide it, avoid it, as she had done so often, there was in her -heart an unhappy doubt concerning her father. - -A great change had come over Lygon. Her presence had altered him. He was -again where she had left him in the afternoon. - -He heard her say to her father, “This was the man I told you of--at the -reedy lake. Did you come to see me?” she repeated. - -“I did not know you were here,” he answered. “I came”--he was conscious -of Henderley’s staring eyes fixed upon him helplessly--“I came to ask -your father if he would not buy my shack. There is good shooting at the -lake; the ducks come plenty, sometimes. I want to get away, to start -again somewhere. I’ve been a failure. I want to get away, right away -south. If he would buy it I could start again. I’ve had no luck.” He had -invented it on the moment, but the girl understood better than Lygon or -Henderley could have dreamed. She had seen the change pass over Lygon. -Henderley had a hand on himself again, and the startled look went out of -his eyes. - -“What do you want for your shack and the lake?” he asked with restored -confidence. The fellow no doubt was grateful that his daughter had saved -his life, he thought. - -“Five hundred dollars,” answered Lygon quickly. Henderley would have -handed over all that lay on the table before him but that he thought it -better not to do so. “I’ll buy it,” he said. “You seem to have been hit -hard. Here is the money. Bring me the deed to-morrow--to-morrow.” - -“I’ll not take the money till I give you the deed,” said Lygon. “It will -do to-morrow. It’s doing me a good turn. I’ll get away and start again -somewhere. I’ve done no good up here. Thank you, sir--thank you.” Before -they realised it, the tent-curtain rose and fell, and he was gone into -the night. - -The trouble was still deep in the girl’s eyes as she kissed her father, -and he, with an overdone cheerfulness, wished her a good night. - -The man of iron had been changed into a man of straw once at least in -his lifetime. - -Lygon found Dupont at the Forks. - -“Eh ben, it is all right--yes?” Dupont asked eagerly as Lygon joined -him. - -“Yes, it is all right,” answered Lygon. - -With an exulting laugh and an obscene oath, Dupont pushed out the -canoe, and they got away into the moonlight. No word was spoken for some -distance, but Dupont kept giving grunts of satisfaction. - -“You got the ten t’ousan’ each--in cash or cheque, eh? The cheque or the -money-hein?” - -“I’ve got nothing,” answered Lygon. Dupont dropped his paddle with a -curse. - -“You got not’ing! You said eet was all right,” he growled. - -“It is all right. I got nothing. I asked for nothing. I have had enough. -I have finished.” - -With a roar of rage Dupont sprang on him, and caught him by the throat -as the canoe swayed and dipped. He was blind with fury. - -Lygon tried with one hand for his knife, and got it, but the pressure on -his throat was growing terrible. For minutes the struggle continued, for -Lygon was fighting with the desperation of one who makes his last awful -onset against fate and doom. - -Dupont also had his knife at work. At last it drank blood, but as he got -it home, he suddenly reeled blindly, lost his balance, and lurched into -the water with a groan. - -Lygon, weapon in hand, and bleeding freely, waited for him to rise and -make for the canoe again. - -Ten, twenty, fifty seconds passed. Dupont did not rise. A minute went -by, and still there was no stir, no sign. Dupont would never rise again. -In his wild rage he had burst a blood vessel on the brain. - -Lygon bound up his reeking wound as best he could. He did--it calmly, -whispering to himself the while. - -“I must do it. I must get there if I can. I will not be afraid to die -then,” he muttered to himself. Presently he grasped an oar and paddled -feebly. - -A slight wind had risen, and, as he turned the boat in to face the Forks -again, it helped to carry the canoe to the landing-place. - -Lygon dragged himself out. He did not try to draw the canoe up, but -began this journey of a mile back to the tent he had left so recently. -First, step by step, leaning against trees, drawing himself forwards, -a journey as long to his determined mind as from youth to age. Would it -never end? It seemed a terrible climbing up the sides of a cliff, and, -as he struggled fainting on, all sorts of sounds were in his ears, but -he realised that the Whisperer was no longer there. The sounds he heard -did not torture, they helped his stumbling feet. They were like the -murmur of waters, like the sounds of the forest and soft, booming bells. -But the bells were only the beatings of his heart-so loud, so swift. - -He was on his knees now crawling on-on-on. At last there came a light, -suddenly bursting on him from a tent, he was so near. Then he called, -and called again, and fell forwards on his face. But now he heard a -voice above him. It was her voice. He had blindly struggled on to die -near her, near where she was, she was so pitiful and good. - -He had accomplished his journey, and her voice was speaking above him. -There were other voices, but it was only hers that he heard. - -“God help him--oh, God help him!” she was saying. He drew a long quiet -breath. “I will sleep now,” he said clearly. - -He would hear the Whisperer no more. - - - - -AS DEEP AS THE SEA - -“What can I do, Dan? I’m broke, too. My last dollar went to pay my last -debt to-day. I’ve nothing but what I stand in. I’ve got prospects, but -I can’t discount prospects at the banks.” The speaker laughed bitterly. -“I’ve reaped and I’m sowing, the same as you, Dan.” - -The other made a nervous motion of protest. “No; not the same as me, -Flood--not the same. It’s sink or swim with me, and if you can’t help -me--oh, I’d take my gruel without whining, if it wasn’t for Di! It’s -that knocks me over. It’s the shame to her. Oh, what a cursed ass and -fool--and thief, I’ve been!” - -“Thief-thief?” - -Flood Rawley dropped the flaming match with which he was about to light -a cheroot, and stood staring, his dark-blue eyes growing wider, his -worn, handsome face becoming drawn, as swift conviction mastered him. He -felt that the black words which had fallen from his friend’s lips--from -the lips of Diana Welldon’s brother--were the truth. He looked at -the plump face, the full amiable eyes, now misty with fright, at the -characterless hand nervously feeling the golden moustache, at the -well-fed, inert body; and he knew that whatever the trouble or the -peril, Dan Welldon could not surmount it alone. - -“What is it?” Rawley asked rather sharply, his fingers running through -his slightly grizzled, black hair, but not excitedly, for he wanted -no scenes; and if this thing could hurt Di Welldon, and action was -necessary, he must remain cool. What she was to him, Heaven and he only -knew; what she had done for him, perhaps neither understood fully as -yet. “What is it--quick?” he added, and his words were like a sharp grip -upon Dan Welldon’s shoulder. “Racing--cards?” - -Dan nodded. “Yes, over at Askatoon; five hundred on Jibway, the -favourite--he fell at the last fence; five hundred at poker with Nick -Fison; and a thousand in land speculation at Edmonton, on margin. -Everything went wrong.” - -“And so you put your hand in the railway company’s money-chest?” - -“It seemed such a dead certainty--Jibway; and the Edmonton -corner-blocks, too. I’d had luck with Nick before; but--well, there it -is, Flood.” - -“They know--the railway people--Shaughnessy knows?” - -“Yes, the president knows. He’s at Calgary now. They telegraphed him, -and he wired to give me till midnight to pay up, or go to jail. They’re -watching me now. I can’t stir. There’s no escape, and there’s no one I -can ask for help but you. That’s why I’ve come, Flood.” - -“Lord, what a fool! Couldn’t you see what the end would be, if your -plunging didn’t come off? You--you oughtn’t to bet, or speculate, or -play cards, you’re not clever enough. You’ve got blind rashness, and -so you think you’re bold. And Di--oh, you idiot! And on a salary of a -thousand dollars a year!” - -“I suppose Di would help me; but I couldn’t explain.” The weak face -puckered, a lifeless kind of tear gathered in the ox-like eyes. - -“Yes, she probably would help you. She’d probably give you all she’s -saved to go to Europe with and study, saved from her pictures sold at -twenty per cent of their value; and she’d mortgage the little income -she’s got to keep her brother out of jail. Of course she would, and of -course you ought to be ashamed of yourself for thinking of it.” Rawley -lighted his cigar and smoked fiercely. - -“It would be better for her than my going to jail,” stubbornly replied -the other. “But I don’t want to tell her, or to ask her for money. -That’s why I’ve come to you. You needn’t be so hard, Flood; you’ve not -been a saint; and Di knows it.” - -Rawley took the cheroot from his mouth, threw back his head, and laughed -mirthlessly, ironically. Then suddenly he stopped and looked round the -room till his eyes rested on a portrait-drawing which hung on the wall -opposite the window, through which the sun poured. It was the face of a -girl with beautiful bronzed hair, and full, fine, beautifully modelled -face, with brown eyes deep and brooding, which seemed to have time and -space behind them--not before them. The lips were delicate and full, and -had the look suggesting a smile which the inward thought has stayed. It -was like one of the Titian women--like a Titian that hangs on the wall -of the Gallery at Munich. The head and neck, the whole personality, -had an air of distinction and destiny. The drawing had been done by a -wandering duchess who had seen the girl sketching in the foothills, -when on a visit to that “Wild West” which has such power to refine -and inspire minds not superior to Nature. Its replica was carried to a -castle in Scotland. It had been the gift of Diana Welldon on a certain -day not long ago, when Flood Rawley had made a pledge to her, which was -as vital to him and to his future as two thousand dollars were vital to -Dan Welldon now. - -“You’ve not been a saint, and Di knows it,” repeated the weak brother -of a girl whose fame belonged to the West; whose name was a signal for -cheerful looks; whose buoyant humour and impartial friendliness gained -her innumerable friends; and whose talent, understood by few, gave her -a certain protection, lifting her a little away from the outwardly crude -and provincial life around her. - -When Rawley spoke, it was with quiet deliberation, and even gentleness. -“I haven’t been a saint, and she knows it, as you say, Dan; but the law -is on my side as yet, and it isn’t on yours. There’s the difference.” - -“You used to gamble yourself; you were pretty tough, and you oughtn’t to -walk up my back with hobnailed boots.” - -“Yes, I gambled, Dan, and I drank, and I raised a dust out here. My -record was writ pretty big. But I didn’t lay my hands on the ark of the -social covenant, whose inscription is, Thou shalt not steal; and that’s -why I’m poor but proud, and no one’s watching for me round the corner, -same as you.” - -Welldon’s half-defiant petulance disappeared. “What’s done can’t be -undone.” Then, with a sudden burst of anguish: “Oh, get me out of this -somehow!” - -“How? I’ve got no money. By speaking to your sister?” - -The other was silent. - -“Shall I do it?” Rawley peered anxiously into the other’s face, and he -knew that there was no real security against the shameful trouble being -laid bare to her. - -“I want a chance to start straight again.” - -The voice was fluttered, almost whining; it carried no conviction; but -the words had in them a reminder of words that Rawley himself had said -to Diana Welldon but a few months ago, and a new spirit stirred in him. -He stepped forwards and, gripping Dan’s shoulder with a hand of steel, -said fiercely: - -“No, Dan. I’d rather take you to her in your coffin. She’s never known -you, never seen what most of us have seen, that all you have--or nearly -all--is your lovely looks, and what they call a kind heart. There’s only -you two in your family, and she’s got to live with you--awhile, anyhow. -She couldn’t stand this business. She mustn’t stand it. She’s had enough -to put up with in me; but at the worst she could pass me by on the other -side, and there would be an end. It would have been said that Flood -Rawley had got his deserts. It’s different with you.” His voice changed, -softened. “Dan, I made a pledge to her that I’d never play cards again -for money while I lived, and it wasn’t a thing to take on without some -cogitation. But I cogitated, and took it on, and started life over -again--me! Began practising law again--barrister, solicitor, notary -public--at forty. And at last I’ve got my chance in a big case against -the Canadian Pacific. It’ll make me or break me, Dan.... There, I wanted -you to see where I stand with Di; and now I want you to promise me that -you’ll not leave these rooms till I see you again. I’ll get you clear; -I’ll save you, Dan.” - -“Flood! Oh, my God, Flood!” The voice was broken. - -“You’ve got to stay here, and you’re to remember not to get the funk, -even if I don’t come before midnight. I’ll be here then, if I’m alive. -If you don’t keep your word--but, there, you will.” Both hands gripped -the graceful shoulders of the miscreant like a vice. - -“So help me, Flood,” was the frightened, whispered reply, “I’ll make it -up to you somehow, some day. I’ll pay you back.” - -Rawley caught up his cap from the table. “Steady--steady. Don’t go at -a fence till you’re sure of your seat, Dan,” he said. Then with a long -look at the portrait on the wall, and an exclamation which the other did -not hear, he left the room with a set, determined face. - - ...................... - -“Who told you? What brought you, Flood?” the girl asked, her chin in her -long, white hands, her head turned from the easel to him, a book in -her lap, the sun breaking through the leaves upon her hat, touching the -Titian hair with splendour. - -“Fate brought me, and didn’t tell me,” he answered, with a whimsical -quirk of the mouth, and his trouble lurking behind the sea-deep eyes. - -“Wouldn’t you have come if you knew I was here?” she urged archly. - -“Not for two thousand dollars,” he answered, the look of trouble -deepening in his eyes, but his lips were smiling. He had a quaint sense -of humour, and at his last gasp would have noted the ridiculous thing. -And surely it was a droll malignity of Fate to bring him here to her -whom, in this moment of all moments in his life, he wished far away. -Fate meant to try him to the uttermost. This hurdle of trial was high -indeed. - -“Two thousand dollars--nothing less?” she inquired gaily. “You are too -specific for a real lover.” - -“Fate fixed the amount,” he added drily. “Fate--you talk so much of -Fate,” she replied gravely, and her eyes looked into the distance. “You -make me think of it too, and I don’t want to do so. I don’t want to feel -helpless, to be the child of Accident and Destiny.” - -“Oh, you get the same thing in the ‘fore-ordination’ that old Minister -M’Gregor preaches every Sunday. ‘Be elect or be damned,’ he says to us -all. Names aren’t important; but, anyhow, it was Fate that led me here.” - -“Are you sure it wasn’t me?” she asked softly. “Are you sure I wasn’t -calling you, and you had to come?” - -“Well, it was en route, anyhow; and you are always calling, if I must -tell you,” he laughed. Suddenly he became grave. “I hear you call me in -the night sometimes, and I start up and say ‘Yes, Di!’ out of my sleep. -It’s a queer hallucination. I’ve got you on the brain, certainly.” - -“It seems to vex you--certainly,” she said, opening the book that lay in -her lap, “and your eyes trouble me to-day. They’ve got a look that used -to be in them, Flood, before--before you promised; and another look -I don’t understand and don’t like. I suppose it’s always so. The real -business of life is trying to understand each other.” - -“You have wonderful thoughts for one that’s had so little chance,” he -said. “That’s because you’re a genius, I suppose. Teaching can’t give -that sort of thing--the insight.” - -“What is the matter, Flood?” she asked suddenly again, her breast -heaving, her delicate, rounded fingers interlacing. “I heard a man say -once that you were ‘as deep as the sea.’ He did not mean it kindly, but -I do. You are in trouble, and I want to share it if I can. Where were -you going when you came across me here?” - -“To see old Busby, the quack-doctor up there,” he answered, nodding -towards a shrubbed and wooded hillock behind them. - -“Old Busby!” she rejoined in amazement. “What do you want with him--not -medicine of that old quack, that dreadful man?” - -“He cures people sometimes. A good many out here owe him more than -they’ll ever pay him.” - -“Is he as rich an old miser as they say?” - -“He doesn’t look rich, does he?” was the enigmatical answer. - -“Does any one know his real history? He didn’t come from nowhere. He -must have had friends once. Some one must once have cared for him, -though he seems such a monster now.” - -“Yet he cures people sometimes,” he rejoined abstractedly. “Probably -there’s some good underneath. I’m going to try and see.” - -“What is it. What is your business with him? Won’t you tell me? Is it so -secret?” - -“I want him to help me in a case I’ve got in hand. A client of mine is -in trouble--you mustn’t ask about it; and he can help, I think--I think -so.” He got to his feet. “I must be going, Di,” he added. Suddenly a -flush swept over his face, and he reached out and took both her hands. -“Oh, you are a million times too good for me!” he said. “But if all goes -well, I’ll do my best to make you forget it.” - -“Wait--wait one moment,” she answered. “Before you go, I want you to -hear what I’ve been reading over and over to myself just now. It is from -a book I got from Quebec, called ‘When Time Shall Pass’. It is a story -of two like you and me. The man is writing to the woman, and it has -things that you have said to me--in a different way.” - -“No, I don’t talk like a book, but I know a star in a dark night when I -see it,” he answered, with a catch in his throat. - -“Hush,” she said, catching his hand in hers, as she read, while all -around them the sounds of summer--the distant clack of a reaper, the -crack of a whip, the locusts droning, the whir of a young partridge, the -squeak of a chipmunk--were tuned to the harmony of the moment and her -voice: - - “‘Night and the sombre silence, oh, my love, and one star shining! - First, warm, velvety sleep, and then this quick, quiet waking to - your voice which seems to call me. Is it--is it you that calls? - Do you sometimes, even in your dreams, speak to me? Far beneath - unconsciousness is there the summons of your spirit to me?... - I like to think so. I like to think that this thing which has come - to us is deeper, greater than we are. Sometimes day and night there - flash before my eyes--my mind’s eyes--pictures of you and me in - places unfamiliar, landscapes never before seen, activities - uncomprehended and unknown, bright, alluring glimpses of some second - being, some possible, maybe never-to-be-realised future, alas! Yet - these swift-moving shutters of the soul, or imagination, or reality - --who shall say which?--give me a joy never before felt in life. If - I am not a better man for this love of mine for you, I am more than - I was, and shall be more than I am. Much of my life in the past was - mean and small, so much that I have said and done has been unworthy - --my love for you is too sharp a light for my gross imperfections of - the past! Come what will, be what must, I stake my life, my heart, - my soul on you--that beautiful, beloved face; those deep eyes in - which my being is drowned; those lucid, perfect hands that have - bound me to the mast of your destiny. I cannot go back, I must go - forwards: now I must keep on loving you or be shipwrecked. I did - not know that this was in me, this tide of love, this current of - devotion. Destiny plays me beyond my ken, beyond my dreams. - O Cithaeron! Turn from me now--or never, O my love! Loose me - from the mast, and let the storm and wave wash me out into the sea - of your forgetfulness now--or never!... But keep me, keep me, - if your love is great enough, if I bring you any light or joy; for I - am yours to my uttermost note of life.’” - -“He knew--he knew!” Rawley said, catching her wrists in his hands and -drawing her to him. “If I could write, that’s what I should have said to -you, beautiful and beloved. How mean and small and ugly my life was till -you made me over. I was a bad lot.” - -“So much hung on one little promise,” she said, and drew closer to -him. “You were never bad,” she added; then, with an arm sweeping the -universe, “Oh, isn’t it all good, and isn’t it all worth living?” - -His face lost its glow. Over in the town her brother faced a ruined -life, and the girl beside him, a dark humiliation and a shame which -would poison her life hereafter, unless--his look turned to the little -house where the quack-doctor lived. He loosed her hands. - -“Now for Caliban,” he said. - -“I shall be Ariel and follow you-in my heart,” she said. “Be sure and -make him tell you the story of his life,” she added with a laugh, as his -lips swept the hair behind her ears. - -As he moved swiftly away, watching his long strides, she said proudly, -“As deep as the sea.” - -After a moment she added: “And he was once a gambler, until, until--” - she glanced at the open book, then with sweet mockery looked at her -hands--“until ‘those lucid, perfect hands bound me to the mast of -your destiny.’ O vain Diana! But they are rather beautiful,” she added -softly, “and I am rather happy.” There was something like a gay little -chuckle in her throat. - -“O vain Diana!” she repeated. - - ....................... - -Rawley entered the door of the but on the hill without ceremony. There -was no need for courtesy, and the work he had come to do could be easier -done without it. - -Old Busby was crouched over a table, his mouth lapping milk from a -full bowl on the table. He scarcely raised his head when Rawley -entered--through the open door he had seen his visitor coming. He sipped -on, his straggling beard dripping. There was silence for a time. - -“What do you want?” he growled at last. - -“Finish your swill, and then we can talk,” said Rawley carelessly. He -took a chair near the door, lighted a cheroot and smoked, watching the -old man, as he tipped the great bowl towards his face, as though it -were some wild animal feeding. The clothes were patched and worn, the -coat-front was spattered with stains of all kinds, the hair and beard -were unkempt and long, giving him what would have been the look of a -mangy lion, but that the face had the expression of some beast less -honourable. The eyes, however, were malignantly intelligent, the hands, -ill-cared for, were long, well-shaped and capable, but of a hateful -yellow colour like the face. And through all was a sense of power, dark -and almost mediaeval. Secret, evilly wise and inhuman, he looked a being -apart, whom men might seek for help in dark purposes. - -“What do you want--medicine?” he muttered at last, wiping his beard and -mouth with the palm of his hand, and the palm on his knees. - -Rawley looked at the ominous-looking bottles on the shelves above the -old man’s head; at the forceps, knives, and other surgical instruments -on the walls--they at least were bright and clean--and, taking the -cheroot slowly from his mouth, he said: - -“Shin-plasters are what I want. A friend of mine has caught his leg in a -trap.” - -The old man gave an evil chuckle at the joke, for a “shin-plaster” was a -money-note worth a quarter of a dollar. - -“I’ve got some,” he growled in reply, “but they cost twenty-five cents -each. You can have them for your friend at the price.” - -“I want eight thousand of them from you. He’s hurt pretty bad,” was the -dogged, dry answer. - -The shaggy eyebrows of the quack drew together, and the eyes peered out -sharply through half-closed lids. “There’s plenty of wanting and not -much getting in this world,” he rejoined, with a leer of contempt, -and spat on the floor, while yet the furtive watchfulness of the eyes -indicated a mind ill at ease. - -Smoke came in placid puffs from the cheroot--Rawley was smoking very -hard, but with a judicial meditation, as it seemed. - -“Yes, but if you want a thing so bad that, to get it, you’ll face the -devil or the Beast of Revelations, it’s likely to come to you.” - -“You call me a beast?” The reddish-brown face grew black like that of a -Bedouin in his rage. - -“I said the Beast of Revelations--don’t you know the Scriptures?” - -“I know that a fool is to be answered according to his folly,” was the -hoarse reply, and the great head wagged to and fro in its smarting rage. - -“Well, I’m doing my best; and perhaps when the folly is all out, we’ll -come to the revelations of the Beast.” There was a silence, in which the -gross impostor shifted heavily in his seat, while a hand twitched across -the mouth, and then caught at the breast of the threadbare black coat -abstractedly. - -Rawley leaned forward, one elbow on a knee, the cheroot in his fingers. -He spoke almost confidentially, as to some ignorant and misguided -savage--as he had talked to Indian chiefs in his time, when searching -for the truth regarding some crime: - -“I’ve had a lot of revelations in my time. A lawyer and a doctor always -do. And though there are folks who say I’m no lawyer, as there are those -who say with greater truth that you’re no doctor, speaking technically, -we’ve both had ‘revelations.’ You’ve seen a lot that’s seamy, and so -have I. You’re pretty seamy yourself. In fact, you’re as bad a man as -ever saved lives--and lost them. You’ve had a long tether, and you’ve -swung on it--swung wide. But you’ve had a lot of luck that you haven’t -swung high, too.” - -He paused and flicked away the ash from his cheroot, while the figure -before him swayed animal-like from side to side, muttering. - -“You’ve got brains, a great lot of brains of a kind--however you came -by them,” Rawley continued; “and you’ve kept a lot of people in the -West from passing in their cheques before their time. You’ve rooked ‘em, -chiselled ‘em out of a lot of cash, too. There was old Lamson--fifteen -hundred for the goitre on his neck; and Mrs. Gilligan for the -cancer--two thousand, wasn’t it? Tincture of Lebanon leaves you called -the medicine, didn’t you? You must have made fifty thousand or so in the -last ten years.” - -“What I’ve made I’ll keep,” was the guttural answer, and the talon-like -fingers clawed the table. - -“You’ve made people pay high for curing them, saving them sometimes; but -you haven’t paid me high for saving you in the courts; and there’s one -case that you haven’t paid me for at all. That was when the patient -died--and you didn’t.” - -The face of the old man became mottled with a sudden fear, but he jerked -it forwards once or twice with an effort at self-control. Presently he -steadied to the ordeal of suspense, while he kept saying to himself, -“What does he know--what--which?” - -“Malpractice resulting in death--that was poor Jimmy Tearle; and -something else resulting in death--that was the switchman’s wife. And -the law is hard in the West where a woman’s in the case--quick and hard. -Yes, you’ve swung wide on your tether; look out that you don’t swing -high, old man.” - -“You can prove nothing; it’s bluff;” came the reply in a tone of malice -and of fear. - -“You forget. I was your lawyer in Jimmy Tearle’s case, and a letter’s -been found written by the switchman’s wife to her husband. It reached -me the night he was killed by the avalanche. It was handed over to me by -the post-office, as the lawyer acting for the relatives. I’ve read it. -I’ve got it. It gives you away.” - -“I wasn’t alone.” Fear had now disappeared, and the old man was -fighting. - -“No, you weren’t alone; and if the switchman and the switchman’s wife -weren’t dead and out of it all; and if the other man that didn’t matter -any more than you wasn’t alive and hadn’t a family that does matter, I -wouldn’t be asking you peaceably for two thousand dollars as my fee for -getting you off two cases that might have sent you to prison for twenty -years, or, maybe, hung you to the nearest tree.” - -The heavy body pulled itself together, the hands clinched. -“Blackmail-you think I’ll stand it?” - -“Yes, I think you will. I want two thousand dollars to help a friend in -a hole, and I mean to have it, if you think your neck’s worth it.” - -Teeth, wonderfully white, showed through the shaggy beard. “If I had to -go to prison--or swing, as you say, do you think I’d go with my mouth -shut? I’d not pay up alone. The West would crack--holy Heaven, I know -enough to make it sick. Go on and see! I’ve got the West in my hand.” He -opened and shut his fingers with a grimace of cruelty which shook Rawley -in spite of himself. - -Rawley had trusted to the inspiration of the moment; he had had no -clearly defined plan; he had believed that he could frighten the old -man, and by force of will bend him to his purposes. It had all been -more difficult than he had expected. He kept cool, imperturbable, and -determined, however. He knew that what the old quack said was true--the -West might shake with scandal concerning a few who, no doubt, in remorse -and secret fear, had more than paid the penalty of their offences. But -he thought of Di Welldon and of her criminal brother, and every nerve, -every faculty was screwed to its utmost limit of endurance and capacity. - -Suddenly the old man gave a new turn to the event. He got up and, -rummaging in an old box, drew out a dice-box. Rattling the dice, he -threw them out on the table before him, a strange, excited look crossing -his face. - -“Play for it,” he said in a harsh, croaking voice. “Play for the two -thousand. Win it if you can. You want it bad. I want to keep it bad. -It’s nice to have; it makes a man feel warm--money does. I’d sleep in -ten-dollar bills, I’d have my clothes made of them, if I could; I’d -have my house papered with them; I’d eat ‘em. Oh, I know, I know about -you--and her--Diana Welldon! You’ve sworn off gambling, and you’ve -kept your pledge for near a year. Well, it’s twenty years since I -gambled--twenty years. I gambled with these then.” He shook the dice -in the box. “I gambled everything I had away--more than two thousand -dollars, more than two thousand dollars.” He laughed a raw, mirthless -laugh. “Well, you’re the greatest gambler in the West. So was I-in the -East. It pulverised me at last, when I’d nothing left--and drink, drink, -drink. I gave up both one night and came out West. - -“I started doctoring here. I’ve got money, plenty of money--medicine, -mines, land got it for me. I’ve been lucky. Now you come to bluff -me--me! You don’t know old Busby.” He spat on the floor. “I’m not to be -bluffed. I know too much. Before they could lynch me I’d talk. But -to play you, the greatest gambler in the West, for two thousand -dollars--yes, I’d like the sting of it again. Twos, fours, -double-sixes--the gentleman’s game!” He rattled the dice and threw them -with a flourish out on the table, his evil face lighting up. “Come! You -can’t have something for nothing,” he growled. - -As he spoke, a change came over Rawley’s face. It lost its cool -imperturbability, it grew paler, the veins on the fine forehead stood -out, a new, flaring light came into the eyes. The old gambler’s spirit -was alive. But even as it rose, sweeping him into that area of fiery -abstraction where every nerve is strung to a fine tension, and the -surrounding world disappears, he saw the face of Diana Welldon, he -remembered her words to him not an hour before, and the issue of the -conflict, other considerations apart, was without doubt. But there was -her brother and his certain fate, if the two thousand dollars were not -paid in by midnight. He was desperate. It was in reality for Diana’s -sake. He approached the table, and his old calm returned. - -“I have no money to play with,” he said quietly. With a gasp of -satisfaction, the old man fumbled in the inside of his coat and drew out -layers of ten, fifty, and hundred-dollar bills. It was lined with them. -He passed a pile over to Rawley--two thousand dollars. He placed a -similar pile before himself. - -As Rawley laid his hand on the bills, the thought rushed through his -mind, “You have it--keep it!” but he put it away from him. With a -gentleman he might have done it, with this man before him, it was -impossible. He must take his chances; and it was the only chance in -which he had hope now, unless he appealed for humanity’s sake, for the -girl’s sake, and told the real truth. It might avail. Well, that would -be the last resort. - -“For small stakes?” said the grimy quack in a gloating voice. - -Rawley nodded and then added, “We stop at eleven o’clock, unless I’ve -lost or won all before that.” - -“And stake what’s left on the last throw?” - -“Yes.” - -There was silence for a moment, in which Rawley seemed to grow older, -and a set look came to his mouth--a broken pledge, no matter what the -cause, brings heavy penalties to the honest mind. He shut his eyes for -an instant, and, when he opened them, he saw that his fellow-gambler -was watching him with an enigmatical and furtive smile. Did this Caliban -have some understanding of what was at stake in his heart and soul? - -“Play!” Rawley said sharply, and was himself again. For hour after hour -there was scarce a sound, save the rattle of the dice and an occasional -exclamation from the old man as he threw a double-six. As dusk fell, the -door had been shut, and a lighted lantern was hung over their heads. - -Fortune had fluctuated. Once the old man’s pile had diminished to two -notes, then the luck had changed and his pile grew larger; then fell -again; but, as the hands of the clock on the wall above the blue -medicine bottles reached a quarter to eleven, it increased steadily -throw after throw. - -Now the player’s fever was in Rawley’s eyes. His face was deadly pale, -but his hand threw steadily, calmly, almost negligently, as it might -seem. All at once, at eight minutes to eleven, the luck turned in -his favour, and his pile mounted again. Time after time he dropped -double-sixes. It was almost uncanny. He seemed to see the dice in the -box, and his hand threw them out with the precision of a machine. Long -afterwards he had this vivid illusion that he could see the dice in the -box. As the clock was about to strike eleven he had before him three -thousand eight hundred dollars. It was his throw. - -“Two hundred,” he said in a whisper, and threw. He won. - -With a gasp of relief, he got to his feet, the money in his hand. He -stepped backward from the table, then staggered, and a faintness passed -over him. He had sat so long without moving that his legs bent under -him. There was a pail of water with a dipper in it on a bench. He caught -up a dipperful of water, drank it empty, and let it fall in the pail -again with a clatter. - -“Dan,” he said abstractedly, “Dan, you’re all safe now.” - -Then he seemed to wake, as from a dream, and looked at the man at the -table. Busby was leaning on it with both hands, and staring at Rawley -like some animal jaded and beaten from pursuit. Rawley walked back to -the table and laid down two thousand dollars. - -“I only wanted two thousand,” he said, and put the other two thousand in -his pocket. - -The evil eyes gloated, the long fingers clutched the pile, and swept it -into a great inside pocket. Then the shaggy head bent forwards. - -“You said it was for Dan,” he said--“Dan Welldon?” - -Rawley hesitated. “What is that to you?” he replied at last. - -With a sudden impulse the old impostor lurched round, opened a box, drew -out a roll, and threw it on the table. - -“It’s got to be known sometime,” he said, “and you’ll be my lawyer -when I’m put into the ground--you’re clever. They call me a quack. -Malpractice--bah! There’s my diploma--James Clifton Welldon. Right -enough, isn’t it?” - -Rawley was petrified. He knew the forgotten story of James Clifton -Welldon, the specialist, turned gambler, who had almost ruined his own -brother--the father of Dan and Diana--at cards and dice, and had then -ruined himself and disappeared. Here, where his brother had died, he had -come years ago, and practised medicine as a quack. - -“Oh, there’s plenty of proof, if it’s wanted!” he said. “I’ve got it -here.” He tapped the box behind him. “Why did I do it? Because it’s my -way. And you’re going to marry my niece, and ‘ll have it all some day. -But not till I’ve finished with it--not unless you win it from me at -dice or cards.... But no”--something human came into the old, degenerate -face--“no more gambling for the man that’s to marry Diana. There’s a -wonder and a beauty!” He chuckled to himself. “She’ll be rich when I’ve -done with it. You’re a lucky man--ay, you’re lucky.” - -Rawley was about to tell the old man what the two thousand dollars -was for, but a fresh wave of repugnance passed over him, and, hastily -drinking another dipperful of water, he opened the door. He looked back. -The old man was crouching forward, lapping milk from the great bowl, his -beard dripping. In disgust he swung round again. The fresh, clear air -caught his face. - -With a gasp of relief he stepped out into the night, closing the door -behind him. - - - - - ETEXT EDITOR’S BOOKMARKS: - - Babbling covers a lot of secrets - Being a man of very few ideas, he cherished those he had - Beneath it all there was a little touch of ridicule - Don’t go at a fence till you’re sure of your seat - Even bad company’s better than no company at all - Future of those who will not see, because to see is to suffer - I like when I like, and I like a lot when I like - I don’t think. I’m old enough to know - It ain’t for us to say what we’re goin’ to be, not always - Knew when to shut his eyes, and when to keep them open - Nothing so popular for the moment as the fall of a favourite - Self-will, self-pride, and self-righteousness were big in him - That he will find the room empty where I am not - The temerity and nonchalance of despair - The real business of life is trying to understand each other - Things in life git stronger than we are - Tyranny of the little man, given a power - We don’t live in months and years, but just in minutes - What’ll be the differ a hundred years from now - You’ve got blind rashness, and so you think you’re bold - - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg’s Northern Lights, Complete, by Gilbert Parker - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NORTHERN LIGHTS, COMPLETE *** - -***** This file should be named 6191-0.txt or 6191-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - https://www.gutenberg.org/6/1/9/6191/ - -Produced by David Widger - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Thus, we do not necessarily -keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. - - -Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: - - https://www.gutenberg.org - -This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, -including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to -subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/old/old-2025-02-21/6191-0.zip b/old/old-2025-02-21/6191-0.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 1407f3f..0000000 --- a/old/old-2025-02-21/6191-0.zip +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/old-2025-02-21/6191-h.zip b/old/old-2025-02-21/6191-h.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index a0425a5..0000000 --- a/old/old-2025-02-21/6191-h.zip +++ /dev/null diff --git a/old/old-2025-02-21/6191-h/6191-h.htm b/old/old-2025-02-21/6191-h/6191-h.htm deleted file mode 100644 index 85c7dea..0000000 --- a/old/old-2025-02-21/6191-h/6191-h.htm +++ /dev/null @@ -1,13920 +0,0 @@ -<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> - -<!DOCTYPE html - PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" - "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" > - -<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en"> - <head> - <title> - Northern Lights, Complete, by Gilbert Parker - </title> - <style type="text/css" xml:space="preserve"> - - body { margin:5%; background:#faebd7; text-align:justify} - P { text-indent: 1em; margin-top: .25em; margin-bottom: .25em; } - H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; margin-left: 15%; margin-right: 15%; } - hr { width: 50%; text-align: center;} - .foot { margin-left: 20%; margin-right: 20%; text-align: justify; text-indent: -3em; font-size: 90%; } - blockquote {font-size: 97%; font-style: italic; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} - .mynote {background-color: #DDE; color: #000; padding: .5em; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 95%;} - .toc { margin-left: 10%; margin-bottom: .75em;} - .toc2 { margin-left: 20%;} - div.fig { display:block; margin:0 auto; text-align:center; } - .figleft {float: left; margin-left: 0%; margin-right: 1%;} - .figright {float: right; margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 1%;} - pre { font-style: italic; font-size: 90%; margin-left: 10%;} - -</style> - </head> - <body> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Northern Lights, Complete, by Gilbert Parker - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - - -Title: Northern Lights, Complete - -Author: Gilbert Parker - - -Release Date: October 17, 2006 [EBook #6191] -Last Updated: August 26, 2016 - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NORTHERN LIGHTS, COMPLETE *** - - - -Produced by David Widger - - - - - - -</pre> - - <h1> - NORTHERN LIGHTS - </h1> - <p> - <br /><br /> - </p> - <h2> - By Gilbert Parker - </h2> - <p> - <br /> <br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <br /> <br /> - </p> - <blockquote> - <p class="toc"> - <big><b>CONTENTS</b></big> - </p> - <p> - <br /> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_INTR"> INTRODUCTION </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> NOTE </a> - </p> - <p> - <br /> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> A LODGE IN THE WILDERNESS </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> ONCE AT RED MAN’S RIVER </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0006"> THE STROBE OF THE HOUR </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0007"> BUCKMASTER’S BOY </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0008"> TO-MORROW </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0009"> QU’APPELLE </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0010"> THE STAKE AND THE PLUMB-LINE </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0011"> WHEN THE SWALLOWS HOMEWARD FLY </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0012"> GEORGE’S WIFE </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0013"> MARCILE </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0014"> A MAN, A FAMINE, AND A HEATHEN BOY </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0015"> THE HEALING SPRINGS AND THE PIONEERS </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0016"> THE LITTLE WIDOW OF JANSEN </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0017"> WATCHING THE RISE OF ORION </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0018"> THE ERROR OF THE DAY </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0019"> THE WHISPERER </a> - </p> - <p class="toc"> - <a href="#link2H_4_0020"> AS DEEP AS THE SEA </a> - </p> - </blockquote> - <p> - <br /> <br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_INTR" id="link2H_INTR"> - <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> - </p> - <h2> - INTRODUCTION - </h2> - <p> - This book, Northern Lights, belongs to an epoch which is a generation - later than that in which Pierre and His People moved. The conditions under - which Pierre and Shon McGann lived practically ended with the advent of - the railway. From that time forwards, with the rise of towns and cities - accompanied by an amazing growth of emigration, the whole life lost much - of that character of isolation and pathetic loneliness which marked the - days of Pierre. When, in 1905, I visited the Far West again after many - years, and saw the strange new life with its modern episode, energy, and - push, and realised that even the characteristics which marked the period - just before the advent, and just after the advent, of the railway were - disappearing, I determined to write a series of stories which would catch - the fleeting characteristics and hold something of the old life, so - adventurous, vigorous, and individual, before it passed entirely and was - forgotten. Therefore, from 1905 to 1909, I kept drawing upon all those - experiences of others, from the true tales that had been told me, upon the - reminiscences of Hudson’s Bay trappers and hunters, for those incidents - natural to the West which imagination could make true. Something of the - old atmosphere had gone, and there was a stir and a murmur in all the West - which broke that grim yet fascinating loneliness of the time of Pierre. - </p> - <p> - Thus it is that Northern Lights is written in a wholly different style - from that of Pierre and His People, though here and there, as for instance - in A Lodge in the Wilderness, Once at Red Man’s River, The Stroke of the - Hour, Qu’appelle, and Marcile, the old note sounds, and something of the - poignant mystery, solitude, and big primitive incident of the earlier - stories appears. I believe I did well—at any rate for myself and my - purposes—in writing this book, and thus making the human narrative - of the Far West and North continuous from the time of the sixties onwards. - So have I assured myself of the rightness of my intention, that I shall - publish a novel presently which will carry on this human narrative of the - West into still another stage-that of the present, when railways are - intersecting each other, when mills and factories are being added to the - great grain elevators in the West, and when hundreds and thousands of - people every year are moving across the plains where, within my own living - time, the buffalo ranged in their millions, and the red men, uncontrolled, - set up their tepees. - </p> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"> - <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - NOTE - </h2> - <p> - The tales in this book belong to two different epochs in the life of the - Far West. The first five are reminiscent of “border days and deeds”—of - days before the great railway was built which changed a waste into a - fertile field of civilisation. The remaining stories cover the period - passed since the Royal North-West Mounted Police and the Pullman car first - startled the early pioneer, and sent him into the land of the farther - North, or drew him into the quiet circle of civic routine and humdrum - occupation. - </p> - <p> - G. P. <br /> <br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <br /> <br /> <a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"> - <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - A LODGE IN THE WILDERNESS - </h2> - <p> - “Hai—Yai, so bright a day, so clear!” said Mitiahwe as she entered - the big lodge and laid upon a wide, low couch, covered with soft skins, - the fur of a grizzly which had fallen to her man’s rifle. “Hai-yai, I wish - it would last for ever—so sweet!” she added, smoothing the fur - lingeringly, and showing her teeth in a smile. - </p> - <p> - “There will come a great storm, Mitiahwe. See, the birds go south so - soon,” responded a deep voice from a corner by the doorway. - </p> - <p> - The young Indian wife turned quickly, and, in a defiant fantastic mood—or - was it the inward cry against an impending fate, the tragic future of - those who will not see, because to see is to suffer?—she made some - quaint, odd motions of the body which belonged to a mysterious dance of - her tribe, and, with flashing eyes, challenged the comely old woman seated - on a pile of deer-skins. - </p> - <p> - “It is morning, and the day will last for ever,” she said nonchalantly, - but her eyes suddenly took on a faraway look, half apprehensive, half - wondering. The birds were indeed going south very soon, yet had there ever - been so exquisite an autumn as this, had her man ever had so wonderful a - trade—her man with the brown hair, blue eyes, and fair, strong face? - </p> - <p> - “The birds go south, but the hunters and buffalo still go north,” Mitiahwe - urged searchingly, looking hard at her mother—Oanita, the Swift - Wing. - </p> - <p> - “My dream said that the winter will be dark and lonely, that the ice will - be thick, the snow deep, and that many hearts will be sick because of the - black days and the hunger that sickens the heart,” answered Swift Wing. - </p> - <p> - Mitiahwe looked into Swift Wing’s dark eyes, and an anger came upon her. - “The hearts of cowards will freeze,” she rejoined, “and to those that will - not see the sun the world will be dark,” she added. Then suddenly she - remembered to whom she was speaking, and a flood of feeling ran through - her; for Swift Wing had cherished her like a fledgeling in the nest till - her young white man came from “down East.” Her heart had leapt up at sight - of him, and she had turned to him from all the young men of her tribe, - waiting in a kind of mist till he, at last, had spoken to her mother, and - then one evening, her shawl over her head, she had come along to his - lodge. - </p> - <p> - A thousand times as the four years passed by she had thought how good it - was that she had become his wife—the young white man’s wife, rather - than the wife of Breaking Rock, son of White Buffalo, the chief, who had - four hundred horses, and a face that would have made winter and sour days - for her. Now and then Breaking Rock came and stood before the lodge, a - distance off, and stayed there hour after hour, and once or twice he came - when her man was with her; but nothing could be done, for earth and air - and space were common to them all, and there was no offence in Breaking - Rock gazing at the lodge where Mitiahwe lived. Yet it seemed as though - Breaking Rock was waiting—waiting and hoping. That was the - impression made upon all who saw him, and even old White Buffalo, the - chief, shook his head gloomily when he saw Breaking Rock, his son, staring - at the big lodge which was so full of happiness, and so full also of many - luxuries never before seen at a trading post on the Koonce River. The - father of Mitiahwe had been chief, but because his three sons had been - killed in battle the chieftainship had come to White Buffalo, who was of - the same blood and family. There were those who said that Mitiahwe should - have been chieftainess; but neither she nor her mother would ever listen - to this, and so White Buffalo, and the tribe loved Mitiahwe because of her - modesty and goodness. She was even more to White Buffalo than Breaking - Rock, and he had been glad that Dingan the white man—Long Hand he - was called—had taken Mitiahwe for his woman. Yet behind this - gladness of White Buffalo, and that of Swift Wing, and behind the silent - watchfulness of Breaking Rock, there was a thought which must ever come - when a white man mates with an Indian maid, without priest or preacher, or - writing, or book, or bond. - </p> - <p> - Yet four years had gone; and all the tribe, and all who came and went, - half-breeds, traders, and other tribes, remarked how happy was the white - man with his Indian wife. They never saw anything but light in the eyes of - Mitiahwe, nor did the old women of the tribe who scanned her face as she - came and went, and watched and waited too for what never came—not - even after four years. - </p> - <p> - Mitiahwe had been so happy that she had not really missed what never came; - though the desire to have something in her arms which was part of them - both had flushed up in her veins at times, and made her restless till her - man had come home again. Then she had forgotten the unseen for the seen, - and was happy that they two were alone together—that was the joy of - it all, so much alone together; for Swift Wing did not live with them, - and, like Breaking Rock, she watched her daughter’s life, standing afar - off, since it was the unwritten law of the tribe that the wife’s mother - must not cross the path or enter the home of her daughter’s husband. But - at last Dingan had broken through this custom, and insisted that Swift - Wing should be with her daughter when he was away from home, as now on - this wonderful autumn morning, when Mitiahwe had been singing to the Sun, - to which she prayed for her man and for everlasting days with him. - </p> - <p> - She had spoken angrily but now, because her soul sharply resented the - challenge to her happiness which her mother had been making. It was her - own eyes that refused to see the cloud, which the sage and bereaved woman - had seen and conveyed in images and figures of speech natural to the - Indian mind. - </p> - <p> - “Hai-yai,” she said now, with a strange touching sigh breathing in the - words, “you are right, my mother, and a dream is a dream; also, if it be - dreamt three times, then is it to be followed, and it is true. You have - lived long, and your dreams are of the Sun and the Spirit.” She shook a - little as she laid her hand on a buckskin coat of her man hanging by the - lodge-door; then she steadied herself again, and gazed earnestly into her - mother’s eyes. “Have all your dreams come true, my mother?” she asked with - a hungering heart. “There was the dream that came out of the dark five - times, when your father went against the Crees, and was wounded, and - crawled away into the hills, and all our warriors fled—they were but - a handful, and the Crees like a young forest in number! I went with my - dream, and found him after many days, and it was after that you were born, - my youngest and my last. There was also”—her eyes almost closed, and - the needle and thread she held lay still in her lap—“when two of - your brothers were killed in the drive of the buffalo. Did I not see it - all in my dream, and follow after them to take them to my heart? And when - your sister was carried off, was it not my dream which saw the trail, so - that we brought her back again to die in peace, her eyes seeing the Lodge - whither she was going, open to her, and the Sun, the Father, giving her - light and promise—for she had wounded herself to die that the thief - who stole her should leave her to herself. Behold, my daughter, these - dreams have I had, and others; and I have lived long and have seen the - bright day break into storm, and the herds flee into the far hills where - none could follow, and hunger come, and—” - </p> - <p> - “Hai-yo, see, the birds flying south,” said the girl with a gesture - towards the cloudless sky. “Never since I lived have they gone south so - soon.” Again she shuddered slightly, then she spoke slowly: “I also have - dreamed, and I will follow my dream. I dreamed”—she knelt down - beside her mother, and rested her hands in her mother’s lap—“I - dreamed that there was a wall of hills dark and heavy and far away, and - that whenever my eyes looked at them they burned with tears; and yet I - looked and looked, till my heart was like lead in my breast; and I turned - from them to the rivers and the plains that I loved. But a voice kept - calling to me, ‘Come, come! Beyond the hills is a happy land. The trail is - hard, and your feet will bleed, but beyond is the happy land.’ And I would - not go for the voice that spoke, and at last there came an old man in my - dream and spoke to me kindly, and said, ‘Come with me, and I will show - thee the way over the hills to the Lodge where thou shalt find what thou - hast lost.’ And I said to him, ‘I have lost nothing;’ and I would not go. - Twice I dreamed this dream, and twice the old man came, and three times I - dreamed it; and then I spoke angrily to him, as but now I did to thee; and - behold he changed before my eyes, and I saw that he was now become—” - she stopped short, and buried her face in her hands for a moment, then - recovered herself—“Breaking Rock it was, I saw before me, and I - cried out and fled. Then I waked with a cry, but my man was beside me, and - his arm was round my neck; and this dream, is it not a foolish dream, my - mother?” - </p> - <p> - The old woman sat silent, clasping the hands of her daughter firmly, and - looking out of the wide doorway towards the trees that fringed the river; - and presently, as she looked, her face changed and grew pinched all at - once, and Mitiahwe, looking at her, turned a startled face towards the - river also. - </p> - <p> - “Breaking Rock!” she said in alarm, and got to her feet quickly. - </p> - <p> - Breaking Rock stood for a moment looking towards the lodge, then came - slowly forward to them. Never in all the four years had he approached this - lodge of Mitiahwe, who, the daughter of a chief, should have married - himself, the son of a chief! Slowly but with long slouching stride - Breaking Rock came nearer. The two women watched him without speaking. - Instinctively they knew that he brought news, that something had happened; - yet Mitiahwe felt at her belt for what no Indian girl would be without; - and this one was a gift from her man, on the anniversary of the day she - first came to his lodge. - </p> - <p> - Breaking Rock was at the door now, his beady eyes fixed on Mitiahwe’s, his - figure jerked to its full height, which made him, even then, two inches - less than Long Hand. He spoke in a loud voice: - </p> - <p> - “The last boat this year goes down the river tomorrow. Long Hand, your - man, is going to his people. He will not come back. He has had enough of - the Blackfoot woman. You will see him no more.” He waved a hand to the - sky. “The birds are going south. A hard winter is coming quick. You will - be alone. Breaking Rock is rich. He has five hundred horses. Your man is - going to his own people. Let him go. He is no man. It is four years, and - still there are but two in your lodge. How!” - </p> - <p> - He swung on his heel with a chuckle in his throat, for he thought he had - said a good thing, and that in truth he was worth twenty white men. His - quick ear caught a movement behind him, however, and he saw the girl - spring from the lodge door, something flashing from her belt. But now the - mother’s arms were round her, with cries of protest, and Breaking Rock, - with another laugh, slipped away swiftly toward the river. - </p> - <p> - “That is good,” he muttered. “She will kill him perhaps, when she goes to - him. She will go, but he will not stay. I have heard.” - </p> - <p> - As he disappeared among the trees Mitiahwe disengaged herself from her - mother’s arms, went slowly back into the lodge, and sat down on the great - couch where, for so many moons, she had lain with her man beside her. - </p> - <p> - Her mother watched her closely, though she moved about doing little - things. She was trying to think what she would have done if such a thing - had happened to her, if her man had been going to leave her. She assumed - that Dingan would leave Mitiahwe, for he would hear the voices of his - people calling far away, even as the red man who went East into the great - cities heard the prairies and the mountains and the rivers and his own - people calling, and came back, and put off the clothes of civilisation, - and donned his buckskins again, and sat in the Medicine Man’s tent, and - heard the spirits speak to him through the mist and smoke of the sacred - fire. When Swift Wing first gave her daughter to the white man she foresaw - the danger now at hand, but this was the tribute of the lower race to the - higher, and—who could tell! White men had left their Indian wives, - but had come back again, and for ever renounced the life of their own - nations, and become great chiefs, teaching useful things to their adopted - people, bringing up their children as tribesmen—bringing up their - children! There it was, the thing which called them back, the bright-eyed - children with the colour of the brown prairie in their faces, and their - brains so sharp and strong. But here was no child to call Dingan back, - only the eloquent, brave, sweet face of Mitiahwe.... If he went! Would he - go? Was he going? And now that Mitiahwe had been told that he would go, - what would she do? In her belt was—but, no, that would be worse than - all, and she would lose Mitiahwe, her last child, as she had lost so many - others. What would she herself do if she were in Mitiahwe’s place? Ah, she - would make him stay somehow—by truth or by falsehood; by the - whispered story in the long night, by her head upon his knee before the - lodge-fire, and her eyes fixed on his, luring him, as the Dream lures the - dreamer into the far trail, to find the Sun’s hunting-ground where the - plains are filled with the deer and the buffalo and the wild horse; by the - smell of the cooking-pot and the favourite spiced drink in the morning; by - the child that ran to him with his bow and arrows and the cry of the - hunter—but there was no child; she had forgotten. She was always - recalling her own happy early life with her man, and the clean-faced - papooses that crowded round his knee—one wife and many children, and - the old Harvester of the Years reaping them so fast, till the children - stood up as tall as their father and chief. That was long ago, and she had - had her share—twenty-five years of happiness; but Mitiahwe had had - only four. She looked at Mitiahwe, standing still for a moment like one - rapt, then suddenly she gave a little cry. Something had come into her - mind, some solution of the problem, and she ran and stooped over the girl - and put both hands on her head. - </p> - <p> - “Mitiahwe, heart’s blood of mine,” she said, “the birds go south, but they - return. What matter if they go so soon, if they return soon. If the Sun - wills that the winter be dark, and he sends the Coldmaker to close the - rivers and drive the wild ones far from the arrow and the gun, yet he may - be sorry, and send a second summer—has it not been so, and Coldmaker - has hurried away—away! The birds go south, but they will return, - Mitiahwe.” - </p> - <p> - “I heard a cry in the night while my man slept,” Mitiahwe answered, - looking straight before her, “and it was like the cry of a bird-calling, - calling, calling.” - </p> - <p> - “But he did not hear—he was asleep beside Mitiahwe. If he did not - wake, surely it was good luck. Thy breath upon his face kept him sleeping. - Surely it was good luck to Mitiahwe that he did not hear.” - </p> - <p> - She was smiling a little now, for she had thought of a thing which would, - perhaps, keep the man here in this lodge in the wilderness; but the time - to speak of it was not yet. She must wait and see. - </p> - <p> - Suddenly Mitiahwe got to her feet with a spring, and a light in her eyes. - “Hai-yai!” she said with plaintive smiling, ran to a corner of the lodge, - and from a leather bag drew forth a horse-shoe and looked at it, murmuring - to herself. - </p> - <p> - The old woman gazed at her wonderingly. “What is it, Mitiahwe?” she asked. - </p> - <p> - “It is good-luck. So my man has said. It is the way of his people. It is - put over the door, and if a dream come it is a good dream; and if a bad - thing come, it will not enter; and if the heart prays for a thing hid from - all the world, then it brings good-luck. Hai-yai! I will put it over the - door, and then—” All at once her hand dropped to her side, as though - some terrible thought had come to her, and, sinking to the floor, she - rocked her body backward and forward for a time, sobbing. But presently - she got to her feet again, and, going to the door of the lodge, fastened - the horseshoe above it with a great needle and a string of buckskin. - </p> - <p> - “Oh great Sun,” she prayed, “have pity on me and save me! I cannot live - alone. I am only a Blackfoot wife; I am not blood of his blood. Give, O - great one, blood of his blood, bone of his bone, soul of his soul, that he - will say, This is mine, body of my body, and he will hear the cry and will - stay. O great Sun, pity me!” The old woman’s heart beat faster as she - listened. The same thought was in the mind of both. If there were but a - child, bone of his bone, then perhaps he would not go; or, if he went, - then surely he would return, when he heard his papoose calling in the - lodge in the wilderness. - </p> - <p> - As Mitiahwe turned to her, a strange burning light in her eyes, Swift Wing - said: “It is good. The white man’s Medicine for a white man’s wife. But if - there were the red man’s Medicine too—” - </p> - <p> - “What is the red man’s Medicine?” asked the young wife, as she smoothed - her hair, put a string of bright beads around her neck, and wound a red - sash round her waist. - </p> - <p> - The old woman shook her head, a curious half-mystic light in her eyes, her - body drawn up to its full height, as though waiting for something. “It is - an old Medicine. It is of winters ago as many as the hairs of the head. I - have forgotten almost, but it was a great Medicine when there were no - white men in the land. And so it was that to every woman’s breast there - hung a papoose, and every woman had her man, and the red men were like - leaves in the forest—but it was a winter of winters ago, and the - Medicine Men have forgotten; and thou hast no child! When Long Hand comes, - what will Mitiahwe say to him?” - </p> - <p> - Mitiahwe’s eyes were determined, her face was set, she flushed deeply, - then the colour fled. “What my mother would say, I will say. Shall the - white man’s Medicine fail? If I wish it, then it will be so: and I will - say so.” - </p> - <p> - “But if the white man’s Medicine fail?”—Swift Wing made a gesture - toward the door where the horse-shoe hung. “It is Medicine for a white - man, will it be Medicine for an Indian?” - </p> - <p> - “Am I not a white man’s wife?” - </p> - <p> - “But if there were the Sun Medicine also, the Medicine of the days long - ago?” - </p> - <p> - “Tell me. If you remember—Kai! but you do remember—I see it in - your face. Tell me, and I will make that Medicine also, my mother.” - </p> - <p> - “To-morrow, if I remember it—I will think, and if I remember it, - to-morrow I will tell you, my heart’s blood. Maybe my dream will come to - me and tell me. Then, even after all these years, a papoose—” - </p> - <p> - “But the boat will go at dawn to-morrow, and if he go also—” - </p> - <p> - “Mitiahwe is young, her body is warm, her eyes are bright, the songs she - sings, her tongue—if these keep him not, and the Voice calls him - still to go, then still Mitiahwe shall whisper, and tell him—” - </p> - <p> - “Hai-yo-hush,” said the girl, and trembled a little, and put both hands on - her mother’s mouth. - </p> - <p> - For a moment she stood so, then with an exclamation suddenly turned and - ran through the doorway, and sped toward the river, and into the path - which would take her to the post, where her man traded with the Indians - and had made much money during the past six years, so that he could have - had a thousand horses and ten lodges like that she had just left. The - distance between the lodge and the post was no more than a mile, but - Mitiahwe made a detour, and approached it from behind, where she could not - be seen. Darkness was gathering now, and she could see the glimmer of the - light of lamps through the windows, and as the doors opened and shut. No - one had seen her approach, and she stole through a door which was open at - the rear of the warehousing room, and went quickly to another door leading - into the shop. There was a crack through which she could see, and she - could hear all that was said. As she came she had seen Indians gliding - through the woods with their purchases, and now the shop was clearing - fast, in response to the urging of Dingan and his partner, a Scotch - half-breed. It was evident that Dingan was at once abstracted and excited. - </p> - <p> - Presently only two visitors were left, a French halfbreed call Lablache, a - swaggering, vicious fellow, and the captain of the steamer, Ste. Anne, - which was to make its last trip south in the morning—even now it - would have to break its way through the young ice. Dingan’s partner - dropped a bar across the door of the shop, and the four men gathered about - the fire. For a time no one spoke. At last the captain of the Ste. Anne - said: “It’s a great chance, Dingan. You’ll be in civilisation again, and - in a rising town of white people—Groise ‘ll be a city in five years, - and you can grow up and grow rich with the place. The Company asked me to - lay it all before you, and Lablache here will buy out your share of the - business, at whatever your partner and you prove its worth. You’re young; - you’ve got everything before you. You’ve made a name out here for being - the best trader west of the Great Lakes, and now’s your time. It’s none of - my affair, of course, but I like to carry through what I’m set to do, and - the Company said, ‘You bring Dingan back with you. The place is waiting - for him, and it can’t wait longer than the last boat down.’ You’re ready - to step in when he steps out, ain’t you, Lablache?” - </p> - <p> - Lablache shook back his long hair, and rolled about in his pride. “I give - him cash for his share to-night someone is behin’ me, share, yes! It is - worth so much, I pay and step in—I take the place over. I take half - the business here, and I work with Dingan’s partner. I take your horses, - Dingan, I take you lodge, I take all in your lodge—everyt’ing.” - </p> - <p> - His eyes glistened, and a red spot came to each cheek as he leaned - forward. At his last word Dingan, who had been standing abstractedly - listening, as it were, swung round on him with a muttered oath, and the - skin of his face appeared to tighten. Watching through the crack of the - door, Mitiahwe saw the look she knew well, though it had never been turned - on her, and her heart beat faster. It was a look that came into Dingan’s - face whenever Breaking Rock crossed his path, or when one or two other - names were mentioned in his presence, for they were names of men who had - spoken of Mitiahwe lightly, and had attempted to be jocular about her. - </p> - <p> - As Mitiahwe looked at him, now unknown to himself, she was conscious of - what that last word of Lablache’s meant. Everyt’ing meant herself. - Lablache—who had neither the good qualities of the white man nor the - Indian, but who had the brains of the one and the subtilty of the other, - and whose only virtue was that he was a successful trader, though he - looked like a mere woodsman, with rings in his ears, gaily decorated - buckskin coat and moccasins, and a furtive smile always on his lips! - Everyt’ing!—Her blood ran cold at the thought of dropping the - lodge-curtain upon this man and herself alone. For no other man than - Dingan had her blood run faster, and he had made her life blossom. She had - seen in many a half-breed’s and in many an Indian’s face the look which - was now in that of Lablache, and her fingers gripped softly the thing in - her belt that had flashed out on Breaking Rock such a short while ago. As - she looked, it seemed for a moment as though Dingan would open the door - and throw Lablache out, for in quick reflection his eyes ran from the man - to the wooden bar across the door. - </p> - <p> - “You’ll talk of the shop, and the shop only, Lablache,” Dingan said - grimly. “I’m not huckstering my home, and I’d choose the buyer if I was - selling. My lodge ain’t to be bought, nor anything in it—not even - the broom to keep it clean of any half-breeds that’d enter it without - leave.” - </p> - <p> - There was malice in the words, but there was greater malice in the tone, - and Lablache, who was bent on getting the business, swallowed his ugly - wrath, and determined that, if he got the business, he would get the lodge - also in due time; for Dingan, if he went, would not take the lodge-or the - woman with him; and Dingan was not fool enough to stay when he could go to - Groise to a sure fortune. - </p> - <p> - The captain of the Ste. Anne again spoke. “There’s another thing the - Company said, Dingan. You needn’t go to Groise, not at once. You can take - a month and visit your folks down East, and lay in a stock of - home-feelings before you settle down at Groise for good. They was fair - when I put it to them that you’d mebbe want to do that. ‘You tell Dingan,’ - they said, ‘that he can have the month glad and grateful, and a free - ticket on the railway back and forth. He can have it at once,’ they said.” - </p> - <p> - Watching, Mitiahwe could see her man’s face brighten, and take on a look - of longing at this suggestion; and it seemed to her that the bird she - heard in the night was calling in his ears now. Her eyes went blind a - moment. - </p> - <p> - “The game is with you, Dingan. All the cards are in your hands; you’ll - never get such another chance again; and you’re only thirty,” said the - captain. - </p> - <p> - “I wish they’d ask me,” said Dingan’s partner with a sigh, as he looked at - Lablache. “I want my chance bad, though we’ve done well here—good - gosh, yes, all through Dingan.” - </p> - <p> - “The winters, they go queeck in Groise,” said Lablache. “It is life all - the time, trade all the time, plenty to do and see—and a bon fortune - to make, bagosh!” - </p> - <p> - “Your old home was in Nove Scotia, wasn’t it, Dingan?” asked the captain - in a low voice. “I kem from Connecticut, and I was East to my village las’ - year. It was good seein’ all my old friends again; but I kem back content, - I kem back full of home-feelin’s and content. You’ll like the trip, - Dingan. It’ll do you good.” Dingan drew himself up with a start. “All - right. I guess I’ll do it. Let’s figure up again,” he said to his partner - with a reckless air. - </p> - <p> - With a smothered cry Mitiahwe turned and fled into the darkness, and back - to the lodge. The lodge was empty. She threw herself upon the great couch - in an agony of despair. - </p> - <p> - A half-hour went by. Then she rose, and began to prepare supper. Her face - was aflame, her manner was determined, and once or twice her hand went to - her belt, as though to assure herself of something. - </p> - <p> - Never had the lodge looked so bright and cheerful; never had she prepared - so appetising a supper; never had the great couch seemed so soft and rich - with furs, so homelike and so inviting after a long day’s work. Never had - Mitiahwe seemed so good to look at, so graceful and alert and refined—suffering - does its work even in the wild woods, with “wild people.” Never had the - lodge such an air of welcome and peace and home as to-night; and so Dingan - thought as he drew aside the wide curtains of deerskin and entered. - </p> - <p> - Mitiahwe was bending over the fire and appeared not to hear him. - “Mitiahwe,” he said gently. - </p> - <p> - She was singing to herself to an Indian air the words of a song Dingan had - taught her: - </p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - “Open the door: cold is the night, and my feet are heavy, - Heap up the fire, scatter upon it the cones and the scented leaves; - Spread the soft robe on the couch for the chief that returns, - Bring forth the cup of remembrance—” - </pre> - <p> - It was like a low recitative, and it had a plaintive cadence, as of a dove - that mourned. - </p> - <p> - “Mitiahwe,” he said in a louder voice, but with a break in it too; for it - all rushed upon him, all that she had been to him—all that had made - the great West glow with life, made the air sweeter, the grass greener, - the trees more companionable and human: who it was that had given the - waste places a voice. Yet—yet, there were his own people in the - East, there was another life waiting for him, there was the life of - ambition and wealth, and, and home—and children. - </p> - <p> - His eyes were misty as she turned to him with a little cry of surprise, - how much natural and how much assumed—for she had heard him enter—it - would have been hard to say. She was a woman, and therefore the daughter - of pretence even when most real. He caught her by both arms as she shyly - but eagerly came to him. “Good girl, good little girl,” he said. He looked - round him. “Well, I’ve never seen our lodge look nicer than it does - to-night; and the fire, and the pot on the fire, and the smell of the - pine-cones, and the cedar-boughs, and the skins, and—” - </p> - <p> - “And everything,” she said, with a queer little laugh, as she moved away - again to turn the steaks on the fire. Everything! He started at the word. - It was so strange that she should use it by accident, when but a little - while ago he had been ready to choke the wind out of a man’s body for - using it concerning herself. - </p> - <p> - It stunned him for a moment, for the West, and the life apart from the - world of cities, had given him superstition, like that of the Indians, - whose life he had made his own. - </p> - <p> - Herself—to leave her here, who had been so much to him? As true as - the sun she worshipped, her eyes had never lingered on another man since - she came to his lodge; and, to her mind, she was as truly sacredly married - to him as though a thousand priests had spoken, or a thousand Medicine Men - had made their incantations. She was his woman and he was her man. As he - chatted to her, telling her of much that he had done that day, and - wondering how he could tell her of all he had done, he kept looking round - the lodge, his eye resting on this or that; and everything had its own - personal history, had become part of their lodge-life, because it had a - use as between him and her, and not a conventional domestic place. Every - skin, every utensil, every pitcher and bowl and pot and curtain, had been - with them at one time or another, when it became of importance and - renowned in the story of their days and deeds. - </p> - <p> - How could he break it to her—that he was going to visit his own - people, and that she must be alone with her mother all winter, to await - his return in the spring? His return? As he watched her sitting beside - him, helping him to his favourite dish, the close, companionable trust and - gentleness of her, her exquisite cleanness and grace in his eyes, he asked - himself if, after all, it was not true that he would return in the spring. - The years had passed without his seriously thinking of this inevitable - day. He had put it off and off, content to live each hour as it came and - take no real thought for the future; and yet, behind all was the warning - fact that he must go one day, and that Mitiahwe could not go with him. Her - mother must have known that when she let Mitiahwe come to him. Of course; - and, after all, she would find another mate, a better mate, one of her own - people. - </p> - <p> - But her hand was in his now, and it was small and very warm, and suddenly - he shook with anger at the thought of one like Breaking Rock taking her to - his wigwam; or Lablache—this roused him to an inward fury; and - Mitiahwe saw and guessed the struggle that was going on in him, and she - leaned her head against his shoulder, and once she raised his hand to her - lips, and said, “My chief!” - </p> - <p> - Then his face cleared again, and she got him his pipe and filled it, and - held a coal to light it; and, as the smoke curled up, and he leaned back - contentedly for the moment, she went to the door, drew open the curtains, - and, stepping outside, raised her eyes to the horseshoe. Then she said - softly to the sky: “O Sun, great Father, have pity on me, for I love him, - and would keep him. And give me bone of his bone, and one to nurse at my - breast that is of him. O Sun, pity me this night, and be near me when I - speak to him, and hear what I say!” - </p> - <p> - “What are you doing out there, Mitiahwe?” Dingan cried; and when she - entered again he beckoned her to him. “What was it you were saying? Who - were you speaking to?” he asked. “I heard your voice.” - </p> - <p> - “I was thanking the Sun for his goodness to me. I was speaking for the - thing that is in my heart, that is life of my life,” she added vaguely. - </p> - <p> - “Well, I have something to say to you, little girl,” he said, with an - effort. - </p> - <p> - She remained erect before him waiting for the blow—outwardly calm, - inwardly crying out in pain. “Do you think you could stand a little - parting?” he asked, reaching out and touching her shoulder. - </p> - <p> - “I have been alone before—for five days,” she answered quietly. - </p> - <p> - “But it must be longer this time.” - </p> - <p> - “How long?” she asked, with eyes fixed on his. “If it is more than a week - I will go too.” - </p> - <p> - “It is longer than a month,” he said. “Then I will go.” - </p> - <p> - “I am going to see my people,” he faltered. - </p> - <p> - “By the Ste. Anne?” - </p> - <p> - He nodded. “It is the last chance this year; but I will come back—in - the spring.” - </p> - <p> - As he said it he saw her shrink, and his heart smote him. Four years such - as few men ever spent, and all the luck had been with him, and the West - had got into his bones! The quiet, starry nights, the wonderful days, the - hunt, the long journeys, the life free of care, and the warm lodge; and, - here, the great couch—ah, the cheek pressed to his, the lips that - whispered at his ear, the smooth arm round his neck. It all rushed upon - him now. His people? His people in the East, who had thwarted his youth, - vexed and cramped him, saw only evil in his widening desires, and threw - him over when he came out West—the scallywag, they called him, who - had never wronged a man or-or a woman! Never—wronged-a-woman? The - question sprang to his lips now. Suddenly he saw it all in a new light. - White or brown or red, this heart and soul and body before him were all - his, sacred to him; he was in very truth her “Chief.” - </p> - <p> - Untutored as she was, she read him, felt what was going on in him. She saw - the tears spring to his eyes. Then, coming close to him she said softly, - slowly: “I must go with you if you go, because you must be with me when—oh, - hai-yai, my chief, shall we go from here? Here in this lodge wilt thou be - with thine own people—thine own, thou and I—and thine to - come.” The great passion in her heart made the lie seem very truth. - </p> - <p> - With a cry he got to his feet, and stood staring at her for a moment, - scarcely comprehending; then suddenly he clasped her in his arms. - </p> - <p> - “Mitiahwe—Mitiahwe, oh, my little girl!” he cried. “You and me—and - our own—our own people!” Kissing her, he drew her down beside him on - the couch. “Tell me again—it is so at last?” he said, and she - whispered in his ear once more. - </p> - <p> - In the middle of the night he said to her, “Some day, perhaps, we will go - East—some day, perhaps.” - </p> - <p> - “But now?” she asked softly. - </p> - <p> - “Not now—not if I know it,” he answered. “I’ve got my heart nailed - to the door of this lodge.” - </p> - <p> - As he slept she got quietly out, and, going to the door of the lodge, - reached up a hand and touched the horse-shoe. - </p> - <p> - “Be good Medicine to me,” she said. Then she prayed. “O Sun, pity me that - it may be as I have said to him. O pity me, great Father!” - </p> - <p> - In the days to come Swift Wing said that it was her Medicine; when her - hand was burned to the wrist in the dark ritual she had performed with the - Medicine Man the night that Mitiahwe fought for her man—but Mitiahwe - said it was her Medicine, the horse-shoe, which brought one of Dingan’s - own people to the lodge, a little girl with Mitiahwe’s eyes and form and - her father’s face. Truth has many mysteries, and the faith of the woman - was great; and so it was that, to the long end, Mitiahwe kept her man. But - truly she was altogether a woman, and had good fortune. - </p> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"> - <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - ONCE AT RED MAN’S RIVER - </h2> - <p> - “It’s got to be settled to-night, Nance. This game is up here, up for - ever. The redcoat police from Ottawa are coming, and they’ll soon be - roostin’ in this post; the Injuns are goin’, the buffaloes are most gone, - and the fur trade’s dead in these parts. D’ye see?” - </p> - <p> - The woman did not answer the big, broad-shouldered man bending over her, - but remained looking into the fire with wide, abstracted eyes and a face - somewhat set. - </p> - <p> - “You and your brother Bantry’s got to go. This store ain’t worth a cent - now. The Hudson’s Bay Company’ll come along with the redcoats, and they’ll - set up a nice little Sunday-school business here for what they call - ‘agricultural settlers.’ There’ll be a railway, and the Yankees’ll send up - their marshals to work with the redcoats on the border, and—” - </p> - <p> - “And the days of smuggling will be over,” put in the girl in a low voice. - “No more bull-wackers and muleskinners ‘whooping it up’; no more Blackfeet - and Piegans drinking alcohol and water, and cutting each others’ throats. - A nice quiet time coming on the border, Abe, eh?” - </p> - <p> - The man looked at her queerly. She was not prone to sarcasm, she had not - been given to sentimentalism in the past; she had taken the border-life as - it was, had looked it straight between the eyes. She had lived up to it, - or down to it, without any fuss, as good as any man in any phase of the - life, and the only white woman in this whole West country. It was not in - the words, but in the tone, that Abe Hawley found something unusual and - defamatory. - </p> - <p> - “Why, gol darn it, Nance, what’s got into you? You bin a man out West, as - good a pioneer as ever was on the border. But now you don’t sound friendly - to what’s been the game out here, and to all of us that’ve been risking - our lives to get a livin’.” - </p> - <p> - “What did I say?” asked the girl, unmoved. - </p> - <p> - “It ain’t what you said, it’s the sound o’ your voice.” - </p> - <p> - “You don’t know my voice, Abe. It ain’t always the same. You ain’t always - about; you don’t always hear it.” - </p> - <p> - He caught her arm suddenly. “No, but I want to hear it always. I want to - be always where you are, Nance. That’s what’s got to be settled to-day—to-night.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, it’s got to be settled to-night!” said the girl meditatively, kicking - nervously at a log on the fire. “It takes two to settle a thing like that, - and there’s only one says it’s got to be settled. Maybe it takes more than - two—or three—to settle a thing like that.” Now she laughed - mirthlessly. - </p> - <p> - The man started, and his face flushed with anger; then he put a hand on - himself, drew a step back, and watched her. - </p> - <p> - “One can settle a thing, if there’s a dozen in it. You see, Nance, you and - Bantry’s got to close out. He’s fixing it up to-night over at Dingan’s - Drive, and you can’t go it alone when you quit this place. Now, it’s this - way: you can go West with Bantry, or you can go North with me. Away North - there’s buffalo and deer, and game aplenty, up along the Saskatchewan, and - farther up on the Peace River. It’s going to be all right up there for - half a lifetime, and we can have it in our own way yet. There’ll be no - smuggling, but there’ll be trading, and land to get; and, mebbe, there’d - be no need of smuggling, for we can make it, I know how—good white - whiskey—and we’ll still have this free life for our own. I can’t - make up my mind to settle down to a clean collar and going to church on - Sundays, and all that. And the West’s in your bones too. You look like the - West—” - </p> - <p> - The girl’s face brightened with pleasure, and she gazed at him steadily. - </p> - <p> - “You got its beauty and its freshness, and you got its heat and cold—” - </p> - <p> - She saw the tobacco-juice stain at the corners of his mouth, she became - conscious of the slight odour of spirits in the air, and the light in her - face lowered in intensity. - </p> - <p> - “You got the ways of the deer in your walk, the song o’ the birds in your - voice; and you’re going North with me, Nance, for I bin talkin’ to you - stiddy four years. It’s a long time to wait on the chance, for there’s - always women to be got, same as others have done—men like Dingan - with Injun girls, and men like Tobey with half-breeds. But I ain’t bin - lookin’ that way. I bin lookin’ only towards you.” He laughed eagerly, and - lifted a tin cup of whiskey standing on a table near. “I’m lookin’ towards - you now, Nance. Your health and mine together. It’s got to be settled now. - You got to go to the ‘Cific Coast with Bantry, or North with me.” - </p> - <p> - The girl jerked a shoulder and frowned a little. He seemed so sure of - himself. - </p> - <p> - “Or South with Nick Pringle, or East with someone else,” she said - quizzically. “There’s always four quarters to the compass, even when Abe - Hawley thinks he owns the world and has a mortgage on eternity. I’m not - going West with Bantry, but there’s three other points that’s open.” - </p> - <p> - With an oath the man caught her by the shoulders, and swung her round to - face him. He was swelling with anger. “You—Nick Pringle, that - trading cheat, that gambler! After four years, I—” - </p> - <p> - “Let go my shoulders,” she said quietly. “I’m not your property. Go and - get some Piegan girl to bully. Keep your hands off. I’m not a bronco for - you to bit and bridle. You’ve got no rights. You—” Suddenly she - relented, seeing the look in his face, and realising that, after all, it - was a tribute to herself that she could keep him for four years and rouse - him to such fury—“but yes, Abe,” she added, “you have some rights. - We’ve been good friends all these years, and you’ve been all right out - here. You said some nice things about me just now, and I liked it, even if - it was as if you learned it out of a book. I’ve got no po’try in me; I’m - plain homespun. I’m a sapling, I’m not any prairie-flower, but I like when - I like, and I like a lot when I like. I’m a bit of hickory, I’m not a - prairie-flower—” - </p> - <p> - “Who said you was a prairie-flower? Did I? Who’s talking about - prairie-flowers—” - </p> - <p> - He stopped suddenly, turned round at the sound of a footstep behind him, - and saw, standing in a doorway leading to another room, a man who was - digging his knuckles into his eyes and stifling a yawn. He was a - refined-looking stripling of not more than twenty-four, not tall, but well - made, and with an air of breeding, intensified rather than hidden by his - rough clothes. - </p> - <p> - “Je-rick-ety! How long have I slept?” he said, blinking at the two beside - the fire. “How long?” he added, with a flutter of anxiety in his tone. - </p> - <p> - “I said I’d wake you,” said the girl, coming forwards. “You needn’t have - worried.” - </p> - <p> - “I don’t worry,” answered the young man. “I dreamed myself awake, I - suppose. I got dreaming of redcoats and U. S. marshals, and an ambush in - the Barfleur Coulee, and—” He saw a secret, warning gesture from the - girl, and laughed, then turned to Abe and looked him in the face. “Oh, I - know him! Abe Hawley’s all O. K.—I’ve seen him over at Dingan’s - Drive. Honour among rogues. We’re all in it. How goes it—all right?” - he added carelessly to Hawley, and took a step forwards, as though to - shake hands. Seeing the forbidding look by which he was met, however, he - turned to the girl again, as Hawley muttered something they could not - hear. - </p> - <p> - “What time is it?” he asked. - </p> - <p> - “It’s nine o’clock,” answered the girl, her eyes watching his every - movement, her face alive. - </p> - <p> - “Then the moon’s up almost?” - </p> - <p> - “It’ll be up in an hour.” - </p> - <p> - “Jerickety! Then I’ve got to get ready.” He turned to the other room again - and entered. - </p> - <p> - “College pup!” said Hawley under his breath savagely. “Why didn’t you tell - me he was here?” - </p> - <p> - “Was it any of your business, Abe?” she rejoined quietly. - </p> - <p> - “Hiding him away here—” - </p> - <p> - “Hiding? Who’s been hiding him? He’s doing what you’ve done. He’s - smuggling—the last lot for the traders over by Dingan’s Drive. He’ll - get it there by morning. He has as much right here as you. What’s got into - you, Abe?” - </p> - <p> - “What does he know about the business? Why, he’s a college man from the - East. I’ve heard o’ him. Ain’t got no more sense for this life than a - dicky-bird. White-faced college pup! What’s he doing out here? If you’re a - friend o’ his, you’d better look after him. He’s green.” - </p> - <p> - “He’s going East again,” she said, “and if I don’t go West with Bantry, or - South over to Montana with Nick Pringle, or North—” - </p> - <p> - “Nancy—” His eyes burned, his lips quivered. - </p> - <p> - She looked at him and wondered at the power she had over this bully of the - border, who had his own way with most people, and was one of the most - daring fighters, hunters, and smugglers in the country. He was cool, hard, - and well-in-hand in his daily life, and yet, where she was concerned, - “went all to pieces,” as someone else had said about himself to her. - </p> - <p> - She was not without the wiles and tact of her sex. “You go now, and come - back, Abe,” she said in a soft voice. “Come back in an hour. Come back - then, and I’ll tell you which way I’m going from here.” - </p> - <p> - He was all right again. “It’s with you, Nancy,” he said eagerly. “I bin - waiting four years.” - </p> - <p> - As he closed the door behind him the “college pup” entered the room again. - “Oh, Abe’s gone!” he said excitedly. “I hoped you’d get rid of the old - rip-roarer. I wanted to be alone with you for a while. I don’t really need - to start yet. With the full moon I can do it before daylight.” Then, with - quick warmth, “Ah, Nancy, Nancy, you’re a flower—the flower of all - the prairies,” he added, catching her hand and laughing into her eyes. - </p> - <p> - She flushed, and for a moment seemed almost bewildered. His boldness, - joined to an air of insinuation and understanding, had influenced her - greatly from the first moment they had met two months ago, as he was going - South on his smuggling enterprise. The easy way in which he had talked to - her, the extraordinary sense he seemed to have of what was going on in her - mind, the confidential meaning in voice and tone and words had, somehow, - opened up a side of her nature hitherto unexplored. She had talked with - him freely then, for it was only when he left her that he said what he - instinctively knew she would remember till they met again. His quick - comments, his indirect but acute questions, his exciting and alluring - reminiscences of the East, his subtle yet seemingly frank compliments, had - only stimulated a new capacity in her, evoked comparisons of this - delicate-looking, fine-faced gentleman with the men of the West by whom - she was surrounded. But later he appeared to stumble into expressions of - admiration for her, as though he was carried off his feet and had been - stunned by her charm. He had done it all like a master. He had not said - that she was beautiful—she knew she was not—but that she was - wonderful, and fascinating, and with “something about her” he had never - seen in all his life, like her own prairies, thrilling, inspiring, and - adorable. His first look at her had seemed full of amazement. She had - noticed that, and thought it meant only that he was surprised to find a - white girl out here among smugglers, hunters, squaw-men, and Indians. But - he said that the first look at her had made him feel things-feel life and - women different from ever before; and he had never seen anyone like her, - nor a face with so much in it. It was all very brilliantly done. - </p> - <p> - “You make me want to live,” he had said, and she, with no knowledge of the - nuances of language, had taken it literally, and had asked him if it had - been his wish to die; and he had responded to her mistaken interpretation - of his meaning, saying that he had had such sorrow he had not wanted to - live. As he said it his face looked, in truth, overcome by some deep - inward care; so that there came a sort of feeling she had never had so far - for any man—that he ought to have someone to look after him. This - was the first real stirring of the maternal and protective spirit in her - towards men, though it had shown itself amply enough regarding animals and - birds. He had said he had not wanted to live, and yet he had come out West - in order to try and live, to cure the trouble that had started in his - lungs. The Eastern doctors had told him that the rough outdoor life would - cure him, or nothing would, and he had vanished from the college walls and - the pleasant purlieus of learning and fashion into the wilds. He had not - lied directly to her when he said that he had had deep trouble; but he had - given the impression that he was suffering from wrongs which had broken - his spirit and ruined his health. Wrongs there certainly had been in his - life, by whomever committed. - </p> - <p> - Two months ago he had left this girl with her mind full of memories of - what he had said to her, and there was something in the sound of the - slight cough following his farewell words which had haunted her ever - since. Her tremendous health and energy, the fire of life burning so - brightly in her, reached out towards this man living on so narrow a margin - of force, with no reserve for any extra strain, with just enough for each - day’s use and no more. Four hours before he had come again with his team - of four mules and an Indian youth, having covered forty miles since his - last stage. She was at the door and saw him coming while he was yet along - distance off. Some instinct had told her to watch that afternoon, for she - knew of his intended return and of his dangerous enterprise. The Indians - had trailed south and east, the traders had disappeared with them, her - brother Bantry had gone up and over to Dingan’s Drive, and, save for a few - loiterers and last hangers-on, she was alone with what must soon be a - deserted post; its walls, its great enclosed yard, and its gun-platforms - (for it had been fortified) left for law and order to enter upon, in the - persons of the red-coated watchmen of the law. - </p> - <p> - Out of the South, from over the border, bringing the last great smuggled - load of whiskey which was to be handed over at Dingan’s Drive, and then - floated on Red Man’s River to settlements up North, came the “college - pup,” Kelly Lambton, worn out, dazed with fatigue, but smiling too, for a - woman’s face was ever a tonic to his blood since he was big enough to move - in life for himself. It needed courage—or recklessness—to run - the border now; for, as Abe Hawley had said, the American marshals were on - the pounce, the red-coated mounted police were coming west from Ottawa, - and word had winged its way along the prairie that these redcoats were - only a few score miles away, and might be at Fort Fair Desire at any - moment. The trail to Dingan’s Drive lay past it. Through Barfleur Coulee, - athwart a great open stretch of country, along a wooded belt, and then, - suddenly, over a ridge, Dingan’s Drive and Red Man’s River would be - reached. - </p> - <p> - The Government had a mind to make an example, if necessary, by killing - some smugglers in conflict, and the United States marshals had been goaded - by vanity and anger at one or two escapes “to have something for their - money,” as they said. That, in their language, meant, “to let the red - run,” and Kelly Lambton had none too much blood to lose. - </p> - <p> - He looked very pale and beaten as he held Nance Machell’s hands now, and - called her a prairie-flower, as he had done when he left her two months - before. On his arrival but now he had said little, for he saw that she was - glad to see him, and he was dead for sleep, after thirty-six hours of - ceaseless travel and watching and danger. Now, with the most perilous part - of his journey still before him, and worn physically as he was, his blood - was running faster as he looked into the girl’s face, and something in her - abundant force and bounding life drew him to her. Such vitality in a man - like Abe Hawley would have angered him almost, as it did a little time - ago, when Abe was there; but possessed by the girl, it roused in him a - hunger to draw from the well of her perfect health, from the unused vigour - of her being, something for himself. The touch of her hands warmed him, in - the fulness of her life, in the strong eloquence of face and form, he - forgot she was not beautiful. The lightness passed from his words, and his - face became eager. - </p> - <p> - “Flower, yes, the flower of the life of the West—that’s what I - mean,” he said. “You are like an army marching. When I look at you, my - blood runs faster. I want to march too. When I hold your hand I feel that - life’s worth living—I want to do things.” - </p> - <p> - She drew her hand away rather awkwardly. She had not now that command of - herself which had ever been easy with the men of the West, except, - perhaps, with Abe Hawley when— - </p> - <p> - But with an attempt, only half-meant, to turn the topic, she said: “You - must be starting if you want to get through to-night. If the redcoats - catch you this side of Barfleur Coulee, or in the Coulee itself, you’ll - stand no chance. I heard they was only thirty miles north this afternoon. - Maybe they’ll come straight on here to-night, instead of camping. If they - have news of your coming, they might. You can’t tell.” - </p> - <p> - “You’re right.” He caught her hand again. “I’ve got to be going now. But - Nance—Nance—Nancy, I want to stay here, here with you; or to - take you with me.” - </p> - <p> - She drew back. “What do you mean?” she asked. “Take me with you—me—where?” - </p> - <p> - “East—away down East.” - </p> - <p> - Her brain throbbed, her pulses beat so hard. She scarcely knew what to - say, did not know what she said. “Why do you do this kind of thing? Why do - you smuggle?” she asked. “You wasn’t brought up to this.” - </p> - <p> - “To get this load of stuff through is life and death to me,” he answered. - “I’ve made six thousand dollars out here. That’s enough to start me again - in the East, where I lost everything. But I’ve got to have six hundred - dollars clear for the travel—railways and things; and I’m having - this last run to get it. Then I’ve finished with the West, I guess. My - health’s better; the lung is closed up, I’ve only got a little cough now - and again; and I’m off East. I don’t want to go alone.” He suddenly caught - her in his arms. “I want you—you, to go with me, Nancy—Nance!” - </p> - <p> - Her brain swam. To leave the West behind, to go East to a new life full of - pleasant things, as this man’s wife! Her great heart rose, and suddenly - the mother in her as well as the woman in her was captured by his wooing. - She had never known what it was to be wooed like this. - </p> - <p> - She was about to answer, when there came a sharp knock at the door leading - from the backyard, and Lambton’s Indian lad entered. “The soldier—he - come—many. I go over the ridge; I see. They come quick here,” he - said. - </p> - <p> - Nance gave a startled cry, and Lambton turned to the other room for his - pistols, overcoat, and cap, when there was the sound of horses’ hoofs, the - door suddenly opened, and an officer stepped inside. - </p> - <p> - “You’re wanted for smuggling, Lambton,” he said brusquely. “Don’t stir!” - In his hand was a revolver. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, bosh! Prove it,” answered the young man, pale and startled, but cool - in speech and action. “We’ll prove it all right. The stuff is hereabouts.” - The girl said something to the officer in the Chinook language. She saw he - did not understand. Then she spoke quickly to Lambton in the same tongue. - </p> - <p> - “Keep him here a bit,” she said. “His men haven’t come yet. Your outfit is - well hid. I’ll see if I can get away with it before they find it. They’ll - follow, and bring you with them, that’s sure. So if I have luck and get - through, we’ll meet at Dingan’s Drive.” - </p> - <p> - Lambton’s face brightened. He quickly gave her a few directions in - Chinook, and told her what to do at Dingan’s if she got there first. Then - she was gone. The officer did not understand what Nance had said, but he - realised that, whatever she intended to do, she had an advantage over him. - With an unnecessary courage he had ridden on alone to make his capture, - and, as it proved, without prudence. He had got his man, but he had not - got the smuggled whiskey and alcohol he had come to seize. There was no - time to be lost. The girl had gone before he realised it. What had she - said to the prisoner? He was foolish enough to ask Lambton, and Lambton - replied coolly: “She said she’d get you some supper, but she guessed it - would have to be cold—What’s your name? Are you a colonel, or a - captain, or only a principal private?” - </p> - <p> - “I am Captain MacFee, Lambton. And you’ll now bring me where your outfit - is. March!” - </p> - <p> - The pistol was still in his hand, and he had a determined look in his eye. - Lambton saw it. He was aware of how much power lay in the threatening face - before him, and how eager that power was to make itself felt, and provide - “Examples”; but he took his chances. - </p> - <p> - “I’ll march all right,” he answered, “but I’ll march to where you tell me. - You can’t have it both ways. You can take me, because you’ve found me, and - you can take my outfit too when you’ve found it; but I’m not doing your - work, not if I know it.” - </p> - <p> - There was a blaze of anger in the eyes of the officer, and it looked for - an instant as though something of the lawlessness of the border was going - to mark the first step of the Law in the Wilderness, but he bethought - himself in time, and said quietly, yet in a voice which Lambton knew he - must heed: - </p> - <p> - “Put on your things-quick.” - </p> - <p> - When this was accomplished, and MacFee had secured the smuggler’s pistols, - he said again, “March, Lambton.” - </p> - <p> - Lambton marched through the moonlit night towards the troop of men who had - come to set up the flag of order in the plains and hills, and as he went - his keen ear heard his own mules galloping away down towards the Barfleur - Coulee. His heart thumped in his breast. This girl, this prairie-flower, - was doing this for him, was risking her life, was breaking the law for - him. If she got through, and handed over the whiskey to those who were - waiting for it, and it got bundled into the boats going North before the - redcoats reached Dingan’s Drive, it would be as fine a performance as the - West had ever seen; and he would be six hundred dollars to the good. He - listened to the mules galloping, till the sounds had died into the - distance, but he saw now that his captor had heard too, and that the - pursuit would be desperate. - </p> - <p> - A half-hour later it began, with MacFee at the head, and a dozen troopers - pounding behind, weary, hungry, bad-tempered, ready to exact payment for - their hardships and discouragement. - </p> - <p> - They had not gone a dozen miles when a shouting horseman rode furiously on - them from behind. They turned with carbines cocked, but it was Abe Hawley - who cursed them, flung his fingers in their faces, and rode on harder and - harder. Abe had got the news from one of Nancy’s half-breeds, and, with - the devil raging in his heart, had entered on the chase. His spirit was up - against them all; against the Law represented by the troopers camped at - Fort Fair Desire, against the troopers and their captain speeding after - Nancy Machell—his Nonce, who was risking her life and freedom for - the hated, pale-faced smuggler riding between the troopers; and his spirit - was up against Nance herself. - </p> - <p> - Nance had said to him, “Come back in an hour,” and he had come back to - find her gone. She had broken her word. She had deceived him. She had - thrown the four years of his waiting to the winds, and a savage lust was - in his heart, which would not be appeased till he had done some evil thing - to someone. - </p> - <p> - The girl and the Indian lad were pounding through the night with ears - strained to listen for hoof-beats coming after, with eyes searching - forward into the trail for swollen creeks and direful obstructions. - Through Barfleur Coulee it was a terrible march, for there was no road, - and again and again they were nearly overturned, while wolves hovered in - their path, ready to reap a midnight harvest. But once in the open again, - with the full moonlight on their trail, the girl’s spirits rose. If she - could do this thing for the man who had looked into her eyes as no one had - ever done, what a finish to her days in the West! For they were finished, - finished for ever, and she was going—she was going East; not West - with Bantry, nor South with Nick Pringle, nor North with Abe Hawley, ah, - Abe Hawley, he had been a good friend, he had a great heart, he was the - best man of all the western men she had known; but another man had come - from the East, a man who had roused something in her never felt before, a - man who had said she was wonderful; and he needed someone to take good - care of him, to make him love life again. Abe would have been all right if - Lambton had never come, and she had meant to marry Abe in the end; but it - was different now, and Abe must get over it. Yet she had told Abe to come - back in an hour. He was sure to do it; and, when he had done it, and found - her gone on this errand, what would he do? She knew what he would do. He - would hurt someone. He would follow too. But at Dingan’s Drive, if she - reached it before the troopers and before Abe, and did the thing she had - set out to do; and, because no whiskey could be found, Lambton must go - free; and they all stood there together, what would be the end? Abe would - be terrible; but she was going East, not North, and when the time came she - would face it and put things right somehow. - </p> - <p> - The night seemed endless to her fixed and anxious eyes and mind, yet dawn - came, and there had fallen no sound of hoof-beats on her ear. The ridge - above Dingan’s Drive was reached and covered, but yet there was no sign of - her pursuers. At Red Man’s River she delivered her load of contraband to - the traders waiting for it, and saw it loaded into the boats and disappear - beyond the wooded bend above Dingan’s. - </p> - <p> - Then she collapsed into the arms of her brother Bantry, and was carried, - fainting, into Dingan’s Lodge. A half-hour later MacFee and his troopers - and Lambton came. MacFee grimly searched the post and the shore, but he - saw by the looks of all that he had been foiled. He had no proof of - anything, and Lambton must go free. - </p> - <p> - “You’ve fooled us,” he said to Nance sourly, yet with a kind of admiration - too. “Through you they got away with it. But I wouldn’t try it again, if I - were you.” - </p> - <p> - “Once is enough,” answered the girl laconically, as Lambton, set free, - caught both her hands in his and whispered in her ear. - </p> - <p> - MacFee turned to the others. “You’d better drop this kind of thing,” he - said. “I mean business.” They saw the troopers by the horses, and nodded. - </p> - <p> - “Well, we was about quit of it anyhow,” said Bantry. “We’ve had all we - want out here.” - </p> - <p> - A loud laugh went up, and it was still ringing when there burst into the - group, out of the trail, Abe Hawley, on foot. - </p> - <p> - He looked round the group savagely till his eyes rested on Nance and - Lambton. “I’m last in,” he said in a hoarse voice. “My horse broke its leg - cutting across to get here before her—” He waved a hand towards - Nance. “It’s best stickin’ to old trails, not tryin’ new ones.” His eyes - were full of hate as he looked at Lambton. “I’m keeping to old trails. I’m - for goin’ North, far up, where these two-dollar-a-day and hash-and-clothes - people ain’t come yet.” He made a contemptuous gesture toward MacFee and - his troopers. “I’m goin’ North—” He took a step forward and fixed - his bloodshot eyes on Nance. “I say I’m goin’ North. You comin’ with me, - Nance?” He took off his cap to her. - </p> - <p> - He was haggard, his buckskins were torn, his hair was dishevelled, and he - limped a little; but he was a massive and striking figure, and MacFee - watched him closely, for there was that in his eyes which meant trouble. - “You said, ‘Come back in an hour,’ Nance, and I come back, as I said I - would,” he went on. “You didn’t stand to your word. I’ve come to git it. - I’m goin’ North, Nance, and I bin waitin’ for four years for you to go - with me. Are you comin’?” - </p> - <p> - His voice was quiet, but it had a choking kind of sound, and it struck - strangely in the ears of all. MacFee came nearer. - </p> - <p> - “Are you comin’ with me, Nance, dear?” - </p> - <p> - She reached a hand towards Lambton, and he took it, but she did not speak. - Something in Abe’s eyes overwhelmed her—something she had never seen - before, and it seemed to stifle speech in her. Lambton spoke instead. - </p> - <p> - “She’s going East with me,” he said. “That’s settled.” - </p> - <p> - MacFee started. Then he caught Abe’s arm. “Wait!” he said peremptorily. - “Wait one minute.” There was something in his voice which held Abe back - for the instant. - </p> - <p> - “You say she is going East with you,” MacFee said sharply to Lambton. - “What for?” He fastened Lambton with his eyes, and Lambton quailed. “Have - you told her you’ve got a wife—down East? I’ve got your history, - Lambton. Have you told her that you’ve got a wife you married when you - were at college—and as good a girl as ever lived?” - </p> - <p> - It had come with terrible suddenness even to Lambton, and he was too dazed - to make any reply. With a cry of shame and anger Nancy started back. - Growling with rage and hate, Abe Hawley sprang toward Lambton, but the - master of the troopers stepped between. - </p> - <p> - No one could tell who moved first, or who first made the suggestion, for - the minds of all were the same, and the general purpose was instantaneous; - but in the fraction of a minute Lambton, under menace, was on his hands - and knees crawling to the riverside. Watchful, but not interfering, the - master of the troopers saw him set adrift in a canoe without a paddle, - while he was pelted with mud from the shore. - </p> - <p> - The next morning at sunrise Abe Hawley and the girl he had waited for so - long started on the North trail together, MacFee, master of the troopers - and justice of the peace, handing over the marriage lines. - </p> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006"> - <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - THE STROBE OF THE HOUR - </h2> - <h3> - “They won’t come to-night—sure.” - </h3> - <p> - The girl looked again towards the west, where, here and there, bare poles, - or branches of trees, or slips of underbrush marked a road made across the - plains through the snow. The sun was going down golden red, folding up the - sky a wide soft curtain of pink and mauve and deep purple merging into the - fathomless blue, where already the stars were beginning to quiver. The - house stood on the edge of a little forest, which had boldly asserted - itself in the wide flatness. At this point in the west the prairie merged - into an undulating territory, where hill and wood rolled away from the - banks of the Saskatchewan, making another England in beauty. The forest - was a sort of advance-post of that land of beauty. - </p> - <p> - Yet there was beauty too on this prairie, though there was nothing to the - east but snow and the forest so far as eye could see. Nobility and peace - and power brooded over the white world. - </p> - <p> - As the girl looked, it seemed as though the bosom of the land rose and - fell. She had felt this vibrating life beat beneath the frozen surface. - Now, as she gazed, she smiled sadly to herself, with drooping eyelids - looking out from beneath strong brows. - </p> - <p> - “I know you—I know you,” she said aloud. “You’ve got to take your - toll. And when you’re lying asleep like that, or pretending to, you reach - up-and kill. And yet you can be kind-ah, but you can be kind and - beautiful! But you must have your toll one way or t’other.” She sighed and - paused; then, after a moment, looking along the trail—“I don’t - expect they’ll come to-night, and mebbe not to-morrow, if—if they - stay for THAT.” - </p> - <p> - Her eyes closed, she shivered a little. Her lips drew tight, and her face - seemed suddenly to get thinner. “But dad wouldn’t—no, he couldn’t, - not considerin’—” Again she shut her eyes in pain. - </p> - <p> - Her face was now turned from the western road by which she had expected - her travellers, and towards the east, where already the snow was taking on - a faint bluish tint, a reflection of the sky deepening nightwards in that - half-circle of the horizon. Distant and a little bleak and cheerless the - half-circle was looking now. - </p> - <p> - “No one—not for two weeks,” she said, in comment on the eastern - trail, which was so little frequented in winter, and this year had been - less travelled than ever. “It would be nice to have a neighbour,” she - added, as she faced the west and the sinking sun again. “I get so lonely—just - minutes I get lonely. But it’s them minutes that seem to count more than - all the rest when they come. I expect that’s it—we don’t live in - months and years, but just in minutes. It doesn’t take long for an - earthquake to do its work—it’s seconds then.... P’r’aps dad won’t - even come to-morrow,” she added, as she laid her hand on the latch. “It - never seemed so long before, not even when he’s been away a week.” She - laughed bitterly. “Even bad company’s better than no company at all. Sure. - And Mickey has been here always when dad’s been away past times. Mickey - was a fool, but he was company; and mebbe he’d have been better company if - he’d been more of a scamp and less a fool. I dunno, but I really think he - would. Bad company doesn’t put you off so.” - </p> - <p> - There was a scratching at the inside of the door. “My, if I didn’t forget - Shako,” she said, “and he dying for a run!” - </p> - <p> - She opened the door quickly, and out jumped a Russian dog of almost full - breed, with big, soft eyes like those of his mistress, and with the air of - the north in every motion—like his mistress also. - </p> - <p> - “Come, Shako, a run—a run!” - </p> - <p> - An instant after she was flying off on a path towards the woods, her short - skirts flying and showing limbs as graceful and shapely as those of any - woman of that world of social grace which she had never seen; for she was - a prairie girl through and through, born on the plains and fed on its - scanty fare—scanty as to variety, at least. Backwards and forwards - they ran, the girl shouting like a child of ten,—she was - twenty-three, her eyes flashing, her fine white teeth showing, her hands - thrown up in sheer excess of animal life, her hair blowing about her - face-brown, strong hair, wavy and plentiful. - </p> - <p> - Fine creature as she was, her finest features were her eyes and her hands. - The eyes might have been found in the most savage places; the hands, - however, only could have come through breeding. She had got them honestly; - for her mother was descended from an old family of the French province. - That was why she had the name of Loisette—and had a touch of - distinction. It was the strain of the patrician in the full blood of the - peasant; but it gave her something which made her what she was—what - she had been since a child, noticeable and besought, sometimes beloved. It - was too strong a nature to compel love often, but it never failed to - compel admiration. Not greatly a creature of words, she had become moody - of late; and even now, alive with light and feeling and animal life, she - suddenly stopped her romp and run, and called the dog to her. - </p> - <p> - “Heel, Shako!” she said, and made for the door of the little house, which - looked so snug and home-like. She paused before she came to the door, to - watch the smoke curling up from the chimney straight as a column, for - there was not a breath of air stirring. The sun was almost gone and the - strong bluish light was settling on everything, giving even the green - spruce trees a curious burnished tone. - </p> - <p> - Swish! Thud! She faced the woods quickly. It was only a sound that she had - heard how many hundreds of times! It was the snow slipping from some broad - branch of the fir trees to the ground. Yet she started now. Something was - on her mind, agitating her senses, affecting her self-control. - </p> - <p> - “I’ll be jumping out of my boots when the fire snaps, or the frost cracks - the ice, next,” she said aloud contemptuously. “I dunno what’s the matter - with me. I feel as if someone was hiding somewhere ready to pop out on me. - I haven’t never felt like that before.” - </p> - <p> - She had formed the habit of talking to herself, for it had seemed at - first, as she was left alone when her father went trapping or upon - journeys for the Government, that by and by she would start at the sound - of her own voice, if she didn’t think aloud. So she was given to - soliloquy, defying the old belief that people who talked to themselves - were going mad. She laughed at that. She said that birds sang to - themselves and didn’t go mad, and crickets chirruped, and frogs croaked, - and owls hooted, and she would talk and not go crazy either. So she talked - to herself and to Shako when she was alone. - </p> - <p> - How quiet it was inside when her light supper was eaten, bread and beans - and pea-soup—she had got this from her French mother. Now she sat, - her elbows on her knees, her chin on her hands, looking into the fire. - Shako was at her feet upon the great musk-ox rug, which her father had got - on one of his hunting trips in the Athabasca country years ago. It - belonged as she belonged. It breathed of the life of the north-land, for - the timbers of the hut were hewn cedar; the rough chimney, the seats, and - the shelves on which a few books made a fair show beside the bright tins - and the scanty crockery, were of pine; and the horned heads of deer and - wapiti made pegs for coats and caps, and rests for guns and rifles. It was - a place of comfort; it had an air of well-to-do thrift, even as the girl’s - dress, though plain, was made of good sound stuff, grey, with a touch of - dark red to match the auburn of her hair. - </p> - <p> - A book lay open in her lap, but she had scarcely tried to read it. She had - put it down after a few moments fixed upon it. It had sent her thoughts - off into a world where her life had played a part too big for books, too - deep for the plummet of any save those who had lived through the storm of - life’s trials; and life when it is bitter to the young is bitter with an - agony the old never know. At last she spoke to herself. - </p> - <p> - “She knows now. Now she knows what it is, how it feels—your heart - like red-hot coals, and something in your head that’s like a turnscrew, - and you want to die and can’t, for you’ve got to live and suffer.” - </p> - <p> - Again she was quiet, and only the dog’s heavy breathing, the snap of the - fire, or the crack of a timber in the deadly frost broke the silence. - Inside it was warm and bright and home-like; outside it was twenty degrees - below zero, and like some vast tomb where life itself was congealed, and - only the white stars, low, twinkling, and quizzical, lived-a life of sharp - corrosion, not of fire. - </p> - <p> - Suddenly she raised her head and listened. The dog did the same. None but - those whose lives are lived in lonely places can be so acute, so sensitive - to sound. It was a feeling delicate and intense, the whole nature getting - the vibration. You could have heard nothing had you been there; none but - one who was of the wide spaces could have done so. But the dog and the - woman felt, and both strained towards the window. Again they heard, and - started to their feet. It was far, far away, and still you could not have - heard; but now they heard clearly—a cry in the night, a cry of pain - and despair. The girl ran to the window and pulled aside the bearskin - curtain which had completely shut out the light. Then she stirred the - fire, threw a log upon it, snuffed the candles, hastily put on her - moccasins, fur coat, wool cap, and gloves, and went to the door quickly, - the dog at her heels. Opening it, she stepped out into the night. - </p> - <p> - “Qui va la? Who is it? Where?” she called, and strained towards the west. - She thought it might be her father or Mickey the hired man, or both. - </p> - <p> - The answer came from the east, out of the homeless, neighbourless, empty - east—a cry, louder now. There were only stars, and the night was - dark, though not deep dark. She sped along the prairie road as fast as she - could, once or twice stopping to call aloud. In answer to her calls the - voice sounded nearer and nearer. Now suddenly she left the trail and bore - away northward. At last the voice was very near. Presently a figure - appeared ahead, staggering towards her. - </p> - <p> - “Qui va la? Who is it?” she asked. - </p> - <p> - “Ba’tiste Caron,” was the reply in English, in a faint voice. She was - beside him in an instant. - </p> - <p> - “What has happened? Why are you off the trail?” she said, and supported - him. - </p> - <p> - “My Injun stoled my dogs and run off,” he replied. “I run after. Then, - when I am to come to the trail”—he paused to find the English word, - and could not—“encore to this trail I no can. So. Ah, bon Dieu, it - has so awful!” He swayed and would have fallen, but she caught him, bore - him up. She was so strong, and he was as slight as a girl, though tall. - </p> - <p> - “When was that?” she asked. - </p> - <p> - “Two nights ago,” he answered, and swayed. “Wait,” she said, and pulled a - flask from her pocket. “Drink this-quick.” - </p> - <p> - He raised it to his lips, but her hand was still on it, and she only let - him take a little. Then she drew it away, though she had almost to use - force, he was so eager for it. Now she took a biscuit from her pocket. - </p> - <p> - “Eat; then some more brandy after,” she urged. “Come on; it’s not far. - See, there’s the light,” she added cheerily, raising her head towards the - hut. - </p> - <p> - “I saw it just when I have fall down—it safe me. I sit down to die—like - that! But it safe me, that light—so. Ah, bon Dieu, it was so far, - and I want eat so!” Already he had swallowed the biscuit. - </p> - <p> - “When did you eat last?” she asked, as she urged him on. - </p> - <p> - “Two nights—except for one leetla piece of bread—O—O—I - fin’ it in my pocket. Grace! I have travel so far. Jesu, I think it ees - ten thousan’ miles I go. But I mus’ go on, I mus’ go—O—certainement.” - </p> - <p> - The light came nearer and nearer. His footsteps quickened, though he - staggered now and then, and went like a horse that has run its race, but - is driven upon its course again, going heavily with mouth open and head - thrown forwards and down. - </p> - <p> - “But I mus’ to get there, an’ you-you will to help me, eh?” - </p> - <p> - Again he swayed, but her strong arm held him up. As they ran on, in a kind - of dog-trot, her hand firm upon his arm—he seemed not to notice it—she - became conscious, though it was half dark, of what sort of man she had - saved. He was about her own age, perhaps a year or two older, with little, - if any, hair upon his face, save a slight moustache. His eyes, deep sunken - as they were, she made out were black, and the face, though drawn and - famished, had a handsome look. Presently she gave him another sip of - brandy, and he quickened his steps, speaking to himself the while. - </p> - <p> - “I haf to do it—if I lif. It is to go, go, go, till I get.” - </p> - <p> - Now they came to the hut where the firelight flickered on the window-pane; - the door was flung open, and, as he stumbled on the threshold, she helped - him into the warm room. She almost pushed him over to the fire. - </p> - <p> - Divested of his outer coat, muffler, cap, and leggings, he sat on a bench - before the fire, his eyes wandering from the girl to the flames, and his - hands clasping and unclasping between his knees. His eyes dilating with - hunger, he watched her preparations for his supper; and when at last—and - she had been but a moment—it was placed before him, his head swam, - and he turned faint with the stress of his longing. He would have - swallowed a basin of pea-soup at a draught, but she stopped him, holding - the basin till she thought he might venture again. Then came cold beans, - and some meat which she toasted at the fire and laid upon his plate. They - had not spoken since first entering the house, when tears had shone in his - eyes, and he had said: - </p> - <p> - “You have safe—ah, you have safe me, and so I will do it yet by help - bon Dieu—yes.” - </p> - <p> - The meat was done at last, and he sat with a great dish of tea beside him, - and his pipe alight. - </p> - <p> - “What time, if please?” he asked. “I t’ink nine hour, but no sure.” - </p> - <p> - “It is near nine,” she said. She hastily tidied up the table after his - meal, and then came and sat in her chair over against the wall of the rude - fireplace. “Nine—dat is good. The moon rise at ‘leven; den I go. I - go on,” he said, “if you show me de queeck way.” - </p> - <p> - “You go on—how can you go on?” she asked, almost sharply. - </p> - <p> - “Will you not to show me?” he asked. “Show you what?” she asked abruptly. - </p> - <p> - “The queeck way to Askatoon,” he said, as though surprised that she should - ask. “They say me if I get here you will tell me queeck way to Askatoon. - Time, he go so fas’, an’ I have loose a day an’ a night, an’ I mus’ get - Askatoon if I lif—I mus’ get dere in time. It is all safe to de - stroke of de hour, mais, after, it is—bon Dieu—it is hell - then. Who shall forgif me—no!” - </p> - <p> - “The stroke of the hour—the stroke of the hour!” It beat into her - brain. Were they both thinking of the same thing now? - </p> - <p> - “You will show me queeck way. I mus’ be Askatoon in two days, or it is all - over,” he almost moaned. “Is no man here—I forget dat name, my head - go round like a wheel; but I know dis place, an’ de good God He help me - fin’ my way to where I call out, bien sur. Dat man’s name I have forget.” - </p> - <p> - “My father’s name is John Alroyd,” she answered absently, for there were - hammering at her brain the words, “The stroke of the hour.” - </p> - <p> - “Ah, now I get—yes. An’ your name, it is Loisette Alroy’—ah, I - have it in my mind now—Loisette. I not forget dat name, I not forget - you—no.” - </p> - <p> - “Why do you want to go the ‘quick’ way to Askatoon?” she asked. - </p> - <p> - He puffed a moment at his pipe before he answered her. Presently he said, - holding out his pipe, “You not like smoke, mebbe?” - </p> - <p> - She shook her head in negation, making an impatient gesture. - </p> - <p> - “I forget ask you,” he said. “Dat journee make me forget. When Injun Jo, - he leave me with the dogs, an’ I wake up all alone, an’ not know my way—not - like Jo, I think I die, it is so bad, so terrible in my head. Not’ing but - snow, not’ing. But dere is de sun; it shine. It say to me, ‘Wake up, - Ba’tiste; it will be all right bime-bye.’ But all time I t’ink I go mad, - for I mus’ get Askatoon before—dat.” - </p> - <p> - She started. Had she not used the same word in thinking of Askatoon. - “That,” she had said. - </p> - <p> - “Why do you want to go the ‘quick’ way to Askatoon?” she asked again, her - face pale, her foot beating the floor impatiently. - </p> - <p> - “To save him before dat!” he answered, as though she knew of what he was - speaking and thinking. “What is that?” she asked. She knew now, surely, - but she must ask it nevertheless. - </p> - <p> - “Dat hanging—of Haman,” he answered. He nodded to himself. Then he - took to gazing into the fire. His lips moved as though talking to himself, - and the hand that held the pipe lay forgotten on his knee. “What have you - to do with Haman?” she asked slowly, her eyes burning. - </p> - <p> - “I want safe him—I mus’ give him free.” He tapped his breast. “It is - hereto mak’ him free.” He still tapped his breast. - </p> - <p> - For a moment she stood frozen still, her face thin and drawn and white; - then suddenly the blood rushed back into her face, and a red storm raged - in her eyes. - </p> - <p> - She thought of the sister, younger than herself, whom Rube Haman had - married and driven to her grave within a year—the sweet Lucy, with - the name of her father’s mother. Lucy had been all English in face and - tongue, a flower of the west, driven to darkness by this horse-dealing - brute, who, before he was arrested and tried for murder, was about to - marry Kate Wimper. Kate Wimper had stolen him from Lucy before Lucy’s - first and only child was born, the child that could not survive the warm - mother-life withdrawn, and so had gone down the valley whither the - broken-hearted mother had fled. It was Kate Wimper, who, before that, had - waylaid the one man for whom she herself had ever cared, and drawn him - from her side by such attractions as she herself would keep for an honest - wife, if such she ever chanced to be. An honest wife she would have been - had Kate Wimper not crossed the straight path of her life. The man she had - loved was gone to his end also, reckless and hopeless, after he had thrown - away his chance of a lifetime with Loisette Alroyd. There had been left - behind this girl, to whom tragedy had come too young, who drank - humiliation with a heart as proud as ever straightly set its course - through crooked ways. - </p> - <p> - It had hurt her, twisted her nature a little, given a fountain of - bitterness to her soul, which welled up and flooded her life sometimes. It - had given her face no sourness, but it put a shadow into her eyes. - </p> - <p> - She had been glad when Haman was condemned for murder, for she believed he - had committed it, and ten times hanging could not compensate for that dear - life gone from their sight—Lucy, the pride of her father’s heart. - She was glad when Haman was condemned, because of the woman who had stolen - him from Lucy, because of that other man, her lover, gone out of her own - life. The new hardness in her rejoiced that now the woman, if she had any - heart at all, must have it bowed down by this supreme humiliation and - wrung by the ugly tragedy of the hempen rope. - </p> - <p> - And now this man before her, this man with a boy’s face, with the dark - luminous eyes, whom she had saved from the frozen plains, he had that in - his breast which would free Haman, so he had said. A fury had its birth in - her at that moment. Something seemed to seize her brain and master it, - something so big that it held all her faculties in perfect control, and - she felt herself in an atmosphere where all life moved round her - mechanically, she herself the only sentient thing, so much greater than - all she saw, or all that she realised by her subconscious self. Everything - in the world seemed small. How calm it was even with the fury within! - </p> - <p> - “Tell me,” she said quietly—“tell me how you are able to save - Haman?” - </p> - <p> - “He not kill Wakely. It is my brudder Fadette dat kill and get away. Haman - he is drunk, and everyt’ing seem to say Haman he did it, an’ everyone know - Haman is not friend to Wakely. So the juree say he must be hanging. But my - brudder he go to die with hawful bad cold queeck, an’ he send for the - priest an’ for me, an’ tell all. I go to Governor with the priest, an’ - Governor gif me dat writing here.” He tapped his breast, then took out a - wallet and showed the paper to her. “It is life of dat Haman, voici! And - so I safe him for my brudder. Dat was a bad boy, Fadette. He was bad all - time since he was a baby, an’ I t’ink him pretty lucky to die on his bed, - an’ get absolve, and go to purgatore. If he not have luck like dat he go - to hell, an’ stay there.” - </p> - <p> - He sighed, and put the wallet back in his breast carefully, his eyes - half-shut with weariness, his handsome face drawn and thin, his limbs lax - with fatigue. - </p> - <p> - “If I get Askatoon before de time for dat, I be happy in my heart, for dat - brudder off mine he get out of purgatore bime-bye, I t’ink.” - </p> - <p> - His eyes were almost shut, but he drew himself together with a great - effort, and added desperately, “No sleep. If I sleep it is all smash. Man - say me I can get Askatoon by dat time from here, if I go queeck way across - lak’—it is all froze now, dat lak’—an’ down dat Foxtail Hills. - Is it so, ma’m’selle?” - </p> - <p> - “By the ‘quick’ way if you can make it in time,” she said; “but it is no - way for the stranger to go. There are always bad spots on the ice—it - is not safe. You could not find your way.” - </p> - <p> - “I mus’ get dere in time,” he said desperately. “You can’t do it—alone,” - she said. “Do you want to risk all and lose?” - </p> - <p> - He frowned in self-suppression. “Long way, I no can get dere in time?” he - asked. - </p> - <p> - She thought a moment. “No; it can’t be done by the long way. But there is - another way—a third trail, the trail the Gover’ment men made a year - ago when they came to survey. It is a good trail. It is blazed in the - woods and staked on the plains. You cannot miss. But—but there is so - little time.” She looked at the clock on the wall. “You cannot leave here - much before sunrise, and—” - </p> - <p> - “I will leef when de moon rise, at eleven,” he interjected. - </p> - <p> - “You have had no sleep for two nights, and no food. You can’t last it - out,” she said calmly. - </p> - <p> - The deliberate look on his face deepened to stubbornness. - </p> - <p> - “It is my vow to my brudder—he is in purgatore. An’ I mus’ do it,” - he rejoined, with an emphasis there was no mistaking. “You can show me dat - way?” - </p> - <p> - She went to a drawer and took out a piece of paper. Then, with a point of - blackened stick, as he watched her and listened, she swiftly drew his - route for him. - </p> - <p> - “Yes, I get it in my head,” he said. “I go dat way, but I wish—I - wish it was dat queeck way. I have no fear, not’ing. I go w’en dat moon - rise—I go, bien sur.” - </p> - <p> - “You must sleep, then, while I get some food for you.” She pointed to a - couch in a corner. “I will wake you when the moon rises.” - </p> - <p> - For the first time he seemed to realise her, for a moment to leave the - thing which consumed him, and put his mind upon her. - </p> - <p> - “You not happy—you not like me here?” he asked simply; then added - quickly, “I am not bad man like me brudder—no.” - </p> - <p> - Her eyes rested on him for a moment as though realising him, while some - thought was working in her mind behind. - </p> - <p> - “No, you are not a bad man,” she said. “Men and women are equal on the - plains. You have no fear—I have no fear.” - </p> - <p> - He glanced at the rifles on the walls, then back at her. “My mudder, she - was good woman. I am glad she did not lif to know what Fadette do.” His - eyes drank her in for a minute, then he said: “I go sleep now, t’ank you—till - moontime.” - </p> - <p> - In a moment his deep breathing filled the room, the only sound save for - the fire within and the frost outside. - </p> - <p> - Time went on. The night deepened. - </p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - ......................... -</pre> - <p> - Loisette sat beside the fire, but her body was half-turned from it towards - the man on the sofa. She was not agitated outwardly, but within there was - that fire which burns up life and hope and all the things that come - between us and great issues. It had burned up everything in her except one - thought, one powerful motive. She had been deeply wronged, and justice had - been about to give “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” But the - man lying there had come to sweep away the scaffolding of justice—he - had come for that. - </p> - <p> - Perhaps he might arrive at Askatoon before the stroke of the hour, but - still he would be too late, for in her pocket now was the Governor’s - reprieve. The man had slept soundly. His wallet was still in his breast; - but the reprieve was with her. - </p> - <p> - If he left without discovering his loss, and got well on his way, and - discovered it then, it would be too late. If he returned—she only - saw one step before her, she would wait for that, and deal with it when it - came. She was thinking of Lucy, of her own lover ruined and gone. She was - calm in her madness. - </p> - <p> - At the first light of the moon she roused him. She had put food into his - fur-coat pocket, and after he had drunk a bowl of hot pea-soup, while she - told him his course again, she opened the door, and he passed out into the - night. He started forward without a word, but came back again and caught - her hand. - </p> - <p> - “Pardon,” he said; “I go forget everyt’ing except dat. But I t’ink what - you do for me, it is better than all my life. Bien sur, I will come again, - when I get my mind to myself. Ah, but you are beautibul,” he said, “an’ - you not happy. Well, I come again—yes, a Dieu.” - </p> - <p> - He was gone into the night, with the moon silvering the sky, and the - steely frost eating into the sentient life of this northern world. Inside - the house, with the bearskin blind dropped at the window again, and the - fire blazing high, Loisette sat with the Governor’s reprieve in her hand. - Looking at it, she wondered why it had been given to Ba’tiste Caron, and - not to a police-officer. Ah yes, it was plain—Ba’tiste was a - woodsman and plainsman, and could go far more safely than a constable, and - faster. Ba’tiste had reason for going fast, and he would travel night and - day—he was travelling night and day indeed. And now Ba’tiste might - get there, but the reprieve would not. He would not be able to stop the - hanging of Haman—the hanging of Rube Haman. - </p> - <p> - A change came over her. Her eyes blazed, her breast heaved now. She had - been so quiet, so cold and still. But life seemed moving in her once - again. The woman, Kate Wimper, who had helped to send two people to their - graves, would now drink the dregs of shame, if she was capable of shame—would - be robbed of her happiness, if so be she loved Rube Haman. - </p> - <p> - She stood up, as though to put the paper in the fire, but paused suddenly - at one thought—Rube Haman was innocent of murder. - </p> - <p> - Even so, he was not innocent of Lucy’s misery and death, of the death of - the little one who only opened its eyes to the light for an instant, and - then went into the dark again. But truly she was justified! When Haman was - gone things would go on just the same—and she had been so bitter, - her heart had been pierced as with a knife these past three years. Again - she held out her hand to the fire, but suddenly she gave a little cry and - put her hand to her head. There was Ba’tiste! - </p> - <p> - What was Ba’tiste to her? Nothing-nothing at all. She had saved his life—even - if she wronged Ba’tiste, her debt would be paid. No, she would not think - of Ba’tiste. Yet she did not put the paper in the fire, but in the pocket - of her dress. Then she went to her room, leaving the door open. The bed - was opposite the fire, and, as she lay there—she did not take off - her clothes, she knew not why-she could see the flames. She closed her - eyes, but could not sleep, and more than once when she opened them she - thought she saw Ba’tiste sitting there as he had sat hours before. Why did - Ba’tiste haunt her so? What was it he had said in his broken English as he - went away?—that he would come back; that she was “beautibul.” - </p> - <p> - All at once as she lay still, her head throbbing, her feet and hands icy - cold, she sat up listening. “Ah-again!” she cried. She sprang from her - bed, rushed to the door, and strained her eyes into the silver night. She - called into the icy void, “Qui va la? Who goes?” - </p> - <p> - She leaned forwards, her hand at her ear, but no sound came in reply. Once - more she called, but nothing answered. The night was all light and frost - and silence. - </p> - <p> - She had only heard, in her own brain, the iteration of Ba’tiste’s calling. - Would he reach Askatoon in time, she wondered, as she shut the door? Why - had she not gone with him and attempted the shorter way the quick way, he - had called it? All at once the truth came back upon her, stirring her now. - It would do no good for Ba’tiste to arrive in time. He might plead to them - all and tell the truth about the reprieve, but it would not avail—Rube - Haman would hang. That did not matter—even though he was innocent; - but Ba’tiste’s brother would be so long in purgatory. And even that would - not matter; but she would hurt Ba’tiste—Ba’tiste—Ba’tiste. And - Ba’tiste he would know that she—and he had called her “beautibul,” - that she had— - </p> - <p> - With a cry she suddenly clothed herself for travel. She put some food and - drink in a leather bag and slung them over her shoulder. Then she dropped - on a knee and wrote a note to her father, tears falling from her eyes. She - heaped wood on the fire and moved towards the door. All at once she turned - to the crucifix on the wall which had belonged to her mother, and, though - she had followed her father’s Protestant religion, she kissed the feet of - the sacred figure. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, Christ, have mercy on me, and bring me safe to my journey’s end-in - time,” she said breathlessly; then she went softly to the door, leaving - the dog behind. - </p> - <p> - It opened, closed, and the night swallowed her. Like a ghost she sped the - quick way to Askatoon. She was six hours behind Ba’tiste, and, going hard - all the time, it was doubtful if she could get there before the fatal - hour. - </p> - <p> - On the trail Ba’tiste had taken there were two huts where he could rest, - and he had carried his blanket slung on his shoulder. The way she went - gave no shelter save the trees and caves which had been used to cache - buffalo meat and hides in old days. But beyond this there was danger in - travelling by night, for the springs beneath the ice of the three lakes - she must, cross made it weak and rotten even in the fiercest weather, and - what would no doubt have been death to Ba’tiste would be peril at least to - her. Why had she not gone with him? - </p> - <p> - “He had in his face what was in Lucy’s,” she said to herself, as she sped - on. “She was fine like him, ready to break her heart for those she cared - for. My, if she had seen him first instead of—” - </p> - <p> - She stopped short, for the ice gave way to her foot, and she only sprang - back in time to save herself. But she trotted on, mile after mile, the - dog-trot of the Indian, head bent forwards, toeing in, breathing steadily - but sharply. - </p> - <p> - The morning came, noon, then a fall of snow and a keen wind, and despair - in her heart; but she had passed the danger-spots, and now, if the storm - did not overwhelm her, she might get to Askatoon in time. In the midst of - the storm she came to one of the caves of which she had known. Here was - wood for a fire, and here she ate, and in weariness unspeakable fell - asleep. When she waked it was near sun-down, the storm had ceased, and, as - on the night before, the sky was stained with colour and drowned in - splendour. - </p> - <p> - “I will do it—I will do it, Ba’tiste!” she called, and laughed aloud - into the sunset. She had battled with herself all the way, and she had - conquered. Right was right, and Rube Haman must not be hung for what he - did not do. Her heart hardened whenever she thought of the woman, but - softened again when she thought of Ba’tiste, who had to suffer for the - deed of a brother in “purgatore.” Once again the night and its silence and - loneliness followed her, the only living thing near the trail till long - after midnight. After that, as she knew, there were houses here and there - where she might have rested, but she pushed on unceasing. - </p> - <p> - At daybreak she fell in with a settler going to Askatoon with his dogs. - Seeing how exhausted she was, he made her ride a few miles upon his - sledge; then she sped on ahead again till she came to the borders of - Askatoon. - </p> - <p> - People were already in the streets, and all were tending one way. She - stopped and asked the time. It was within a quarter of an hour of the time - when Haman was to pay another’s penalty. She spurred herself on, and came - to the jail blind with fatigue. As she neared the jail she saw her father - and Mickey. In amazement her father hailed her, but she would not stop. - She was admitted to the prison on explaining that she had a reprieve. - Entering a room filled with excited people, she heard a cry. - </p> - <p> - It came from Ba’tiste. He had arrived but ten minutes before, and, in the - Sheriff’s presence had discovered his loss. He had appealed in vain. - </p> - <p> - But now, as he saw the girl, he gave a shout of joy which pierced the - hearts of all. - </p> - <p> - “Ah, you haf it! Say you haf it, or it is no use—he mus’ hang. - Spik-spik! Ah, my brudder—it is to do him right! Ah, Loisette—bon - Dieu, merci!” - </p> - <p> - For answer she placed the reprieve in the hands of the Sheriff. Then she - swayed and fell fainting at the feet of Ba’tiste. - </p> - <p> - She had come at the stroke of the hour. - </p> - <p> - When she left for her home again the Sheriff kissed her. - </p> - <p> - And that was not the only time he kissed her. He did it again six months - later, at the beginning of the harvest, when she and Ba’tiste Caron - started off on the long trail of life together. None but Ba’tiste knew the - truth about the loss of the reprieve, and to him she was “beautibul” just - the same, and greatly to be desired. - </p> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007"> - <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - BUCKMASTER’S BOY - </h2> - <p> - “I bin waitin’ for him, an’ I’ll git him of it takes all winter. I’ll git - him—plumb.” - </p> - <p> - The speaker smoothed the barrel of his rifle with mittened hand, which - had, however, a trigger-finger free. With black eyebrows twitching over - sunken grey eyes, he looked doggedly down the frosty valley from the ledge - of high rock where he sat. The face was rough and weather-beaten, with the - deep tan got in the open life of a land of much sun and little cloud, and - he had a beard which, untrimmed and growing wild, made him look ten years - older than he was. - </p> - <p> - “I bin waitin’ a durn while,” the mountain-man added, and got to his feet - slowly, drawing himself out to six and a half feet of burly manhood. The - shoulders were, however, a little stooped, and the head was thrust - forwards with an eager, watchful look—a habit become a physical - characteristic. - </p> - <p> - Presently he caught sight of a hawk sailing southward along the peaks of - the white icebound mountains above, on which the sun shone with such sharp - insistence, making sky and mountain of a piece in deep purity and serene - stillness. - </p> - <p> - “That hawk’s seen him, mebbe,” he said, after a moment. “I bet it went up - higher when it got him in its eye. Ef it’d only speak and tell me where he - is—ef he’s a day, or two days, or ten days north.” - </p> - <p> - Suddenly his eyes blazed and his mouth opened in superstitious amazement, - for the hawk stopped almost directly overhead at a great height, and swept - round in a circle many times, waveringly, uncertainly. At last it resumed - its flight southward, sliding down the mountains like a winged star. - </p> - <p> - The mountaineer watched it with a dazed expression for a moment longer, - then both hands clutched the rifle and half swung it to position - involuntarily. - </p> - <p> - “It’s seen him, and it stopped to say so. It’s seen him, I tell you, an’ - I’ll git him. Ef it’s an hour, or a day, or a week, it’s all the same. I’m - here watchin’, waitin’ dead on to him, the poison skunk!” - </p> - <p> - The person to whom he had been speaking now rose from the pile of cedar - boughs where he had been sitting, stretched his arms up, then shook - himself into place, as does a dog after sleep. He stood for a minute - looking at the mountaineer with a reflective, yet a furtively sardonic, - look. He was not above five feet nine inches in height, and he was slim - and neat; and though his buckskin coat and breeches were worn and even - frayed in spots, he had an air of some distinction and of concentrated - force. It was a face that men turned to look at twice and shook their - heads in doubt afterwards—a handsome, worn, secretive face, in as - perfect control as the strings of an instrument under the bow of a great - artist. It was the face of a man without purpose in life beyond the moment—watchful, - careful, remorselessly determined, an adventurer’s asset, the dial-plate - of a hidden machinery. - </p> - <p> - Now he took the handsome meerschaum pipe from his mouth, from which he had - been puffing smoke slowly, and said in a cold, yet quiet voice, “How long - you been waitin’, Buck?” - </p> - <p> - “A month. He’s overdue near that. He always comes down to winter at Fort - o’ Comfort, with his string of half-breeds, an’ Injuns, an’ the dogs.” - </p> - <p> - “No chance to get him at the Fort?” - </p> - <p> - “It ain’t so certain. They’d guess what I was doin’ there. It’s surer - here. He’s got to come down the trail, an’ when I spot him by the Juniper - clump”—he jerked an arm towards a spot almost a mile farther up the - valley—“I kin scoot up the underbrush a bit and git him—plumb. - I could do it from here, sure, but I don’t want no mistake. Once only, - jest one shot, that’s all I want, Sinnet.” - </p> - <p> - He bit off a small piece of tobacco from a black plug Sinnet offered him, - and chewed it with nervous fierceness, his eyebrows working, as he looked - at the other eagerly. Deadly as his purpose was, and grim and unvarying as - his vigil had been, the loneliness had told on him, and he had grown - hungry for a human face and human companionship. Why Sinnet had come he - had not thought to inquire. Why Sinnet should be going north instead of - south had not occurred to him. He only realised that Sinnet was not the - man he was waiting for with murder in his heart; and all that mattered to - him in life was the coming of his victim down the trail. He had welcomed - Sinnet with a sullen eagerness, and had told him in short, detached - sentences the dark story of a wrong and a waiting revenge, which brought a - slight flush to Sinnet’s pale face and awakened a curious light in his - eyes. - </p> - <p> - “Is that your shack—that where you shake down?” Sinnet said, - pointing towards a lean-to in the fir trees to the right. - </p> - <p> - “That’s it. I sleep there. It’s straight on to the Juniper clump, the - front door is.” He laughed viciously, grimly. “Outside or inside, I’m on - to the Juniper clump. Walk into the parlour?” he added, and drew open a - rough-made door, so covered with green cedar boughs that it seemed of a - piece with the surrounding underbrush and trees. Indeed, the little but - was so constructed that it could not be distinguished from the woods even - a short distance away. - </p> - <p> - “Can’t have a fire, I suppose?” Sinnet asked. - </p> - <p> - “Not daytimes. Smoke ‘d give me away if he suspicioned me,” answered the - mountaineer. “I don’t take no chances. Never can tell.” - </p> - <p> - “Water?” asked Sinnet, as though interested in the surroundings, while all - the time he was eyeing the mountaineer furtively—as it were, prying - to the inner man, or measuring the strength of the outer man. He lighted a - fresh pipe and seated himself on a rough bench beside the table in the - middle of the room, and leaned on his elbows, watching. - </p> - <p> - The mountaineer laughed. It was not a pleasant laugh to hear. “Listen,” he - said. “You bin a long time out West. You bin in the mountains a good - while. Listen.” - </p> - <p> - There was silence. Sinnet listened intently. He heard the faint drip, - drip, drip of water, and looked steadily at the back wall of the room. - </p> - <p> - “There—rock?” he said, and jerked his head towards the sound. - </p> - <p> - “You got good ears,” answered the other, and drew aside a blanket which - hung on the back wall of the room. A wooden trough was disclosed hanging - under a ledge of rock, and water dripped into it softly, slowly. - </p> - <p> - “Almost providential, that rock,” remarked Sinnet. “You’ve got your well - at your back door. Food—but you can’t go far, and keep your eye on - the Bend too,” he nodded towards the door, beyond which lay the - frost-touched valley in the early morning light of autumn. - </p> - <p> - “Plenty of black squirrels and pigeons come here on account of the springs - like this one, and I get ‘em with a bow and arrow. I didn’t call myself - Robin Hood and Daniel Boone not for nothin’ when I was knee-high to a - grasshopper.” He drew from a rough cupboard some cold game, and put it on - the table, with some scones and a pannikin of water. Then he brought out a - small jug of whiskey and placed it beside his visitor. They began to eat. - </p> - <p> - “How d’ye cook without fire?” asked Sinnet. “Fire’s all right at nights. - He’d never camp ‘twixt here an’ Juniper Bend at night. The next camp’s six - miles north from here. He’d only come down the valley daytimes. I studied - it ‘all out, and it’s a dead sure thing. From daylight till dusk I’m on to - him. I got the trail in my eye.” - </p> - <p> - He showed his teeth like a wild dog, as his look swept the valley. There - was something almost revolting in his concentrated ferocity. - </p> - <p> - Sinnet’s eyes half closed as he watched the mountaineer, and the long, - scraggy hands and whipcord neck seemed to interest him greatly. He looked - at his own slim brown hands with a half smile, and it was almost as cruel - as the laugh of the other. Yet it had, too, a knowledge and an - understanding which gave it humanity. - </p> - <p> - “You’re sure he did it?” Sinnet asked presently, after drinking a very - small portion of liquor, and tossing some water from the pannikin after - it. “You’re sure Greevy killed your boy, Buck?” - </p> - <p> - “My name’s Buckmaster, ain’t it—Jim Buckmaster? Don’t I know my own - name? It’s as sure as that. My boy said it was Greevy when he was dying. - He told Bill Ricketts so, and Bill told me afore he went East. Bill didn’t - want to tell, but he said it was fair I should know, for my boy never did - nobody any harm—an’ Greevy’s livin’ on. But I’ll git him. Right’s - right.” - </p> - <p> - “Wouldn’t it be better for the law to hang him, if you’ve got the proof, - Buck? A year or so in jail, an’ a long time to think over what’s going - round his neck on the scaffold—wouldn’t that suit you, if you’ve got - the proof?” - </p> - <p> - A rigid, savage look came into Buckmaster’s face. - </p> - <p> - “I ain’t lettin’ no judge and jury do my business. I’m for certain sure, - not for p’r’aps! An’ I want to do it myself. Clint was only twenty. Like - boys we was together. I was eighteen when I married, an’ he come when she - went—jest a year—jest a year. An’ ever since then we lived - together, him an’ me, an’ shot together, an’ trapped together, an’ went - gold-washin’ together on the Cariboo, an’ eat out of the same dish, an’ - slept under the same blanket, and jawed together nights—ever since - he was five, when old Mother Lablache had got him into pants, an’ he was - fit to take the trail.” - </p> - <p> - The old man stopped a minute, his whipcord neck swelling, his lips - twitching. He brought a fist down on the table with a bang. “The biggest - little rip he was, as full of fun as a squirrel, an’ never a smile-o-jest - his eyes dancin’, an’ more sense than a judge. He laid hold o’ me, that - cub did—it was like his mother and himself together; an’ the years - flowin’ in an’ peterin’ out, an’ him gettin’ older, an’ always jest the - same. Always on rock-bottom, always bright as a dollar, an’ we livin’ at - Black Nose Lake, layin’ up cash agin’ the time we was to go South, an’ set - up a house along the railway, an’ him to git married. I was for his - gittin’ married same as me, when we had enough cash. I use to think of - that when he was ten, and when he was eighteen I spoke to him about it; - but he wouldn’t listen—jest laughed at me. You remember how Clint - used to laugh sort of low and teasin’ like—you remember that laugh - o’ Clint’s, don’t you?” - </p> - <p> - Sinnet’s face was towards the valley and Juniper Bend, but he slowly - turned his head and looked at Buckmaster strangely out of his half-shut - eyes. He took the pipe from his mouth slowly. - </p> - <p> - “I can hear it now,” he answered slowly. “I hear it often, Buck.” - </p> - <p> - The old man gripped his arm so suddenly that Sinnet was startled,—in - so far as anything could startle anyone who had lived a life of chance and - danger and accident, and his face grew a shade paler; but he did not move, - and Buckmaster’s hand tightened convulsively. - </p> - <p> - “You liked him, an’ he liked you; he first learnt poker off you, Sinnet. - He thought you was a tough, but he didn’t mind that no more than I did. It - ain’t for us to say what we’re goin’ to be, not always. Things in life git - stronger than we are. You was a tough, but who’s goin’ to judge you! I - ain’t; for Clint took to you, Sinnet, an’ he never went wrong in his - thinkin’. God! he was wife an’ child to me—an’ he’s dead—dead—dead.” - </p> - <p> - The man’s grief was a painful thing to see. His hands gripped the table, - while his body shook with sobs, though his eyes gave forth no tears. It - was an inward convulsion, which gave his face the look of unrelieved - tragedy and suffering—Laocoon struggling with the serpents of sorrow - and hatred which were strangling him. - </p> - <p> - “Dead an’ gone,” he repeated, as he swayed to and fro, and the table - quivered in his grasp. Presently, however, as though arrested by a - thought, he peered out of the doorway towards Juniper Bend. “That hawk - seen him—it seen him. He’s comin’, I know it, an’ I’ll git him—plumb.” - He had the mystery and imagination of the mountain-dweller. - </p> - <p> - The rifle lay against the wall behind him, and he turned and touched it - almost caressingly. “I ain’t let go like this since he was killed, Sinnet. - It don’t do. I got to keep myself stiddy to do the trick when the minute - comes. At first I usen’t to sleep at nights, thinkin’ of Clint, an’ - missin’ him, an’ I got shaky and no good. So I put a cinch on myself, an’ - got to sleepin’ again—from the full dusk to dawn, for Greevy - wouldn’t take the trail at night. I’ve kept stiddy.” He held out his hand - as though to show that it was firm and steady, but it trembled with the - emotion which had conquered him. He saw it, and shook his head angrily. - </p> - <p> - “It was seein’ you, Sinnet. It burst me. I ain’t seen no one to speak to - in a month, an’ with you sittin’ there, it was like Clint an’ me cuttin’ - and comin’ again off the loaf an’ the knuckle-bone of ven’son.” - </p> - <p> - Sinnet ran a long finger slowly across his lips, and seemed meditating - what he should say to the mountaineer. At length he spoke, looking into - Buckmaster’s face. “What was the story Ricketts told you? What did your - boy tell Ricketts? I’ve heard, too, about it, and that’s why I asked you - if you had proofs that Greevy killed Clint. Of course, Clint should know, - and if he told Ricketts, that’s pretty straight; but I’d like to know if - what I heard tallies with what Ricketts heard from Clint. P’r’aps it’d - ease your mind a bit to tell it. I’ll watch the Bend—don’t you - trouble about that. You can’t do these two things at one time. I’ll watch - for Greevy; you give me Clint’s story to Ricketts. I guess you know I’m - feelin’ for you, an’ if I was in your place I’d shoot the man that killed - Clint, if it took ten years. I’d have his heart’s blood—all of it. - Whether Greevy was in the right or in the wrong, I’d have him—plumb.” - </p> - <p> - Buckmaster was moved. He gave a fierce exclamation and made a gesture of - cruelty. “Clint right or wrong? There ain’t no question of that. My boy - wasn’t the kind to be in the wrong. What did he ever do but what was - right? If Clint was in the wrong I’d kill Greevy jest the same, for Greevy - robbed him of all the years that was before him—only a sapling he - was, an’ all his growin’ to do, all his branches to widen an’ his roots to - spread. But that don’t enter in it, his bein’ in the wrong. It was a - quarrel, and Clint never did Greevy any harm. It was a quarrel over cards, - an’ Greevy was drunk, an’ followed Clint out into the prairie in the night - and shot him like a coyote. Clint hadn’t no chance, an’ he jest lay there - on the ground till morning, when Ricketts and Steve Joicey found him. An’ - Clint told Ricketts who it was.” - </p> - <p> - “Why didn’t Ricketts tell it right out at once?” asked Sinnet. - </p> - <p> - “Greevy was his own cousin—it was in the family, an’ he kept - thinkin’ of Greevy’s gal, Em’ly. Her—what’ll it matter to her! - She’ll get married, an she’ll forgit. I know her, a gal that’s got no deep - feelin’ like Clint had for me. But because of her Ricketts didn’t speak - for a year. Then he couldn’t stand it any longer, an’ he told me—seein’ - how I suffered, an’ everybody hidin’ their suspicions from me, an’ me up - here out o’ the way, an’ no account. That was the feelin’ among ‘em—what - was the good of making things worse! They wasn’t thinkin’ of the boy or of - Jim Buckmaster, his father. They was thinkin’ of Greevy’s gal—to - save her trouble.” - </p> - <p> - Sinnet’s face was turned towards Juniper Bend, and the eyes were fixed, as - it were, on a still more distant object—a dark, brooding, - inscrutable look. - </p> - <p> - “Was that all Ricketts told you, Buck?” The voice was very quiet, but it - had a suggestive note. - </p> - <p> - “That’s all Clint told Bill before he died. That was enough.” - </p> - <p> - There was a moment’s pause, and then, puffing out long clouds of smoke, - and in a tone of curious detachment, as though he were telling of - something that he saw now in the far distance, or as a spectator of a - battle from a far vantage-point might report to a blind man standing near, - Sinnet said: - </p> - <p> - “P’r’aps Ricketts didn’t know the whole story; p’r’aps Clint didn’t know - it all to tell him; p’r’aps Clint didn’t remember it all. P’r’aps he - didn’t remember anything except that he and Greevy quarrelled, and that - Greevy and he shot at each other in the prairie. He’d only be thinking of - the thing that mattered most to him—that his life was over, an’ that - a man had put a bullet in him, an’—” - </p> - <p> - Buckmaster tried to interrupt him, but he waved a hand impatiently, and - continued: “As I say, maybe he didn’t remember everything; he had been - drinkin’ a bit himself, Clint had. He wasn’t used to liquor, and couldn’t - stand much. Greevy was drunk, too, and gone off his head with rage. He - always gets drunk when he first comes South to spend the winter with his - girl Em’ly.” He paused a moment, then went on a little more quickly. - “Greevy was proud of her—couldn’t even bear her being crossed in any - way; and she has a quick temper, and if she quarrelled with anybody Greevy - quarrelled too.” - </p> - <p> - “I don’t want to know anything about her,” broke in Buckmaster roughly. - “She isn’t in this thing. I’m goin’ to git Greevy. I bin waitin’ for him, - an’ I’ll git him.” - </p> - <p> - “You’re going to kill the man that killed your boy, if you can, Buck; but - I’m telling my story in my own way. You told Ricketts’s story; I’ll tell - what I’ve heard. And before you kill Greevy you ought to know all there is - that anybody else knows—or suspicions about it.” - </p> - <p> - “I know enough. Greevy done it, an’ I’m here.” With no apparent coherence - and relevancy Sinnet continued, but his voice was not so even as before. - “Em’ly was a girl that wasn’t twice alike. She was changeable. First it - was one, then it was another, and she didn’t seem to be able to fix her - mind. But that didn’t prevent her leadin’ men on. She wasn’t changeable, - though, about her father. She was to him what your boy was to you. There - she was like you, ready to give everything up for her father.” - </p> - <p> - “I tell y’ I don’t want to hear about her,” said Buckmaster, getting to - his feet and setting his jaws. “You needn’t talk to me about her. She’ll - git over it. I’ll never git over what Greevy done to me or to Clint—jest - twenty, jest twenty! I got my work to do.” - </p> - <p> - He took his gun from the wall, slung it into the hollow of his arm, and - turned to look up the valley through the open doorway. - </p> - <p> - The morning was sparkling with life—the life and vigour which a - touch of frost gives to the autumn world in a country where the blood - tingles to the dry, sweet sting of the air. Beautiful, and spacious, and - buoyant, and lonely, the valley and the mountains seemed waiting, like a - new-born world, to be peopled by man. It was as though all had been made - ready for him—the birds whistling and singing in the trees, the - whisk of the squirrels leaping from bough to bough, the peremptory sound - of the woodpecker’s beak against the bole of a tree, the rustle of the - leaves as a wood-hen ran past—a waiting, virgin world. - </p> - <p> - Its beauty and its wonderful dignity had no appeal to Buckmaster. His eyes - and mind were fixed on a deed which would stain the virgin wild with the - ancient crime that sent the first marauder on human life into the - wilderness. - </p> - <p> - As Buckmaster’s figure darkened the doorway Sinnet seemed to waken as from - a dream, and he got swiftly to his feet. - </p> - <p> - “Wait—you wait, Buck. You’ve got to hear all. You haven’t heard my - story yet. Wait, I tell you.” His voice was so sharp and insistent, so - changed, that Buckmaster turned from the doorway and came back into the - room. - </p> - <p> - “What’s the use of my hearin’? You want me not to kill Greevy, because of - that gal. What’s she to me?” - </p> - <p> - “Nothing to you, Buck, but Clint was everything to her.” - </p> - <p> - The mountaineer stood like one petrified. - </p> - <p> - “What’s that—what’s that you say? It’s a damn lie!” - </p> - <p> - “It wasn’t cards—the quarrel, not the real quarrel. Greevy found - Clint kissing her. Greevy wanted her to marry Gatineau, the lumber-king. - That was the quarrel.” - </p> - <p> - A snarl was on the face of Buckmaster. “Then she’ll not be sorry when I - git him. It took Clint from her as well as from me.” He turned to the door - again. “But, wait, Buck, wait one minute and hear—” He was - interrupted by a low, exultant growl, and he saw Buckmaster’s rifle - clutched as a hunter, stooping, clutches his gun to fire on his prey. - </p> - <p> - “Quick, the spy-glass!” he flung back at Sinnet. “It’s him—but I’ll - make sure.” - </p> - <p> - Sinnet caught the telescope from the nails where it hung, and looked out - towards Juniper Bend. “It’s Greevy—and his girl, and the - half-breeds,” he said, with a note in his voice that almost seemed - agitation, and yet few had ever seen Sinnet agitated. “Em’ly must have - gone up the trail in the night.” - </p> - <p> - “It’s my turn now,” the mountaineer said hoarsely, and, stooping, slid - away quickly into the undergrowth. Sinnet followed, keeping near him, - neither speaking. For a half mile they hastened on, and now and then - Buckmaster drew aside the bushes, and looked up the valley, to keep Greevy - and his bois brulees in his eye. Just so had he and his son and Sinnet - stalked the wapiti and the red deer along these mountains; but this was a - man that Buckmaster was stalking now, with none of the joy of the sport - which had been his since a lad; only the malice of the avenger. The lust - of a mountain feud was on him; he was pursuing the price of blood. - </p> - <p> - At last Buckmaster stopped at a ledge of rock just above the trail. Greevy - would pass below, within three hundred yards of his rifle. He turned to - Sinnet with cold and savage eyes. “You go back,” he said. “It’s my - business. I don’t want you to see. You don’t want to see, then you won’t - know, and you won’t need to lie. You said that the man that killed Clint - ought to die. He’s going to die, but it’s none o’ your business. I want to - be alone. In a minute he’ll be where I kin git him—plumb. You go, - Sinnet-right off. It’s my business.” - </p> - <p> - There was a strange, desperate look in Sinnet’s face; it was as hard as - stone, but his eyes had a light of battle in them. - </p> - <p> - “It’s my business right enough, Buck,” he said, “and you’re not going to - kill Greevy. That girl of his has lost her lover, your boy. It’s broke her - heart almost, and there’s no use making her an orphan too. She can’t stand - it. She’s had enough. You leave her father alone—you hear me, let - up!” He stepped between Buckmaster and the ledge of rock from which the - mountaineer was to take aim. - </p> - <p> - There was a terrible look in Buckmaster’s face. He raised his - single-barrelled rifle, as though he would shoot Sinnet; but, at the - moment, he remembered that a shot would warn Greevy, and that he might not - have time to reload. He laid his rifle against a tree swiftly. - </p> - <p> - “Git away from here,” he said, with a strange rattle in his throat. “Git - away quick; he’ll be down past here in a minute.” - </p> - <p> - Sinnet pulled himself together as he saw Buckmaster snatch at a great - clasp-knife in his belt. He jumped and caught Buckmaster’s wrist in a grip - like a vice. - </p> - <p> - “Greevy didn’t kill him, Buck,” he said. But the mountaineer was gone mad, - and did not grasp the meaning of the words. He twined his left arm round - the neck of Sinnet, and the struggle began, he fighting to free Sinnet’s - hand from his wrist, to break Sinnet’s neck. He did not realise what he - was doing. He only knew that this man stood between him and the murderer - of his boy, and all the ancient forces of barbarism were alive in him. - Little by little they drew to the edge of the rock, from which there was a - sheer drop of two hundred feet. Sinnet fought like a panther for safety, - but no sane man’s strength could withstand the demoniacal energy that bent - and crushed him. Sinnet felt his strength giving. Then he said in a hoarse - whisper, “Greevy didn’t kill him. I killed him, and—” - </p> - <p> - At that moment he was borne to the ground with a hand on his throat, and - an instant after the knife went home. - </p> - <p> - Buckmaster got to his feet and looked at his victim for an instant, dazed - and wild; then he sprang for his gun. As he did so the words that Sinnet - had said as they struggled rang in his ears, “Greevy didn’t kill him; I - killed him!” - </p> - <p> - He gave a low cry and turned back towards Sinnet, who lay in a pool of - blood. - </p> - <p> - Sinnet was speaking. He went and stooped over him. “Em’ly threw me over - for Clint,” the voice said huskily, “and I followed to have it out with - Clint. So did Greevy, but Greevy was drunk. I saw them meet. I was hid. I - saw that Clint would kill Greevy, and I fired. I was off my head—I’d - never cared for any woman before, and Greevy was her father. Clint was off - his head too. He had called me names that day—a cardsharp, and a - liar, and a thief, and a skunk, he called me, and I hated him just then. - Greevy fired twice wide. He didn’t know but what he killed Clint, but he - didn’t. I did. So I tried to stop you, Buck—” - </p> - <p> - Life was going fast, and speech failed him; but he opened his eyes again - and whispered, “I didn’t want to die, Buck. I am only thirty-five, and - it’s too soon; but it had to be. Don’t look that way, Buck. You got the - man that killed him—plumb. But Em’ly didn’t play fair with me—made - a fool of me, the only time in my life I ever cared for a woman. You leave - Greevy alone, Buck, and tell Em’ly for me I wouldn’t let you kill her - father.” - </p> - <p> - “You—Sinnet—you, you done it! Why, he’d have fought for you. - You—done it—to him—to Clint!” Now that the blood-feud - had been satisfied, a great change came over the mountaineer. He had done - his work, and the thirst for vengeance was gone. Greevy he had hated, but - this man had been with him in many a winter’s hunt. His brain could hardly - grasp the tragedy—it had all been too sudden. - </p> - <p> - Suddenly he stooped down. “Sinnet,” he said, “ef there was a woman in it, - that makes all the difference. Sinnet, of—” - </p> - <p> - But Sinnet was gone upon a long trail that led into an illimitable - wilderness. With a moan the old man ran to the ledge of rock. Greevy and - his girl were below. - </p> - <p> - “When there’s a woman in it—!” he said, in a voice of helplessness - and misery, and watched Em’ly till she disappeared from view. Then he - turned, and, lifting up in his arms the man he had killed, carried him - into the deeper woods. - </p> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008"> - <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - TO-MORROW - </h2> - <p> - “My, nothing’s the matter with the world to-day! It’s so good it almost - hurts.” - </p> - <p> - She raised her head from the white petticoat she was ironing, and gazed - out of the doorway and down the valley with a warm light in her eyes and a - glowing face. The snow-tipped mountains far above and away, the - fir-covered, cedar-ranged foothills, and, lower down, the wonderful maple - and ash woods, with their hundred autumn tints, all merging to one soft, - red tone, the roar of the stream tumbling down the ravine from the - heights, the air that braced the nerves—it all seemed to be part of - her, the passion of life corresponding to the passion of living in her. - </p> - <p> - After watching the scene dreamily for a moment, she turned and laid the - iron she had been using upon the hot stove near. Taking up another, she - touched it with a moistened finger to test the heat, and, leaning above - the table again, passed it over the linen for a few moments, smiling at - something that was in her mind. Presently she held the petticoat up, - turned it round, then hung it in front of her, eyeing it with critical - pleasure. - </p> - <p> - “To-morrow!” she said, nodding at it. “You won’t be seen, I suppose, but - I’ll know you’re nice enough for a queen—and that’s enough to know.” - </p> - <p> - She blushed a little, as though someone had heard her words and was - looking at her, then she carefully laid the petticoat over the back of a - chair. “No queen’s got one whiter, if I do say it,” she continued, tossing - her head. - </p> - <p> - In that, at any rate, she was right, for the water of the mountain springs - was pure, the air was clear, and the sun was clarifying; and little - ornamented or frilled as it was, the petticoat was exquisitely soft and - delicate. It would have appealed to more eyes than a woman’s. - </p> - <p> - “To-morrow!” She nodded at it again and turned again to the bright world - outside. With arms raised and hands resting against the timbers of the - doorway, she stood dreaming. A flock of pigeons passed with a whir not far - away, and skirted the woods making down the valley. She watched their - flight abstractedly, yet with a subconscious sense of pleasure. Life—they - were Life, eager, buoyant, belonging to this wild region, where still the - heart could feel so much at home, where the great world was missed so - little. - </p> - <p> - Suddenly, as she gazed, a shot rang out down the valley, and two of the - pigeons came tumbling to the ground, a stray feather floating after. With - a startled exclamation she took a step forward. Her brain became confused - and disturbed. She had looked out on Eden, and it had been ravaged before - her eyes. She had been thinking of to-morrow, and this vast prospect of - beauty and serenity had been part of the pageant in which it moved. Not - the valley alone had been marauded, but that “To-morrow,” and all it meant - to her. - </p> - <p> - Instantly the valley had become clouded over for her, its glory and its - grace despoiled. She turned back to the room where the white petticoat lay - upon the chair, but stopped with a little cry of alarm. - </p> - <p> - A man was standing in the centre of the room. He had entered stealthily by - the back door, and had waited for her to turn round. He was haggard and - travel stained, and there was a feverish light in his eyes. His fingers - trembled as they adjusted his belt, which seemed too large for him. - Mechanically he buckled it tighter. - </p> - <p> - “You’re Jenny Long, ain’t you?” he asked. “I beg pardon for sneakin’ in - like this, but they’re after me, some ranchers and a constable—one - o’ the Riders of the Plains. I’ve been tryin’ to make this house all day. - You’re Jenny Long, ain’t you?” - </p> - <p> - She had plenty of courage, and, after the first instant of shock, she had - herself in hand. She had quickly observed his condition, had marked the - candour of the eye and the decision and character of the face, and doubt - of him found no place in her mind. She had the keen observation of the - dweller in lonely places, where every traveller has the potentialities of - a foe, while the door of hospitality is opened to him after the custom of - the wilds. Year in, year out, since she was a little girl and came to live - here with her Uncle Sanger when her father died—her mother had gone - before she could speak—travellers had halted at this door, going - North or coming South, had had bite and sup, and bed, may be, and had - passed on, most of them never to be seen again. More than that, too, there - had been moments of peril, such as when, alone, she had faced two - wood-thieves with a revolver, as they were taking her mountain-pony with - them, and herself had made them “hands-up,” and had marched them into a - prospector’s camp five miles away. - </p> - <p> - She had no doubt about the man before her. Whatever he had done, it was - nothing dirty or mean—of that she was sure. - </p> - <p> - “Yes, I’m Jenny Long,” she answered. “What have you done? What are they - after you for?” - </p> - <p> - “Oh! to-morrow,” he answered, “to-morrow I got to git to Bindon. It’s life - or death. I come from prospecting two hundred miles up North. I done it in - two days and a half. My horse dropped dead—I’m near dead myself. I - tried to borrow another horse up at Clancey’s, and at Scotton’s Drive, but - they didn’t know me, and they bounced me. So I borrowed a horse off - Weigall’s paddock, to make for here—to you. I didn’t mean to keep - that horse. Hell, I’m no horse-stealer! But I couldn’t explain to them, - except that I had to git to Bindon to save a man’s life. If people laugh - in your face, it’s no use explainin’. I took a roan from Weigall’s, and - they got after me. ‘Bout six miles up they shot at me an’ hurt me.” - </p> - <p> - She saw that one arm hung limp at his side and that his wrist was wound - with a red bandana. - </p> - <p> - She started forward. “Are you hurt bad? Can I bind it up or wash it for - you? I’ve got plenty of hot water here, and it’s bad letting a wound get - stale.” - </p> - <p> - He shook his head. “I washed the hole clean in the creek below. I doubled - on them. I had to go down past your place here, and then work back to be - rid of them. But there’s no telling when they’ll drop on to the game, and - come back for me. My only chance was to git to you. Even if I had a horse, - I couldn’t make Bindon in time. It’s two days round the gorge by trail. A - horse is no use now—I lost too much time since last night. I can’t - git to Bindon to-morrow in time, if I ride the trail.” - </p> - <p> - “The river?” she asked abruptly. - </p> - <p> - “It’s the only way. It cuts off fifty mile. That’s why I come to you.” - </p> - <p> - She frowned a little, her face became troubled, and her glance fell on his - arm nervously. “What’ve I got to do with it?” she asked almost sharply. - </p> - <p> - “Even if this was all right,”—he touched the wounded arm—“I - couldn’t take the rapids in a canoe. I don’t know them, an’ it would be - sure death. That’s not the worst, for there’s a man at Bindon would lose - his life—p’r’aps twenty men—I dunno; but one man sure. - To-morrow, it’s go or stay with him. He was good—Lord, but he was - good!—to my little gal years back. She’d only been married to me a - year when he saved her, riskin’ his own life. No one else had the pluck. - My little gal, only twenty she was, an’ pretty as a picture, an’ me fifty - miles away when the fire broke out in the hotel where she was. He’d have - gone down to hell for a friend, an’ he saved my little gal. I had her for - five years after that. That’s why I got to git to Bindon to-morrow. If I - don’t, I don’t want to see to-morrow. I got to go down the river - to-night.” - </p> - <p> - She knew what he was going to ask her. She knew he was thinking what all - the North knew, that she was the first person to take the Dog Nose Rapids - in a canoe, down the great river scarce a stone’s-throw from her door; and - that she had done it in safety many times. Not in all the West and North - were there a half-dozen people who could take a canoe to Bindon, and they - were not here. She knew that he meant to ask her to paddle him down the - swift stream with its murderous rocks, to Bindon. She glanced at the white - petticoat on the chair, and her lips tightened. To-morrow-tomorrow was as - much to her here as it would be to this man before her, or the man he - would save at Bindon. “What do you want?” she asked, hardening her heart. - “Can’t you see? I want you to hide me here till tonight. There’s a full - moon, an’ it would be as plain goin’ as by day. They told me about you up - North, and I said to myself, ‘If I git to Jenny Long, an’ tell her about - my friend at Bindon, an’ my little gal, she’ll take me down to Bindon in - time.’ My little gal would have paid her own debt if she’d ever had the - chance. She didn’t—she’s lying up on Mazy Mountain. But one woman’ll - do a lot for the sake of another woman. Say, you’ll do it, won’t you? If I - don’t git there by to-morrow noon, it’s no good.” - </p> - <p> - She would not answer. He was asking more than he knew. Why should she be - sacrificed? Was it her duty to pay the “little gal’s debt,” to save the - man at Bindon? To-morrow was to be the great day in her own life. The one - man in all the world was coming to marry her to-morrow. After four years’ - waiting, after a bitter quarrel in which both had been to blame, he was - coming from the mining town of Selby to marry her to-morrow. - </p> - <p> - “What will happen? Why will your friend lose his life if you don’t get to - Bindon?” - </p> - <p> - “By noon to-morrow, by twelve o’clock noon; that’s the plot; that’s what - they’ve schemed. Three days ago, I heard. I got a man free from trouble - North—he was no good, but I thought he ought to have another chance, - and I got him free. He told me of what was to be done at Bindon. There’d - been a strike in the mine, an’ my friend had took it in hand with - knuckle-dusters on. He isn’t the kind to fell a tree with a jack-knife. - Then three of the strikers that had been turned away—they was the - ringleaders—they laid a plan that’d make the devil sick. They’ve put - a machine in the mine, an’ timed it, an’ it’ll go off when my friend comes - out of the mine at noon to-morrow.” - </p> - <p> - Her face was pale now, and her eyes had a look of pain and horror. Her man—him - that she was to marry—was the head of a mine also at Selby, forty - miles beyond Bindon, and the horrible plot came home to her with piercing - significance. - </p> - <p> - “Without a second’s warning,” he urged, “to go like that, the man that was - so good to my little gal, an’ me with a chance to save him, an’ others - too, p’r’aps. You won’t let it be. Say, I’m pinnin’ my faith to you. I’m—” - </p> - <p> - Suddenly he swayed. She caught him, held him, and lowered him gently in a - chair. Presently he opened his eyes. “It’s want o’ food, I suppose,” he - said. “If you’ve got a bit of bread and meat—I must keep up.” - </p> - <p> - She went to a cupboard, but suddenly turned towards him again. Her ears - had caught a sound outside in the underbush. He had heard also, and he - half staggered to his feet. - </p> - <p> - “Quick-in here!” she said, and, opening a door, pushed him inside. “Lie - down on my bed, and I’ll bring you vittles as quick as I can,” she added. - Then she shut the door, turned to the ironing-board, and took up the iron, - as the figure of a man darkened the doorway. - </p> - <p> - “Hello, Jinny, fixin’ up for to-morrow?” the man said, stepping inside, - with a rifle under his arm and some pigeons in his hand. - </p> - <p> - She nodded and gave him an impatient, scrutinising glance. His face had a - fatuous kind of smile. - </p> - <p> - “Been celebrating the pigeons?” she asked drily, jerking her head towards - the two birds, which she had seen drop from her Eden skies a short time - before. - </p> - <p> - “I only had one swig of whiskey, honest Injun!” he answered. “I s’pose I - might have waited till to-morrow, but I was dead-beat. I got a bear over - by the Tenmile Reach, and I was tired. I ain’t so young as I used to be, - and, anyhow, what’s the good! What’s ahead of me? You’re going to git - married to-morrow after all these years we bin together, and you’re going - down to Selby from the mountains, where I won’t see you, not once in a - blue moon. Only that old trollop, Mother Massy, to look after me.” - </p> - <p> - “Come down to Selby and live there. You’ll be welcome by Jake and me.” - </p> - <p> - He stood his gun in the corner and, swinging the pigeons in his hand, - said: “Me live out of the mountains? Don’t you know better than that? I - couldn’t breathe; and I wouldn’t want to breathe. I’ve got my shack here, - I got my fur business, and they’re still fond of whiskey up North!” He - chuckled to himself, as he thought of the illicit still farther up the - mountain behind them. “I make enough to live on, and I’ve put a few - dollars by, though I won’t have so many after to-morrow, after I’ve given - you a little pile, Jinny.” - </p> - <p> - “P’r’aps there won’t be any to-morrow, as you expect,” she said slowly. - </p> - <p> - The old man started. “What, you and Jake ain’t quarrelled again? You ain’t - broke it off at the last moment, same as before? You ain’t had a letter - from Jake?” He looked at the white petticoat on the chairback, and shook - his head in bewilderment. - </p> - <p> - “I’ve had no letter,” she answered. “I’ve had no letter from Selby for a - month. It was all settled then, and there was no good writing, when he was - coming to-morrow with the minister and the licence. Who do you think’d be - postman from Selby here? It must have cost him ten dollars to send the - last letter.” - </p> - <p> - “Then what’s the matter? I don’t understand,” the old man urged - querulously. He did not want her to marry and leave him, but he wanted no - more troubles; he did not relish being asked awkward questions by every - mountaineer he met, as to why Jenny Long didn’t marry Jake Lawson. - </p> - <p> - “There’s only one way that I can be married tomorrow,” she said at last, - “and that’s by you taking a man down the Dog Nose Rapids to Bindon - to-night.” - </p> - <p> - He dropped the pigeons on the floor, dumbfounded. “What in—” - </p> - <p> - He stopped short, in sheer incapacity, to go further. Jenny had not always - been easy to understand, but she was wholly incomprehensible now. - </p> - <p> - She picked up the pigeons and was about to speak, but she glanced at the - bedroom door, where her exhausted visitor had stretched himself on her - bed, and beckoned her uncle to another room. - </p> - <p> - “There’s a plate of vittles ready for you in there,” she said. “I’ll tell - you as you eat.” - </p> - <p> - He followed her into the little living-room adorned by the trophies of his - earlier achievements with gun and rifle, and sat down at the table, where - some food lay covered by a clean white cloth. - </p> - <p> - “No one’ll ever look after me as you’ve done, Jinny,” he said, as he - lifted the cloth and saw the palatable dish ready for him. Then he - remembered again about to-morrow and the Dog Nose Rapids. - </p> - <p> - “What’s it all about, Jinny? What’s that about my canoeing a man down to - Bindon?” - </p> - <p> - “Eat, uncle,” she said more softly than she had yet spoken, for his words - about her care of him had brought a moisture to her eyes. “I’ll be back in - a minute and tell you all about it.” - </p> - <p> - “Well, it’s about took away my appetite,” he said. “I feel a kind of - sinking.” He took from his pocket a bottle, poured some of its contents - into a tin cup, and drank it off. - </p> - <p> - “No, I suppose you couldn’t take a man down to Bindon,” she said, as she - saw his hand trembling on the cup. Then she turned and entered the other - room again. Going to the cupboard, she hastily heaped a plate with food, - and, taking a dipper of water from a pail near by, she entered her bedroom - hastily and placed what she had brought on a small table, as her visitor - rose slowly from the bed. - </p> - <p> - He was about to speak, but she made a protesting gesture. - </p> - <p> - “I can’t tell you anything yet,” she said. “Who was it come?” he asked. - </p> - <p> - “My uncle—I’m going to tell him.” - </p> - <p> - “The men after me may git here any minute,” he urged anxiously. - </p> - <p> - “They’d not be coming into my room,” she answered, flushing slightly. - </p> - <p> - “Can’t you hide me down by the river till we start?” he asked, his eyes - eagerly searching her face. He was assuming that she would take him down - the river: but she gave no sign. - </p> - <p> - “I’ve got to see if he’ll take you first,” she answered. - </p> - <p> - “He—your uncle, Tom Sanger? He drinks, I’ve heard. He’d never git to - Bindon.” - </p> - <p> - She did not reply directly to his words. “I’ll come back and tell you. - There’s a place you could hide by the river where no one could ever find - you,” she said, and left the room. - </p> - <p> - As she stepped out, she saw the old man standing in the doorway of the - other room. His face was petrified with amazement. - </p> - <p> - “Who you got in that room, Jinny? What man you got in that room? I heard a - man’s voice. Is it because o’ him that you bin talkin’ about no weddin’ - to-morrow? Is it one o’ the others come back, puttin’ you off Jake again?” - </p> - <p> - Her eyes flashed fire at his first words, and her breast heaved with - anger, but suddenly she became composed again and motioned him to a chair. - </p> - <p> - “You eat, and I’ll tell you all about it, Uncle Tom,” she said, and, - seating herself at the table also, she told him the story of the man who - must go to Bindon. - </p> - <p> - When she had finished, the old man blinked at her for a minute without - speaking, then he said slowly: “I heard something ‘bout trouble down at - Bindon yisterday from a Hudson’s Bay man goin’ North, but I didn’t take it - in. You’ve got a lot o’ sense, Jinny, an’ if you think he’s tellin’ the - truth, why, it goes; but it’s as big a mixup as a lariat in a steer’s - horns. You’ve got to hide him sure, whoever he is, for I wouldn’t hand an - Eskimo over, if I’d taken him in my home once; we’re mountain people. A - man ought to be hung for horse-stealin’, but this was different. He was - doing it to save a man’s life, an’ that man at Bindon was good to his - little gal, an’ she’s dead.” - </p> - <p> - He moved his head from side to side with the air of a sentimental - philosopher. He had all the vanity of a man who had been a success in a - small, shrewd, culpable way—had he not evaded the law for thirty - years with his whiskey-still? - </p> - <p> - “I know how he felt,” he continued. “When Betsy died—we was only - four years married—I could have crawled into a knot-hole an’ died - there. You got to save him, Jinny, but”—he came suddenly to his feet—“he - ain’t safe here. They might come any minute, if they’ve got back on his - trail. I’ll take him up the gorge. You know where.” - </p> - <p> - “You sit still, Uncle Tom,” she rejoined. “Leave him where he is a minute. - There’s things must be settled first. They ain’t going to look for him in - my bedroom, be they?” - </p> - <p> - The old man chuckled. “I’d like to see ‘em at it. You got a temper, Jinny; - and you got a pistol too, eh?” He chuckled again. “As good a shot as any - in the mountains. I can see you darin’ ‘em to come on. But what if Jake - come, and he found a man in your bedroom”—he wiped the tears of - laughter from his eyes—“why, Jinny—!” - </p> - <p> - He stopped short, for there was anger in her face. “I don’t want to hear - any more of that. I do what I want to do,” she snapped out. - </p> - <p> - “Well, well, you always done what you wanted; but we got to git him up the - hills, till it’s sure they’re out o’ the mountains and gone back. It’ll be - days, mebbe.” - </p> - <p> - “Uncle Tom, you’ve took too much to drink,” she answered. “You don’t - remember he’s got to be at Bindon by to-morrow noon. He’s got to save his - friend by then.” - </p> - <p> - “Pshaw! Who’s going to take him down the river to-night? You’re goin’ to - be married to-morrow. If you like, you can give him the canoe. It’ll never - come back, nor him neither!” - </p> - <p> - “You’ve been down with me,” she responded suggestively. “And you went down - once by yourself.” - </p> - <p> - He shook his head. “I ain’t been so well this summer. My sight ain’t what - it was. I can’t stand the racket as I once could. ‘Pears to me I’m gettin’ - old. No, I couldn’t take them rapids, Jinny, not for one frozen minute.” - </p> - <p> - She looked at him with trouble in her eyes, and her face lost some of its - colour. She was fighting back the inevitable, even as its shadow fell upon - her. “You wouldn’t want a man to die, if you could save him, Uncle Tom—blown - up, sent to Kingdom Come without any warning at all; and perhaps he’s got - them that love him—and the world so beautiful.” - </p> - <p> - “Well, it ain’t nice dyin’ in the summer, when it’s all sun, and there’s - plenty everywhere; but there’s no one to go down the river with him. - What’s his name?” - </p> - <p> - Her struggle was over. She had urged him, but in very truth she was urging - herself all the time, bringing herself to the axe of sacrifice. - </p> - <p> - “His name’s Dingley. I’m going down the river with him—down to - Bindon.” - </p> - <p> - The old man’s mouth opened in blank amazement. His eyes blinked - helplessly. - </p> - <p> - “What you talkin’ about, Jinny! Jake’s comin’ up with the minister, an’ - you’re goin’ to be married at noon to-morrow.” - </p> - <p> - “I’m takin’ him”—she jerked her head towards the room where Dingley - was—“down Dog Nose Rapids to-night. He’s risked his life for his - friend, thinkin’ of her that’s dead an’ gone, and a man’s life is a man’s - life. If it was Jake’s life in danger, what’d I think of a woman that - could save him, and didn’t?” - </p> - <p> - “Onct you broke off with Jake Lawson—the day before you was to be - married; an’ it’s took years to make up an’ agree again to be spliced. If - Jake comes here to-morrow, and you ain’t here, what do you think he’ll do? - The neighbours are comin’ for fifty miles round, two is comin’ up a - hundred miles, an’ you can’t—Jinny, you can’t do it. I bin sick of - answerin’ questions all these years ‘bout you and Jake, an’ I ain’t goin’ - through it again. I’ve told more lies than there’s straws in a tick.” - </p> - <p> - She flamed out. “Then take him down the river yourself—a man to do a - man’s work. Are you afeard to take the risk?” - </p> - <p> - He held out his hands slowly and looked at them. They shook a little. - “Yes, Jinny,” he said sadly, “I’m afeard. I ain’t what I was. I made a - mistake, Jinny. I’ve took too much whiskey. I’m older than I ought to be. - I oughtn’t never to have had a whiskey-still, an’ I wouldn’t have drunk so - much. I got money—money for you, Jinny, for you an’ Jake, but I’ve - lost what I’ll never git back. I’m afeard to go down the river with him. - I’d go smash in the Dog Nose Rapids. I got no nerve. I can’t hunt the - grizzly any more, nor the puma, Jinny. I got to keep to common shootin’, - now and henceforth, amen! No, I’d go smash in Dog Nose Rapids.” - </p> - <p> - She caught his hands impulsively. “Don’t you fret, Uncle Tom. You’ve bin a - good uncle to me, and you’ve bin a good friend, and you ain’t the first - that’s found whiskey too much for him. You ain’t got an enemy in the - mountains. Why, I’ve got two or three—” - </p> - <p> - “Shucks! Women—only women whose beaux left ‘em to follow after you. - That’s nothing, an’ they’ll be your friends fast enough after you’re - married tomorrow.” - </p> - <p> - “I ain’t going to be married to-morrow. I’m going down to Bindon to-night. - If Jake’s mad, then it’s all over, and there’ll be more trouble among the - women up here.” - </p> - <p> - By this time they had entered the other room. The old man saw the white - petticoat on the chair. “No woman in the mountains ever had a petticoat - like that, Jinny. It’d make a dress, it’s that pretty an’ neat. Golly, I’d - like to see it on you, with the blue skirt over, and just hitched up a - little.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, shut up—shut up!” she said in sudden anger, and caught up the - petticoat as though she would put it away; but presently she laid it down - again and smoothed it with quick, nervous fingers. “Can’t you talk sense - and leave my clothes alone? If Jake comes, and I’m not here, and he wants - to make a fuss, and spoil everything, and won’t wait, you give him this - petticoat. You put it in his arms. I bet you’ll have the laugh on him. - He’s got a temper.” - </p> - <p> - “So’ve you, Jinny, dear, so’ve you,” said the old man, laughing. “You’re - goin’ to have your own way, same as ever—same as ever.” - </p> - <p> - II - </p> - <p> - A moon of exquisite whiteness silvering the world, making shadows on the - water as though it were sunlight and the daytime, giving a spectral look - to the endless array of poplar trees on the banks, glittering on the foam - of the rapids. The spangling stars made the arch of the sky like some - gorgeous chancel in a cathedral as vast as life and time. Like the day - which was ended, in which the mountain-girl had found a taste of Eden, it - seemed too sacred for mortal strife. Now and again there came the note of - a night-bird, the croak of a frog from the shore; but the serene stillness - and beauty of the primeval North was over all. - </p> - <p> - For two hours after sunset it had all been silent and brooding, and then - two figures appeared on the bank of the great river. A canoe was softly - and hastily pushed out from its hidden shelter under the overhanging bank, - and was noiselessly paddled out to midstream, dropping down the current - meanwhile. - </p> - <p> - It was Jenny Long and the man who must get to Bindon. They had waited till - nine o’clock, when the moon was high and full, to venture forth. Then - Dingley had dropped from her bedroom window, had joined her under the - trees, and they had sped away, while the man’s hunters, who had come - suddenly, and before Jenny could get him away into the woods, were - carousing inside. These had tracked their man back to Tom Sanger’s house, - and at first they were incredulous that Jenny and her uncle had not seen - him. They had prepared to search the house, and one had laid his finger on - the latch of her bedroom door; but she had flared out with such anger - that, mindful of the supper she had already begun to prepare for them, - they had desisted, and the whiskey-jug which the old man brought out - distracted their attention. - </p> - <p> - One of their number, known as the Man from Clancey’s, had, however, been - outside when Dingley had dropped from the window, and had seen him from a - distance. He had not given the alarm, but had followed, to make the - capture by himself. But Jenny had heard the stir of life behind them, and - had made a sharp detour, so that they had reached the shore and were out - in mid-stream before their tracker got to the river. Then he called to - them to return, but Jenny only bent a little lower and paddled on, guiding - the canoe towards the safe channel through the first small rapids leading - to the great Dog Nose Rapids. - </p> - <p> - A rifle-shot rang out, and a bullet “pinged” over the water and splintered - the side of the canoe where Dingley sat. He looked calmly back, and saw - the rifle raised again, but did not stir, in spite of Jenny’s warning to - lie down. - </p> - <p> - “He’ll not fire on you so long as he can draw a bead on me,” he said - quietly. - </p> - <p> - Again a shot rang out, and the bullet sang past his head. - </p> - <p> - “If he hits me, you go straight on to Bindon,” he continued. “Never mind - about me. Go to the Snowdrop Mine. Get there by twelve o’clock, and warn - them. Don’t stop a second for me—” - </p> - <p> - Suddenly three shots rang out in succession—Tom Sanger’s house had - emptied itself on the bank of the river—and Dingley gave a sharp - exclamation. - </p> - <p> - “They’ve hit me, but it’s the same arm as before,” he growled. “They got - no right to fire at me. It’s not the law. Don’t stop,” he added quickly, - as he saw her half turn round. - </p> - <p> - Now there were loud voices on the shore. Old Tom Sanger was threatening to - shoot the first man that fired again, and he would have kept his word. - </p> - <p> - “Who you firin’ at?” he shouted. “That’s my niece, Jinny Long, an’ you let - that boat alone. This ain’t the land o’ lynch law. Dingley ain’t escaped - from gaol. You got no right to fire at him.” - </p> - <p> - “No one ever went down Dog Nose Rapids at night,” said the Man from - Clancey’s, whose shot had got Dingley’s arm. “There ain’t a chance of them - doing it. No one’s ever done it.” - </p> - <p> - The two were in the roaring rapids now, and the canoe was jumping through - the foam like a racehorse. The keen eyes on the bank watched the canoe - till it was lost in the half-gloom below the first rapids, and then they - went slowly back to Tom Sanger’s house. - </p> - <p> - “So there’ll be no wedding to-morrow,” said the Man from Clancey’s. - </p> - <p> - “Funerals, more likely,” drawled another. - </p> - <p> - “Jinny Long’s in that canoe, an’ she ginerally does what she wants to,” - said Tom Sanger sagely. - </p> - <p> - “Well, we done our best, and now I hope they’ll get to Bindon,” said - another. - </p> - <p> - Sanger passed the jug to him freely. Then they sat down and talked of the - people who had been drowned in Dog Nose Rapids and of the last wedding in - the mountains. - </p> - <p> - III - </p> - <p> - It was as the Man from Clancey’s had said, no one had ever gone down Dog - Nose Rapids in the nighttime, and probably no one but Jenny Long would - have ventured it. Dingley had had no idea what a perilous task had been - set his rescuer. It was only when the angry roar of the great rapids - floated up-stream to them, increasing in volume till they could see the - terror of tumbling waters just below, and the canoe shot forward like a - snake through the swift, smooth current which would sweep them into the - vast caldron, that he realised the terrible hazard of the enterprise. - </p> - <p> - The moon was directly overhead when they drew upon the race of rocks and - fighting water and foam. On either side only the shadowed shore, forsaken - by the races which had hunted and roamed and ravaged here—not a - light, nor any sign of life, or the friendliness of human presence to make - their isolation less complete, their danger, as it were, shared by - fellow-mortals. Bright as the moon was, it was not bright enough for - perfect pilotage. Never in the history of white men had these rapids been - ridden at nighttime. As they sped down the flume of the deep, irresistible - current, and were launched into the trouble of rocks and water, Jenny - realised how great their peril was, and how different the track of the - waters looked at nighttime from daytime. Outlines seemed merged, rocks did - not look the same, whirlpools had a different vortex, islands of stone had - a new configuration. As they sped on, lurching, jumping, piercing a broken - wall of wave and spray like a torpedo, shooting an almost sheer fall, she - came to rely on a sense of intuition rather than memory, for night had - transformed the waters. - </p> - <p> - Not a sound escaped either. The man kept his eyes fixed on the woman; the - woman scanned the dreadful pathway with eyes deep-set and burning, - resolute, vigilant, and yet defiant too, as though she had been trapped - into this track of danger, and was fighting without great hope, but with - the temerity and nonchalance of despair. Her arms were bare to the - shoulder almost, and her face was again and again drenched; but second - succeeded second, minute followed minute in a struggle which might well - turn a man’s hair grey, and now, at last-how many hours was it since they - had been cast into this den of roaring waters!—at last, suddenly, - over a large fall, and here smooth waters again, smooth and untroubled, - and strong and deep. Then, and only then, did a word escape either; but - the man had passed through torture and unavailing regret, for he realised - that he had had no right to bring this girl into such a fight. It was not - her friend who was in danger at Bindon. Her life had been risked without - due warrant. “I didn’t know, or I wouldn’t have asked it,” he said in a - low voice. “Lord, but you are a wonder—to take that hurdle for no - one that belonged to you, and to do it as you’ve done it. This country - will rise to you.” He looked back on the raging rapids far behind, and he - shuddered. “It was a close call, and no mistake. We must have been within - a foot of down-you-go fifty times. But it’s all right now, if we can last - it out and git there.” Again he glanced back, then turned to the girl. “It - makes me pretty sick to look at it,” he continued. “I bin through a lot, - but that’s as sharp practice as I want.” - </p> - <p> - “Come here and let me bind up your arm,” she answered. “They hit you—the - sneaks! Are you bleeding much?” - </p> - <p> - He came near her carefully, as she got the big canoe out of the current - into quieter water. She whipped the scarf from about her neck, and with - his knife ripped up the seam of his sleeve. Her face was alive with the - joy of conflict and elated with triumph. Her eyes were shining. She bathed - the wound—the bullet had passed clean through the fleshy part of the - arm—and then carefully tied the scarf round it over her - handkerchief. - </p> - <p> - “I guess it’s as good as a man could do it,” she said at last. - </p> - <p> - “As good as any doctor,” he rejoined. - </p> - <p> - “I wasn’t talking of your arm,” she said. - </p> - <p> - “‘Course not. Excuse me. You was talkin’ of them rapids, and I’ve got to - say there ain’t a man that could have done it and come through like you. I - guess the man that marries you’ll get more than his share of luck.” - </p> - <p> - “I want none of that,” she said sharply, and picked up her paddle again, - her eyes flashing anger. - </p> - <p> - He took a pistol from his pocket and offered it to her. “I didn’t mean any - harm by what I said. Take this if you think I won’t know how to behave - myself,” he urged. - </p> - <p> - She flung up her head a little. “I knew what I was doing before I - started,” she said. “Put it away. How far is it, and can we do it in - time?” - </p> - <p> - “If you can hold out, we can do it; but it means going all night and all - morning; and it ain’t dawn yet, by a long shot.” - </p> - <p> - Dawn came at last, and the mist of early morning, and the imperious and - dispelling sun; and with mouthfuls of food as they drifted on, the two - fixed their eyes on the horizon beyond which lay Bindon. And now it seemed - to the girl as though this race to save a life or many lives was the one - thing in existence. To-morrow was to-day, and the white petticoat was - lying in the little house in the mountains, and her wedding was an - interminable distance off, so had this adventure drawn her into its risks - and toils and haggard exhaustion. - </p> - <p> - Eight, nine, ten, eleven o’clock came, and then they saw signs of - settlement. Houses appeared here and there upon the banks, and now and - then a horseman watched them from the shore, but they could not pause. - Bindon—Bindon—Bindon—the Snowdrop Mine at Bindon, and a - death-dealing machine timed to do its deadly work, were before the eyes of - the two voyageurs. - </p> - <p> - Half-past eleven, and the town of Bindon was just beyond them. A quarter - to twelve, and they had run their canoe into the bank beyond which were - the smokestacks and chimneys of the mine. Bindon was peacefully pursuing - its way, though here and there were little groups of strikers who had not - resumed work. - </p> - <p> - Dingley and the girl scrambled up the bank. Trembling with fatigue, they - hastened on. The man drew ahead of her, for she had paddled for fifteen - hours, practically without ceasing, and the ground seemed to rise up at - her. But she would not let him stop. - </p> - <p> - He hurried on, reached the mine, and entered, shouting the name of his - friend. It was seven minutes to twelve. - </p> - <p> - A moment later, a half-dozen men came rushing from that portion of the - mine where Dingley had been told the machine was placed, and at their head - was Lawson, the man he had come to save. - </p> - <p> - The girl hastened on to meet them, but she grew faint and leaned against a - tree, scarce conscious. She was roused by voices. - </p> - <p> - “No, it wasn’t me, it wasn’t me that done it; it was a girl. Here she is—Jenny - Long! You got to thank her, Jake.” - </p> - <p> - Jake! Jake! The girl awakened to full understanding now. Jake—what - Jake? She looked, then stumbled forward with a cry. - </p> - <p> - “Jake—it was my Jake!” she faltered. The mine-boss caught her in his - arms. “You, Jenny! It’s you that’s saved me!” - </p> - <p> - Suddenly there was a rumble as of thunder, and a cloud of dust and stone - rose from the Snowdrop Mine. The mine-boss tightened his arm round the - girl’s waist. “That’s what I missed, through him and you, Jenny,” he said. - </p> - <p> - “What was you doing here, and not at Selby, Jake?” she asked. - </p> - <p> - “They sent for me-to stop the trouble here.” - </p> - <p> - “But what about our wedding to-day?” she asked with a frown. - </p> - <p> - “A man went from here with a letter to you three days ago,” he said, - “asking you to come down here and be married. I suppose he got drunk, or - had an accident, and didn’t reach you. It had to be. I was needed here—couldn’t - tell what would happen.” - </p> - <p> - “It has happened out all right,” said Dingley, “and this’ll be the end of - it. You got them miners solid now. The strikers’ll eat humble pie after - to-day.” - </p> - <p> - “We’ll be married to-day, just the same,” the mine-boss said, as he gave - some brandy to the girl. - </p> - <p> - But the girl shook her head. She was thinking of a white petticoat in a - little house in the mountains. “I’m not going to be married to-day,” she - said decisively. - </p> - <p> - “Well, to-morrow,” said the mine-boss. - </p> - <p> - But the girl shook her head again. “To-day is tomorrow,” she answered. - “You can wait, Jake. I’m going back home to be married.” - </p> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0009" id="link2H_4_0009"> - <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - QU’APPELLE - </h2> - <h3> - (Who calls?) - </h3> - <p> - “But I’m white; I’m not an Indian. My father was a white man. I’ve been - brought up as a white girl. I’ve had a white girl’s schooling.” - </p> - <p> - Her eyes flashed as she sprang to her feet and walked up and down the room - for a moment, then stood still, facing her mother,—a dark-faced, - pock-marked woman, with heavy, somnolent eyes, and waited for her to - speak. The reply came slowly and sullenly— - </p> - <p> - “I am a Blackfoot woman. I lived on the Muskwat River among the braves for - thirty years. I have killed buffalo. I have seen battles. Men, too, I have - killed when they came to steal our horses and crept in on our lodges in - the night-the Crees! I am a Blackfoot. You are the daughter of a Blackfoot - woman. No medicine can cure that. Sit down. You have no sense. You are not - white. They will not have you. Sit down.” - </p> - <p> - The girl’s handsome face flushed; she threw up her hands in an agony of - protest. A dreadful anger was in her panting breast, but she could not - speak. She seemed to choke with excess of feeling. For an instant she - stood still, trembling with agitation, then she sat down suddenly on a - great couch covered with soft deerskins and buffalo robes. There was deep - in her the habit of obedience to this sombre but striking woman. She had - been ruled firmly, almost oppressively, and she had not yet revolted. - Seated on the couch, she gazed out of the window at the flying snow, her - brain too much on fire for thought, passion beating like a pulse in all - her lithe and graceful young body, which had known the storms of life and - time for only twenty years. - </p> - <p> - The wind shrieked and the snow swept past in clouds of blinding drift, - completely hiding from sight the town below them, whose civilisation had - built itself many habitations and was making roads and streets on the - green-brown plain, where herds of buffalo had stamped and streamed and - thundered not long ago. The town was a mile and a half away, and these two - were alone in a great circle of storm, one of them battling against a - tempest which might yet overtake her, against which she had set her face - ever since she could remember, though it had only come to violence since - her father died two years before—a careless, strong, wilful white - man, who had lived the Indian life for many years, but had been swallowed - at last by the great wave of civilisation streaming westward and - northward, wiping out the game and the Indian, and overwhelming the rough, - fighting, hunting, pioneer life. Joel Renton had made money, by good luck - chiefly, having held land here and there which he had got for nothing, and - had then almost forgotten about it, and, when reminded of it, still held - on to it with that defiant stubbornness which often possesses improvident - and careless natures. He had never had any real business instinct, and to - swagger a little over the land he held and to treat offers of purchase - with contempt was the loud assertion of a capacity he did not possess. So - it was that stubborn vanity, beneath which was his angry protest against - the prejudice felt by the new people of the West for the white pioneer who - married an Indian, and lived the Indian life,—so it was that this - gave him competence and a comfortable home after the old trader had been - driven out by the railway and the shopkeeper. With the first land he sold - he sent his daughter away to school in a town farther east and south, - where she had been brought in touch with a life that at once cramped and - attracted her; where, too, she had felt the first chill of racial - ostracism, and had proudly fought it to the end, her weapons being talent, - industry, and a hot, defiant ambition. - </p> - <p> - There had been three years of bitter, almost half-sullen, struggle, - lightened by one sweet friendship with a girl whose face she had since - drawn in a hundred different poses on stray pieces of paper, on the walls - of the big, well-lighted attic to which she retreated for hours every day, - when she was not abroad on the prairies, riding the Indian pony that her - uncle the Piegan Chief, Ice Breaker, had given her years before. Three - years of struggle, and then her father had died, and the refuge for her - vexed, defiant heart was gone. While he lived she could affirm the rights - of a white man’s daughter, the rights of the daughter of a pioneer who had - helped to make the West; and her pride in him had given a glow to her - cheek and a spring to her step which drew every eye. In the chief street - of Portage la Drome men would stop their trafficking and women nudge each - other when she passed, and wherever she went she stirred interest, excited - admiration, or aroused prejudice—but the prejudice did not matter so - long as her father, Joel Renton, lived. Whatever his faults, and they were - many—sometimes he drank too much, and swore a great deal, and - bullied and stormed—she blinked at them all, for he was of the - conquering race, a white man who had slept in white sheets and eaten off - white tablecloths, and used a knife and fork, since he was born; and the - women of his people had had soft petticoats and fine stockings, and silk - gowns for festal days, and feathered hats of velvet, and shoes of polished - leather, always and always, back through many generations. She had held - her head high, for she was of his women, of the women of his people, with - all their rights and all their claims. She had held it high till that - stormy day—just such a day as this, with the surf of snow breaking - against the house—when they carried him in out of the wild turmoil - and snow, laying him on the couch where she now sat, and her head fell on - his lifeless breast, and she cried out to him in vain to come back to her. - </p> - <p> - Before the world her head was still held high, but in the attic-room, and - out on the prairies far away, where only the coyote or the prairie-hen - saw, her head drooped, and her eyes grew heavy with pain and sombre - protest. Once in an agony of loneliness, and cruelly hurt by a conspicuous - slight put upon her at the Portage by the wife of the Reeve of the town, - who had daughters twain of pure white blood got from behind the bar of a - saloon in Winnipeg, she had thrown open her window at night with the frost - below zero, and stood in her thin nightdress, craving the death which she - hoped the cold would give her soon. It had not availed, however, and once - again she had ridden out in a blizzard to die, but had come upon a man - lost in the snow, and her own misery had passed from her, and her heart, - full of the blood of plainsmen, had done for another what it would not do - for itself. The Indian in her had, with strange, sure instinct, found its - way to Portage la Drome, the man with both hands and one foot frozen, on - her pony, she walking at his side, only conscious that she had saved one, - not two, lives that day. - </p> - <p> - Here was another such day, here again was the storm in her heart which had - driven her into the plains that other time, and here again was that - tempest of white death outside. - </p> - <p> - “You have no sense. You are not white. They will not have you. Sit down—” - </p> - <p> - The words had fallen on her ears with a cold, deadly smother. There came a - chill upon her which stilled the wild pulses in her, which suddenly robbed - the eyes of their brightness and gave a drawn look to the face. - </p> - <p> - “You are not white. They will not have you, Pauline.” The Indian mother - repeated the words after a moment, her eyes grown still more gloomy; for - in her, too, there was a dark tide of passion moving. In all the outlived - years this girl had ever turned to the white father rather than to her, - and she had been left more and more alone. Her man had been kind to her, - and she had been a faithful wife, but she had resented the natural - instinct of her half-breed child, almost white herself and with the - feelings and ways of the whites, to turn always to her father, as though - to a superior guide, to a higher influence and authority. Was not she - herself the descendant of Blackfoot and Piegan chiefs through generations - of rulers and warriors? Was there not Piegan and Blackfoot blood in the - girl’s veins? Must only the white man’s blood be reckoned when they made - up their daily account and balanced the books of their lives, credit and - debtor,—misunderstanding and kind act, neglect and tenderness, - reproof and praise, gentleness and impulse, anger and caress,—to be - set down in the everlasting record? Why must the Indian always give way—Indian - habits, Indian desires, the Indian way of doing things, the Indian point - of view, Indian food, Indian medicine? Was it all bad, and only that which - belonged to white life good? - </p> - <p> - “Look at your face in the glass, Pauline,” she added at last. “You are - good-looking, but it isn’t the good looks of the whites. The lodge of a - chieftainess is the place for you. There you would have praise and honour; - among the whites you are only a half-breed. What is the good? Let us go - back to the life out there beyond the Muskwat River—up beyond. There - is hunting still, a little, and the world is quiet, and nothing troubles. - Only the wild dog barks at night, or the wolf sniffs at the door and all - day there is singing. Somewhere out beyond the Muskwat the feasts go on, - and the old men build the great fires, and tell tales, and call the wind - out of the north, and make the thunder speak; and the young men ride to - the hunt or go out to battle, and build lodges for the daughters of the - tribe; and each man has his woman, and each woman has in her breast the - honour of the tribe, and the little ones fill the lodge with laughter. - Like a pocket of deerskin is every house, warm and small and full of good - things. Hai-yai, what is this life to that! There you will be head and - chief of all, for there is money enough for a thousand horses; and your - father was a white man, and these are the days when the white man rules. - Like clouds before the sun are the races of men, and one race rises and - another falls. Here you are not first, but last; and the child of the - white father and mother, though they be as the dirt that flies from a - horse’s heels, it is before you. Your mother is a Blackfoot.” - </p> - <p> - As the woman spoke slowly and with many pauses, the girl’s mood changed, - and there came into her eyes a strange, dark look deeper than anger. She - listened with a sudden patience which stilled the agitation in her breast - and gave a little touch of rigidity to her figure. Her eyes withdrew from - the wild storm without and gravely settled on her mother’s face, and with - the Indian woman’s last words understanding pierced, but did not dispel, - the sombre and ominous look in her eyes. There was silence for a moment, - and then she spoke almost as evenly as her mother had done. - </p> - <p> - “I will tell you everything. You are my mother, and I love you; but you - will not see the truth. When my father took you from the lodges and - brought you here, it was the end of the Indian life. It was for you to go - on with him, but you would not go. I was young, but I saw, and I said that - in all things I would go with him. I did not know that it would be hard, - but at school, at the very first, I began to understand. There was only - one, a French girl—I loved her—a girl who said to me, ‘You are - as white as I am, as anyone, and your heart is the same, and you are - beautiful.’ Yes, Manette said I was beautiful.” - </p> - <p> - She paused a moment, a misty, far-away look came into her eyes, her - fingers clasped and unclasped, and she added: - </p> - <p> - “And her brother, Julien,—he was older,—when he came to visit - Manette, he spoke to me as though I was all white, and was good to me. I - have never forgotten, never. It was five years ago, but I remember him. He - was tall and strong, and as good as Manette—as good as Manette. I - loved Manette, but she suffered for me, for I was not like the others, and - my ways were different—then. I had lived up there on the Warais - among the lodges, and I had not seen things—only from my father, and - he did so much in an Indian way. So I was sick at heart, and sometimes I - wanted to die; and once—But there was Manette, and she would laugh - and sing, and we would play together, and I would speak French and she - would speak English, and I learned from her to forget the Indian ways. - What were they to me? I had loved them when I was of them, but I came on - to a better life. The Indian life is to the white life as the parfleche - pouch to—to this.” She laid her hand upon a purse of delicate silver - mesh hanging at her waist. “When your eyes are opened you must go on, you - cannot stop. There is no going back. When you have read of all there is in - the white man’s world, when you have seen, then there is no returning. You - may end it all, if you wish, in the snow, in the river, but there is no - returning. The lodge of a chief—ah, if my father had heard you say - that—!” - </p> - <p> - The Indian woman shifted heavily in her chair, then shrank away from the - look fixed on her. Once or twice she made as if she would speak, but sank - down in the great chair, helpless and dismayed. - </p> - <p> - “The lodge of a chief!” the girl continued in a low, bitter voice. “What - is the lodge of a chief? A smoky fire, a pot, a bed of skins, aih-yi! If - the lodges of the Indians were millions, and I could be head of all, and - rule the land, yet would I rather be a white girl in the hut of her white - man, struggling for daily bread among the people who sweep the buffalo - out, but open up the land with the plough, and make a thousand live where - one lived before. It is peace you want, my mother, peace and solitude, in - which the soul goes to sleep. Your days of hope are over, and you want to - drowse by the fire. I want to see the white men’s cities grow, and the - armies coming over the hill with the ploughs and the reapers and the - mowers, and the wheels and the belts and engines of the great factories, - and the white woman’s life spreading everywhere; for I am a white man’s - daughter. I can’t be both Indian and white. I will not be like the sun - when the shadow cuts across it and the land grows dark. I will not be - half-breed. I will be white or I will be Indian; and I will be white, - white only. My heart is white, my tongue is white, I think, I feel, as - white people think and feel. What they wish, I wish; as they live, I live; - as white women dress, I dress.” - </p> - <p> - She involuntarily drew up the dark red skirt she wore, showing a white - petticoat and a pair of fine stockings on an ankle as shapely as she had - ever seen among all the white women she knew. She drew herself up with - pride, and her body had a grace and ease which the white woman’s - convention had not cramped. - </p> - <p> - Yet, with all her protests, no one would have thought her English. She - might have been Spanish, or Italian, or Roumanian, or Slav, though nothing - of her Indian blood showed in purely Indian characteristics, and something - sparkled in her, gave a radiance to her face and figure which the storm - and struggle in her did not smother. The white women of Portage la Drome - were too blind, too prejudiced, to see all that she really was, and - admiring white men could do little, for Pauline would have nothing to do - with them till the women met her absolutely as an equal; and from the - other halfbreeds, who intermarried with each other and were content to - take a lower place than the pure whites, she held aloof, save when any of - them was ill or in trouble. Then she recognised the claim of race, and - came to their doors with pity and soft impulses to help them. French and - Scotch and English half-breeds, as they were, they understood how she was - making a fight for all who were half-Indian, half-white, and watched her - with a furtive devotion, acknowledging her superior place, and proud of - it. - </p> - <p> - “I will not stay here,” said the Indian mother with sullen stubbornness. - “I will go back beyond the Warais. My life is my own life, and I will do - what I like with it.” - </p> - <p> - The girl started, but became composed again on the instant. “Is your life - all your own, mother?” she asked. “I did not come into the world of my own - will. If I had I would have come all white or all Indian. I am your - daughter, and I am here, good or bad—is your life all your own?” - </p> - <p> - “You can marry and stay here, when I go. You are twenty. I had my man, - your father, when I was seventeen. You can marry. There are men. You have - money. They will marry you—and forget the rest.” - </p> - <p> - With a cry of rage and misery the girl sprang to her feet and started - forwards, but stopped suddenly at sound of a hasty knocking and a voice - asking admittance. An instant later, a huge, bearded, broad-shouldered man - stepped inside, shaking himself free of the snow, laughing half-sheepishly - as he did so, and laying his fur-cap and gloves with exaggerated care on - the wide window-sill. - </p> - <p> - “John Alloway,” said the Indian woman in a voice of welcome, and with a - brightening eye, for it would seem as though he came in answer to her - words of a few moments before. With a mother’s instinct she had divined at - once the reason for the visit, though no warning thought crossed the mind - of the girl, who placed a chair for their visitor with a heartiness which - was real—was not this the white man she had saved from death in the - snow a year ago? Her heart was soft towards the life she had kept in the - world. She smiled at him, all the anger gone from her eyes, and there was - almost a touch of tender anxiety in her voice as she said “What brought - you out in this blizzard? It wasn’t safe. It doesn’t seem possible you got - here from the Portage.” - </p> - <p> - The huge ranchman and auctioneer laughed cheerily. “Once lost, twice get - there,” he exclaimed, with a quizzical toss of the head, thinking he had - said a good thing. “It’s a year ago to the very day that I was lost out - back”—he jerked a thumb over his shoulder—“and you picked me - up and brought me in; and what was I to do but come out on the anniversary - and say thank you? I’d fixed up all year to come to you, and I wasn’t to - be stopped, ‘cause it was like the day we first met, old Coldmaker hitting - the world with his whips of frost, and shaking his ragged blankets of snow - over the wild west.” - </p> - <p> - “Just such a day,” said the Indian woman after a pause. Pauline remained - silent, placing a little bottle of cordial before their visitor, with - which he presently regaled himself, raising his glass with an air. - </p> - <p> - “Many happy returns to us both!” he said, and threw the liquor down his - throat, smacked his lips, and drew his hand down his great moustache and - beard like some vast animal washing its face with its paw. Smiling and yet - not at ease, he looked at the two women and nodded his head encouragingly, - but whether the encouragement was for himself or for them he could not - have told. - </p> - <p> - His last words, however, had altered the situation. The girl had caught at - a suggestion in them which startled her. This rough white plainsman was - come to make love to her, and to say—what? He was at once awkward - and confident, afraid of her, of her refinement, grace, beauty, and - education, and yet confident in the advantage of his position, a white man - bending to a half-breed girl. He was not conscious of the condescension - and majesty of his demeanour, but it was there, and his untutored words - and ways must make it all too apparent to the girl. The revelation of the - moment made her at once triumphant and humiliated. This white man had come - to make love to her, that was apparent; but that he, ungrammatical, crude, - and rough, should think he had but to put out his hand, and she in whom - every subtle emotion and influence had delicate response, whose words and - ways were as far removed from his as day from night, would fly to him, - brought the flush of indignation to her cheek. She responded to his toast - with a pleasant nod, however, and said: - </p> - <p> - “But if you will keep coming in such wild storms, there will not be many - anniversaries.” Laughing, she poured out another glass of liquor for him. - </p> - <p> - “Well, now, p’r’aps you’re right, and so the only thing to do is not to - keep coming, but to stay—stay right where you are.” - </p> - <p> - The Indian woman could not see her daughter’s face, which was turned to - the fire, but she herself smiled at John Alloway, and nodded her head - approvingly. Here was the cure for her own trouble and loneliness. Pauline - and she, who lived in different worlds, and yet were tied to each other by - circumstances they could not control, would each work out her own destiny - after her own nature, since John Alloway had come a-wooing. She would go - back on the Warais, and Pauline would remain at the Portage, a white woman - with her white man. She would go back to the smoky fires in the huddled - lodges; to the venison stew and the snake dance; to the feasts of the - Medicine Men, and the long sleeps in the summer days, and the winter’s - tales, and be at rest among her own people; and Pauline would have revenge - of the wife of the prancing Reeve, and perhaps the people would forget who - her mother was. - </p> - <p> - With these thoughts flying through her sluggish mind, she rose and moved - heavily from the room, with a parting look of encouragement at Alloway, as - though to say, a man that is bold is surest. - </p> - <p> - With her back to the man, Pauline watched her mother leave the room, saw - the look she gave Alloway. When the door was closed she turned and looked - Alloway in the eyes. - </p> - <p> - “How old are you?” she asked suddenly. - </p> - <p> - He stirred in his seat nervously. “Why, fifty, about,” he answered with - confusion. - </p> - <p> - “Then you’ll be wise not to go looking for anniversaries in blizzards, - when they’re few at the best,” she said with a gentle and dangerous smile. - </p> - <p> - “Fifty-why, I’m as young as most men of thirty,” he responded with an - uncertain laugh. “I’d have come here to-day if it had been snowing - pitchforks and chain-lightning. I made up my mind I would. You saved my - life, that’s dead sure; and I’d be down among the moles if it wasn’t for - you and that Piegan pony of yours. Piegan ponies are wonders in a - storm-seem to know their way by instinct. You, too—why, I bin on the - plains all my life, and was no better than a baby that day; but you—why, - you had Piegan in you, why, yes—” - </p> - <p> - He stopped short for a moment, checked by the look in her face, then went - blindly on: “And you’ve got Blackfoot in you, too; and you just felt your - way through the tornado and over the blind prairie like a bird reaching - for the hills. It was as easy to you as picking out a moverick in a bunch - of steers to me. But I never could make out what you was doing on the - prairie that terrible day. I’ve thought of it a hundred times. What was - you doing, if it ain’t cheek to ask?” - </p> - <p> - “I was trying to lose a life,” she answered quietly, her eyes dwelling on - his face, yet not seeing him; for it all came back on her, the agony which - had driven her out into the tempest to be lost evermore. - </p> - <p> - He laughed. “Well, now, that’s good,” he said; “that’s what they call - speaking sarcastic. You was out to save, and not to lose, a life; that was - proved to the satisfaction of the court.” He paused and chuckled to - himself, thinking he had been witty, and continued: “And I was that court, - and my judgment was that the debt of that life you saved had to be paid to - you within one calendar year, with interest at the usual per cent for - mortgages on good security. That was my judgment, and there’s no appeal - from it. I am the great Justinian in this case.” - </p> - <p> - “Did you ever save anybody’s life?” she asked, putting the bottle of - cordial away, as he filled his glass for the third time. - </p> - <p> - “Twice certain, and once dividin’ the honours,” he answered, pleased at - the question. - </p> - <p> - “And did you expect to get any pay, with or without interest?” she added. - </p> - <p> - “Me? I never thought of it again. But yes—by gol, I did! One case - was funny, as funny can be. It was Ricky Wharton over on the Muskwat - River. I saved his life right enough, and he came to me a year after and - said, You saved my life, now what are you going to do with it? I’m stony - broke. I owe a hundred dollars, and I wouldn’t be owing it if you hadn’t - saved my life. When you saved it I was five hunderd to the good, and I’d - have left that much behind me. Now I’m on the rocks, because you insisted - on saving my life; and you just got to take care of me.’ I ‘insisted!’ - Well, that knocked me silly, and I took him on—blame me, if I didn’t - keep Ricky a whole year, till he went north looking for gold. Get pay—why, - I paid! Saving life has its responsibilities, little gal.” - </p> - <p> - “You can’t save life without running some risk yourself, not as a rule, - can you?” she said, shrinking from his familiarity. - </p> - <p> - “Not as a rule,” he replied. “You took on a bit of risk with me, you and - your Piegan pony.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, I was young,” she responded, leaning over the table, and drawing - faces on a piece of paper before her. “I could take more risks, I was only - nineteen!” - </p> - <p> - “I don’t catch on,” he rejoined. “If it’s sixteen or—” - </p> - <p> - “Or fifty,” she interposed. - </p> - <p> - “What difference does it make? If you’re done for, it’s the same at - nineteen as fifty, and vicey-versey.” - </p> - <p> - “No, it’s not the same,” she answered. “You leave so much more that you - want to keep, when you go at fifty.” - </p> - <p> - “Well, I dunno. I never thought of that.” - </p> - <p> - “There’s all that has belonged to you. You’ve been married, and have - children, haven’t you?” - </p> - <p> - He started, frowned, then straightened himself. “I got one girl—she’s - east with her grandmother,” he said jerkily. - </p> - <p> - “That’s what I said; there’s more to leave behind at fifty,” she replied, - a red spot on each cheek. She was not looking at him, but at the face of a - man on the paper before her—a young man with abundant hair, a strong - chin, and big, eloquent eyes; and all around his face she had drawn the - face of a girl many times, and beneath the faces of both she was writing - Manette and Julien. - </p> - <p> - The water was getting too deep for John Alloway. - </p> - <p> - He floundered towards the shore. “I’m no good at words,” he said—“no - good at argyment; but I’ve got a gift for stories—round the fire of - a night, with a pipe and a tin basin of tea; so I’m not going to try and - match you. You’ve had a good education down at Winnipeg. Took every prize, - they say, and led the school, though there was plenty of fuss because they - let you do it, and let you stay there, being half-Indian. You never heard - what was going on outside, I s’pose. It didn’t matter, for you won out. - Blamed foolishness, trying to draw the line between red and white that - way. Of course, it’s the women always, always the women, striking out for - all-white or nothing. Down there at Portage they’ve treated you mean, mean - as dirt. The Reeve’s wife—well, we’ll fix that up all right. I guess - John Alloway ain’t to be bluffed. He knows too much and they all know he - knows enough. When John Alloway, 32 Main Street, with a ranch on the - Katanay, says, ‘We’re coming—Mr. and Mrs. John Alloway is coming,’ - they’ll get out their cards visite, I guess.” - </p> - <p> - Pauline’s head bent lower, and she seemed laboriously etching lines into - the faces before her—Manette and Julien, Julien and Manette; and - there came into her eyes the youth and light and gaiety of the days when - Julien came of an afternoon and the riverside rang with laughter; the - dearest, lightest days she had ever spent. - </p> - <p> - The man of fifty went on, seeing nothing but a girl over whom he was - presently going to throw the lasso of his affection, and take her home - with him, yielding and glad, a white man, and his half-breed girl—but - such a half-breed! - </p> - <p> - “I seen enough of the way some of them women treated you,” he continued, - “and I sez to myself, Her turn next. There’s a way out, I sez, and John - Alloway pays his debts. When the anniversary comes round I’ll put things - right, I sez to myself. She saved my life, and she shall have the rest of - it, if she’ll take it, and will give a receipt in full, and open a new - account in the name of John and Pauline Alloway. Catch it? See—Pauline?” - </p> - <p> - Slowly she got to her feet. There was a look in her eyes such as had been - in her mother’s a little while before, but a hundred times intensified: a - look that belonged to the flood and flow of generations of Indian life, - yet controlled in her by the order and understanding of centuries of white - men’s lives, the pervasive, dominating power of race. - </p> - <p> - For an instant she kept her eyes towards the window. The storm had - suddenly ceased, and a glimmer of sunset light was breaking over the - distant wastes of snow. - </p> - <p> - “You want to pay a debt you think you owe,” she said, in a strange, - lustreless voice, turning to him at last. “Well, you have paid it. You - have given me a book to read which I will keep always. And I give you a - receipt in full for your debt.” - </p> - <p> - “I don’t know about any book,” he answered dazedly. “I want to marry you - right away.” - </p> - <p> - “I am sorry, but it is not necessary,” she replied suggestively. Her face - was very pale now. - </p> - <p> - “But I want to. It ain’t a debt. That was only a way of putting it. I want - to make you my wife. I got some position, and I can make the West sit up, - and look at you and be glad.” - </p> - <p> - Suddenly her anger flared out, low and vivid and fierce, but her words - were slow and measured. “There is no reason why I should marry you—not - one. You offer me marriage as a prince might give a penny to a beggar. If - my mother were not an Indian woman, you would not have taken it all as a - matter of course. But my father was a white man, and I am a white man’s - daughter, and I would rather marry an Indian, who would think me the best - thing there was in the light of the sun, than marry you. Had I been pure - white you would not have been so sure, you would have asked, not offered. - I am not obliged to you. You ought to go to no woman as you came to me. - See, the storm has stopped. You will be quite safe going back now. The - snow will be deep, perhaps, but it is not far.” - </p> - <p> - She went to the window, got his cap and gloves, and handed them to him. He - took them, dumbfounded and overcome. - </p> - <p> - “Say, I ain’t done it right, mebbe, but I meant well, and I’d be good to - you and proud of you, and I’d love you better than anything I ever saw,” - he said shamefacedly, but eagerly and honestly too. - </p> - <p> - “Ah, you should have said those last words first,” she answered. - </p> - <p> - “I say them now.” - </p> - <p> - “They come too late; but they would have been too late in any case,” she - added. “Still, I am glad you said them.” - </p> - <p> - She opened the door for him. - </p> - <p> - “I made a mistake,” he urged humbly. “I understand better now. I never had - any schoolin’.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, it isn’t that,” she answered gently. “Goodbye.” - </p> - <p> - Suddenly he turned. “You’re right—it couldn’t ever be,” he said. - “You’re—you’re great. And I owe you my life still.” - </p> - <p> - He stepped out into the biting air. - </p> - <p> - For a moment Pauline stood motionless in the middle of the room, her gaze - fixed upon the door which had just closed; then, with a wild gesture of - misery and despair, she threw herself upon the couch in a passionate - outburst of weeping. Sobs shook her from head to foot, and her hands, - clenched above her head, twitched convulsively. - </p> - <p> - Presently the door opened and her mother looked in eagerly. At what she - saw her face darkened and hardened for an instant, but then the girl’s - utter abandonment of grief and agony convinced and conquered her. Some - glimmer of the true understanding of the problem which Pauline represented - got into her heart, and drove the sullen selfishness from her face and - eyes and mind. She came over heavily and, sinking upon her knees, swept an - arm around the girl’s shoulder. She realised what had happened, and - probably this was the first time in her life that she had ever come by - instinct to a revelation of her daughter’s mind, or of the faithful - meaning of incidents of their lives. - </p> - <p> - “You said no to John Alloway,” she murmured. Defiance and protest spoke in - the swift gesture of the girl’s hands. “You think because he was white - that I’d drop into his arms! No—no—no!” - </p> - <p> - “You did right, little one.” - </p> - <p> - The sobs suddenly stopped, and the girl seemed to listen with all her - body. There was something in her Indian mother’s voice she had never heard - before—at least, not since she was a little child, and swung in a - deer-skin hammock in a tamarac tree by Renton’s Lodge, where the chiefs - met, and the West paused to rest on its onward march. Something of the - accents of the voice that crooned to her then was in the woman’s tones - now. - </p> - <p> - “He offered it like a lump of sugar to a bird—I know. He didn’t know - that you have great blood—yes, but it is true. My man’s grandfather, - he was of the blood of the kings of England. My man had the proof. And for - a thousand years my people have been chiefs. There is no blood in all the - West like yours. My heart was heavy, and dark thoughts came to me, because - my man is gone, and the life is not my life, and I am only an Indian woman - from the Warais, and my heart goes out there always now. But some great - Medicine has been poured into my heart. As I stood at the door and saw you - lying there, I called to the Sun. ‘O great Spirit,’ I said, ‘help me to - understand; for this girl is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh, and - Evil has come between us!’ And the Sun Spirit poured the Medicine into my - spirit, and there is no cloud between us now. It has passed away, and I - see. Little white one, the white life is the only life, and I will live it - with you till a white man comes and gives you a white man’s home. But not - John Alloway—shall the crow nest with the oriole?” - </p> - <p> - As the woman spoke with slow, measured voice, full of the cadences of a - heart revealing itself, the girl’s breath at first seemed to stop, so - still she lay; then, as the true understanding of the words came to her, - she panted with excitement, her breast heaved, and the blood flushed her - face. When the slow voice ceased, and the room became still, she lay quiet - for a moment, letting the new thing find secure lodgment in her thought; - then, suddenly, she raised herself and threw her arms round her mother in - a passion of affection. - </p> - <p> - “Lalika! O mother Lalika!” she said tenderly, and kissed her again and - again. Not since she was a little girl, long before they left the Warais, - had she called her mother by her Indian name, which her father had - humorously taught her to do in those far-off happy days by the beautiful, - singing river and the exquisite woods, when, with a bow and arrow, she had - ranged a young Diana who slew only with love. - </p> - <p> - “Lalika, mother Lalika, it is like the old, old times,” she added softly. - “Ah, it does not matter now, for you understand!” - </p> - <p> - “I do not understand altogether,” murmured the Indian woman gently. “I am - not white, and there is a different way of thinking; but I will hold your - hand, and we will live the white life together.” - </p> - <p> - Cheek to cheek they saw the darkness come, and, afterwards, the silver - moon steal up over a frozen world, in which the air bit like steel and - braced the heart like wine. Then, at last, before it was nine o’clock, - after her custom, the Indian woman went to bed, leaving her daughter - brooding peacefully by the fire. - </p> - <p> - For a long time Pauline sat with hands clasped in her lap, her gaze on the - tossing flames, in her heart and mind a new feeling of strength and - purpose. The way before her was not clear, she saw no further than this - day, and all that it had brought; yet she was as one that has crossed a - direful flood and finds herself on a strange shore in an unknown country, - with the twilight about her, yet with so much of danger passed that there - was only the thought of the moment’s safety round her, the camp-fire to be - lit, and the bed to be made under the friendly trees and stars. - </p> - <p> - For a half-hour she sat so, and then, suddenly, she raised her head - listening, leaning towards the window, through which the moonlight - streamed. She heard her name called without, distinct and strange—“Pauline! - Pauline!” - </p> - <p> - Starting up, she ran to the door and opened it. All was silent and cruelly - cold. Nothing but the wide plain of snow and the steely air. But as she - stood intently listening, the red glow from the fire behind her, again - came the cry—“Pauline!” not far away. Her heart beat hard, and she - raised her head and called—why was it she should call out in a - language not her own? “Qu’appelle? Qu’appelle?” - </p> - <p> - And once again on the still night air came the trembling appeal—“Pauline!” - </p> - <p> - “Qu’appelle? Qu’appelle?” she cried, then, with a gasping murmur of - understanding and recognition she ran forwards in the frozen night towards - the sound of the voice. The same intuitive sense which had made her call - out in French, without thought or reason, had revealed to her who it was - that called; or was it that even in the one word uttered there was the - note of a voice always remembered since those days with Manette at - Winnipeg? - </p> - <p> - Not far away from the house, on the way to Portage la Drome, but a little - distance from the road, was a crevasse, and towards this she sped, for - once before an accident had happened there. Again the voice called as she - sped—“Pauline!” and she cried out that she was coming. Presently she - stood above the declivity, and peered over. Almost immediately below her, - a few feet down, was a man lying in the snow. He had strayed from the - obliterated road, and had fallen down the crevasse, twisting his foot - cruelly. Unable to walk he had crawled several hundred yards in the snow, - but his strength had given out, and then he had called to the house, on - whose dark windows flickered the flames of the fire, the name of the girl - he had come so far to see. With a cry of joy and pain at once she - recognised him now. It was as her heart had said—it was Julien, - Manette’s brother. In a moment she was beside him, her arm around his - shoulder. - </p> - <p> - “Pauline!” he said feebly, and fainted in her arms. An instant later she - was speeding to the house, and, rousing her mother and two of the - stablemen, she snatched a flask of brandy from a cupboard and hastened - back. - </p> - <p> - An hour later Julien Labrosse lay in the great sitting-room beside the - fire, his foot and ankle bandaged, and at ease, his face alight with all - that had brought him there. And once again the Indian mother with a sure - instinct knew why he had come, and saw that now her girl would have a - white woman’s home, and, for her man, one of the race like her father’s - race, white and conquering. - </p> - <p> - “I’m sorry to give trouble,” Julien said, laughing—he had a trick of - laughing lightly; “but I’ll be able to get back to the Portage to-morrow.” - </p> - <p> - To this the Indian mother said, however: “To please yourself is a great - thing, but to please others is better; and so you will stay here till you - can walk back to the Portage, M’sieu’ Julien.” - </p> - <p> - “Well, I’ve never been so comfortable,” he said—“never so—happy. - If you don’t mind the trouble!” The Indian woman nodded pleasantly, and - found an excuse to leave the room. But before she went she contrived to - place near his elbow one of the scraps of paper on which Pauline had drawn - his face, with that of Manette. It brought a light of hope and happiness - into his eyes, and he thrust the paper under the fur robes of the couch. - </p> - <p> - “What are you doing with your life?” Pauline asked him, as his eyes sought - hers a few moments later. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, I have a big piece of work before me,” he answered eagerly, “a great - chance—to build a bridge over the St. Lawrence, and I’m only thirty! - I’ve got my start. Then, I’ve made over the old Seigneury my father left - me, and I’m going to live in it. It will be a fine place, when I’ve done - with it—comfortable and big, with old oak timbers and walls, and - deep fireplaces, and carvings done in the time of Louis Quinze, and dark - red velvet curtains for the drawingroom, and skins and furs. Yes, I must - have skins and furs like these here.” He smoothed the skins with his hand. - </p> - <p> - “Manette, she will live with you?” Pauline asked. “Oh no, her husband - wouldn’t like that. You see, Manette is to be married. She told me to tell - you all about it.” - </p> - <p> - He told her all there was to tell of Manette’s courtship, and added that - the wedding would take place in the spring. - </p> - <p> - “Manette wanted it when the leaves first flourish and the birds come - back,” he said gaily; “and so she’s not going to live with me at the - Seigneury, you see. No, there it is, as fine a house, good enough for a - prince, and I shall be there alone, unless—” - </p> - <p> - His eyes met hers, and he caught the light that was in them, before the - eyelids drooped over them and she turned her head to the fire. “But the - spring is two months off yet,” he added. - </p> - <p> - “The spring?” she asked, puzzled, yet half afraid to speak. - </p> - <p> - “Yes, I’m going into my new house when Manette goes into her new house—in - the spring. And I won’t go alone if—” - </p> - <p> - He caught her eyes again, but she rose hurriedly and said: “You must sleep - now. Good-night.” She held out her hand. - </p> - <p> - “Well, I’ll tell you the rest to-morrow-to-morrow night when it’s quiet - like this, and the stars shine,” he answered. “I’m going to have a home of - my own like this—ah, bien sur, Pauline.” - </p> - <p> - That night the old Indian mother prayed to the Sun. “O great Spirit,” she - said, “I give thanks for the Medicine poured into my heart. Be good to my - white child when she goes with her man to the white man’s home far away. O - great Spirit, when I return to the lodges of my people, be kind to me, for - I shall be lonely; I shall not have my child; I shall not hear my white - man’s voice. Give me good Medicine, O Sun and great Father, till my dream - tells me that my man comes from over the hills for me once more.” - </p> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0010" id="link2H_4_0010"> - <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - THE STAKE AND THE PLUMB-LINE - </h2> - <p> - She went against all good judgment in marrying him; she cut herself off - from her own people, from the life in which she had been an alluring and - beautiful figure. Washington had never had two such seasons as those in - which she moved; for the diplomatic circle who had had “the run of the - world” knew her value, and were not content without her. She might have - made a brilliant match with one ambassador thirty years older than herself—she - was but twenty-two; and there were at least six attaches and secretaries - of legation who entered upon a tournament for her heart and hand; but she - was not for them. All her fine faculties of tact and fairness, of harmless - strategy, and her gifts of wit and unexpected humour were needed to keep - her cavaliers constant and hopeful to the last; but she never faltered, - and she did not fail. The faces of old men brightened when they saw her, - and one or two ancient figures who, for years, had been seldom seen at - social functions now came when they knew she was to be present. There - were, of course, a few women who said she would coquette with any male - from nine to ninety; but no man ever said so; and there was none, from - first to last, but smiled with pleasure at even the mention of her name, - so had her vivacity, intelligence, and fine sympathy conquered them. She - was a social artist by instinct. In their hearts they all recognised how - fair and impartial she was; and she drew out of every man the best that - was in him. The few women who did not like her said that she chattered; - but the truth was she made other people talk by swift suggestion or - delicate interrogation. - </p> - <p> - After the blow fell, Freddy Hartzman put the matter succinctly, and told - the truth faithfully, when he said, “The first time I met her, I told her - all I’d ever done that could be told, and all I wanted to do; including a - resolve to carry her off to some desert place and set up a Kingdom of Two. - I don’t know how she did it. I was like a tap, and poured myself out; and - when it was all over, I thought she was the best talker I’d ever heard. - But yet she’d done nothing except look at me and listen, and put in a - question here and there, that was like a baby asking to see your watch. - Oh, she was a lily-flower, was Sally Seabrook, and I’ve never been sorry I - told her all my little story! It did me good. Poor darling—it makes - me sick sometimes when I think of it. Yet she’ll win out all right—a - hundred to one she’ll win out. She was a star.” - </p> - <p> - Freddy Hartzman was in an embassy of repute; he knew the chancelleries and - salons of many nations, and was looked upon as one of the ablest and - shrewdest men in the diplomatic service. He had written one of the best - books on international law in existence, he talked English like a native, - he had published a volume of delightful verse, and had omitted to publish - several others, including a tiny volume which Sally Seabrook’s charms had - inspired him to write. His view of her was shared by most men who knew the - world, and especially by the elderly men who had a real knowledge of human - nature, among whom was a certain important member of the United States - executive called John Appleton. When the end of all things at Washington - came for Sally, these two men united to bear her up, that her feet should - not stumble upon the stony path of the hard journey she had undertaken. - </p> - <p> - Appleton was not a man of much speech, but his words had weight; for he - was not only a minister; he came of an old family which had ruled the - social destinies of a state, and had alternately controlled and disturbed - its politics. On the day of the sensation, in the fiery cloud of which - Sally disappeared, Appleton delivered himself of his mind in the matter at - a reception given by the President. - </p> - <p> - “She will come back—and we will all take her back, be glad to have - her back,” he said. “She has the grip of a lever which can lift the - eternal hills with the right pressure. Leave her alone—leave her - alone. This is a democratic country, and she’ll prove democracy a success - before she’s done.” - </p> - <p> - The world knew that John Appleton had offered her marriage, and he had - never hidden the fact. What they did not know was that she had told him - what she meant to do before she did it. He had spoken to her plainly, - bluntly, then with a voice that was blurred and a little broken, urging - her against the course towards which she was set; but it had not availed; - and, realising that he had come upon a powerful will underneath the sunny - and so human surface, he had ceased to protest, to bear down upon her mind - with his own iron force. When he realised that all his reasoning was - wasted, that all worldly argument was vain, he made one last attempt, a - forlorn hope, as though to put upon record what he believed to be the - truth. - </p> - <p> - “There is no position you cannot occupy,” he said. “You have the perfect - gift in private life, and you have a public gift. You have a genius for - ruling. Say, my dear, don’t wreck it all. I know you are not for me, but - there are better men in the country than I am. Hartzman will be a great - man one day—he wants you. Young Tilden wants you; he has millions, - and he will never disgrace them or you, the power which they can command, - and the power which you have. And there are others. Your people have told - you they will turn you off; the world will say things—will rend you. - There is nothing so popular for the moment as the fall of a favourite. But - that’s nothing—it’s nothing at all compared with the danger to - yourself. I didn’t sleep last night thinking of it. Yet I’m glad you wrote - me; it gave me time to think, and I can tell you the truth as I see it. - Haven’t you thought that he will drag you down, down, down, wear out your - soul, break and sicken your life, destroy your beauty—you are - beautiful, my dear, beyond what the world sees, even. Give it up—ah, - give it up, and don’t break our hearts! There are too many people loving - you for you to sacrifice them—and yourself, too.... You’ve had such - a good time!” - </p> - <p> - “It’s been like a dream,” she interrupted, in a faraway voice, “like a - dream, these two years.” - </p> - <p> - “And it’s been such a good dream,” he urged; “and you will only go to a - bad one, from which you will never wake. The thing has fastened on him; he - will never give it up. And penniless, too—his father has cast him - off. My girl, it’s impossible. Listen to me. There’s no one on earth that - would do more for you than I would—no one.” - </p> - <p> - “Dear, dear friend!” she cried with a sudden impulse, and caught his hand - in hers and kissed it before he could draw it back. “You are so true, and - you think you are right. But, but”—her eyes took on a deep, steady, - far-away look—“but I will save him; and we shall not be penniless in - the end. Meanwhile I have seven hundred dollars a year of my own. No one - can touch that. Nothing can change me now—and I have promised.” - </p> - <p> - When he saw her fixed determination, he made no further protest, but asked - that he might help her, be with her the next day, when she was to take a - step which the wise world would say must lead to sorrow and a miserable - end. - </p> - <p> - The step she took was to marry Jim Templeton, the drunken, cast-off son of - a millionaire senator from Kentucky, who controlled railways, and owned a - bank, and had so resented his son’s inebriate habits that for five years - he had never permitted Jim’s name to be mentioned in his presence. Jim had - had twenty thousand dollars left him by his mother, and a small income of - three hundred dollars from an investment which had been made for him when - a little boy. And this had carried him on; for, drunken as he was, he had - sense enough to eke out the money, limiting himself to three thousand - dollars a year. He had four thousand dollars left, and his tiny income of - three hundred, when he went to Sally Seabrook, after having been sober for - a month, and begged her to marry him. - </p> - <p> - Before dissipation had made him look ten years older than he was, there - had been no handsomer man in all America. Even yet he had a remarkable - face; long, delicate, with dark brown eyes, as fair a forehead as man - could wish, and black, waving hair, streaked with grey-grey, though he was - but twenty-nine years of age. - </p> - <p> - When Sally was fifteen and he twenty-two, he had fallen in love with her - and she with him; and nothing had broken the early romance. He had - captured her young imagination, and had fastened his image on her heart. - Her people, seeing the drift of things, had sent her to a school on the - Hudson, and the two did not meet for some time. Then came a stolen - interview, and a fastening of the rivets of attraction—for Jim had - gifts of a wonderful kind. He knew his Horace and Anacreon and Heine and - Lamartine and Dante in the originals, and a hundred others; he was a - speaker of power and grace; and he had a clear, strong head for business. - He was also a lawyer, and was junior attorney to his father’s great - business. It was because he had the real business gift, not because he had - a brilliant and scholarly mind, that his father had taken him into his - concerns, and was the more unforgiving when he gave way to temptation. - Otherwise, he would have pensioned Jim off, and dismissed him from his - mind as a useless, insignificant person; for Horace, Anacreon, and - philosophy and history were to him the recreations of the feeble-minded. - He had set his heart on Jim, and what Jim could do and would do by and by - in the vast financial concerns he controlled, when he was ready to slip - out and down; but Jim had disappointed him beyond calculation. - </p> - <p> - In the early days of their association Jim had left his post and taken to - drink at critical moments in their operations. At first, high words had - been spoken; then there came the strife of two dissimilar natures, and - both were headstrong, and each proud and unrelenting in his own way. Then, - at last, had come the separation, irrevocable and painful; and Jim had - flung out into the world, a drunkard, who, sober for a fortnight or a - month, or three months, would afterward go off on a spree, in which he - quoted Sappho and Horace in taverns, and sang bacchanalian songs with a - voice meant for the stage—a heritage from an ancestor who had sung - upon the English stage a hundred years before. Even in his cups, even - after his darling vice had submerged him, Jim Templeton was a man marked - out from his fellows, distinguished and very handsome. Society, however, - had ceased to recognise him for a long time, and he did not seek it. For - two or three years he practised law now and then. He took cases, - preferably criminal cases, for which very often he got no pay; but that, - too, ceased at last. Now, in his quiet, sober intervals he read - omnivorously, and worked out problems in physics for which he had a taste, - until the old appetite surged over him again. Then his spirits rose, and - he was the old brilliant talker, the joyous galliard until, in due time, - he became silently and lethargically drunk. - </p> - <p> - In one of his sober intervals he had met Sally Seabrook in the street. It - was the first time in four years, for he had avoided her, and though she - had written to him once or twice, he had never answered her—shame - was in his heart. Yet all the time the old song was in Sally’s ears. Jim - Templeton had touched her in some distant and intimate corner of her - nature where none other had reached; and in all her gay life, when men had - told their tale of admiration in their own way, her mind had gone back to - Jim, and what he had said under the magnolia trees; and his voice had - drowned all others. She was not blind to what he had become, but a deep - belief possessed her that she, of all the world, could save him. She knew - how futile it would look to the world, how wild a dream it looked even to - her own heart, how perilous it was; but, play upon the surface of things - as she had done so much and so often in her brief career, she was seized - of convictions having origin, as it might seem, in something beyond - herself. - </p> - <p> - So when she and Jim met in the street, the old true thing rushed upon them - both, and for a moment they stood still and looked at each other. As they - might look who say farewell forever, so did each dwell upon the other’s - face. That was the beginning of the new epoch. A few days more, and Jim - came to her and said that she alone could save him; and she meant him to - say it, had led him to the saying, for the same conviction was burned deep - in her own soul. She knew the awful risk she was taking, that the step - must mean social ostracism, and that her own people would be no kinder to - her than society; but she gasped a prayer, smiled at Jim as though all - were well, laid her plans, made him promise her one thing on his knees, - and took the plunge. - </p> - <p> - Her people did as she expected. She was threatened with banishment from - heart and home—with disinheritance; but she pursued her course; and - the only person who stood with her and Jim at the altar was John Appleton, - who would not be denied, and who had such a half-hour with Jim before the - ceremony as neither of them forgot in the years that the locust ate - thereafter. And, standing at the altar, Jim’s eyes were still wet, with - new resolves in his heart and a being at his side meant for the best man - in the world. As he knelt beside her, awaiting the benediction, a sudden - sense of the enormity of this act came upon him, and for her sake he would - have drawn back then, had it not been too late. He realised that it was a - crime to put this young, beautiful life in peril; that his own life was a - poor, contemptible thing, and that he had been possessed of the egotism of - the selfish and the young. - </p> - <p> - But the thing was done, and a new life was begun. Before they were - launched upon it, however, before society had fully grasped the sensation, - or they had left upon their journey to northern Canada, where Sally - intended they should work out their problem and make their home, far and - free from all old associations, a curious thing happened. Jim’s father - sent an urgent message to Sally to come to him. When she came, he told her - she was mad, and asked her why she had thrown her life away. - </p> - <p> - “Why have you done it?” he said. “You—you knew all about him; you - might have married the best man in the country. You could rule a kingdom; - you have beauty and power, and make people do what you want: and you’ve - got a sot.” - </p> - <p> - “He is your son,” she answered quietly. - </p> - <p> - She looked so beautiful and so fine as she stood there, fearless and - challenging before him, that he was moved. But he would not show it. - </p> - <p> - “He was my son—when he was a man,” he retorted grimly. - </p> - <p> - “He is the son of the woman you once loved,” she answered. - </p> - <p> - The old man turned his head away. - </p> - <p> - “What would she have said to what you did to Jim?” He drew himself around - sharply. Her dagger had gone home, but he would not let her know it. - </p> - <p> - “Leave her out of the question—she was a saint,” he said roughly. - </p> - <p> - “She cannot be left out; nor can you. He got his temperament naturally; he - inherited his weakness from your grandfather, from her father. Do you - think you are in no way responsible?” - </p> - <p> - He was silent for a moment, but then said stubbornly: “Why—why have - you done it? What’s between him and me can’t be helped; we are father and - son; but you—you had no call, no responsibility.” - </p> - <p> - “I love Jim. I always loved him, ever since I can remember, as you did. I - see my way ahead. I will not desert him. No one cares what happens to him, - no one but me. Your love wouldn’t stand the test; mine will.” - </p> - <p> - “Your folks have disinherited you,—you have almost nothing, and I - will not change my mind. What do you see ahead of you?” - </p> - <p> - “Jim—only Jim—and God.” - </p> - <p> - Her eyes were shining, her hands were clasped together at her side in the - tenseness of her feeling, her indomitable spirit spoke in her face. - </p> - <p> - Suddenly the old man brought his fist down on the table with a bang. “It’s - a crime—oh, it’s a crime, to risk your life so! You ought to have - been locked up. I’d have done it.” - </p> - <p> - “Listen to me,” she rejoined quietly. “I know the risk. But do you think - that I could have lived my life out, feeling that I might have saved Jim, - and didn’t try? You talk of beauty and power and ruling—you say what - others have said to me. Which is the greater thing, to get what pleases - one, or to work for something which is more to one than all else in the - world? To save one life, one intellect, one great man—oh, he has the - making of a great man in him!—to save a soul, would not life be well - lost, would not love be well spent in doing it?” - </p> - <p> - “Love’s labour lost,” said the old man slowly, cynically, but not without - emotion. - </p> - <p> - “I have ambition,” she continued. “No girl was ever more ambitious, but my - ambition is to make the most and best of myself. Place?—Jim and I - will hold it yet. Power?—it shall be as it must be; but Jim and I - will work for it to fulfil ourselves. For me—ah, if I can save him—and - I mean to do so—do you think that I would not then have my heaven on - earth? You want money—money—money, power, and to rule; and - these are to you the best things in the world. I make my choice - differently, though I would have these other things if I could; and I hope - I shall. But Jim first—Jim first, your son, Jim—my husband, - Jim.” - </p> - <p> - The old man got to his feet slowly. She had him at bay. “But you are - great,” he said, “great! It is an awful stake—awful. Yet if you win, - you’ll have what money can’t buy. And listen to me. We’ll make the stake - bigger. It will give it point, too, in another way. If you keep Jim sober - for four years from the day of your marriage, on the last day of that four - years I’ll put in your hands for you and him, or for your child—if - you have one—five millions of dollars. I am a man of my word. While - Jim drinks I won’t take him back; he’s disinherited. I’ll give him nothing - now or hereafter. Save him for four years,—if he can do that he will - do all, and there’s five millions as sure as the sun’s in heaven. Amen and - amen.” - </p> - <p> - He opened the door. There was a strange soft light in her eyes as she came - to go. - </p> - <p> - “Aren’t you going to kiss me?” she said, looking at him whimsically. - </p> - <p> - He was disconcerted. She did not wait, but reached up and kissed him on - the cheek. “Good-by,” she said with a smile. “We’ll win the stake. - Good-by.” - </p> - <p> - An instant, and she was gone. He shut the door, then turned and looked in - a mirror on the wall. Abstractedly he touched the cheek she had kissed. - Suddenly a change passed over his face. He dropped in a chair, and his - fist struck the table as he said: “By God, she may do it, she may do it! - But it’s life and death—it’s life and death.” - </p> - <p> - Society had its sensation, and then the veil dropped. For a long time none - looked behind it except Jim’s father. He had too much at stake not to have - his telescope upon them. A detective followed them to keep Jim’s record. - But this they did not know. - </p> - <p> - II - </p> - <p> - From the day they left Washington Jim put his life and his fate in his - wife’s hands. He meant to follow her judgment, and, self-willed and strong - in intellect as he was, he said that she should have a fair chance of - fulfilling her purpose. There had been many pour parlers as to what Jim - should do. There was farming. She set that aside, because it meant - capital, and it also meant monotony and loneliness; and capital was - limited, and monotony and loneliness were bad for Jim, deadening an active - brain which must not be deprived of stimulants—stimulants of a - different sort, however, from those which had heretofore mastered it. - There was the law. But Jim would have to become a citizen of Canada, - change his flag, and where they meant to go—to the outskirts—there - would be few opportunities for the law; and with not enough to do there - would be danger. Railway construction? That seemed good in many ways, but - Jim had not the professional knowledge necessary; his railway experience - with his father had only been financial. Above all else he must have - responsibility, discipline, and strict order in his life. - </p> - <p> - “Something that will be good for my natural vanity, and knock the nonsense - out of me,” Jim agreed, as they drew farther and farther away from - Washington and the past, and nearer and nearer to the Far North and their - future. Never did two more honest souls put their hands in each other’s, - and set forth upon the thorniest path to a goal which was their hearts’ - desire. Since they had become one, there had come into Sally’s face that - illumination which belongs only to souls possessed of an idea greater than - themselves, outside themselves—saints, patriots; faces which have - been washed in the salt tears dropped for others’ sorrows, and lighted by - the fire of self-sacrifice. Sally Seabrook, the high-spirited, the - radiant, the sweetly wilful, the provoking, to concentrate herself upon - this narrow theme—to reconquer the lost paradise of one vexed mortal - soul! - </p> - <p> - What did Jim’s life mean?—It was only one in the millions coming and - going, and every man must work out his own salvation. Why should she cramp - her soul to this one issue, when the same soul could spend itself upon the - greater motives and in the larger circle? A wide world of influence had - opened up before her; position, power, adulation, could all have been - hers, as John Appleton and Jim’s father had said. She might have moved in - well-trodden ways, through gardens of pleasure, lived a life where all - would be made easy, where she would be shielded at every turn, and her - beauty would be flattered by luxury into a constant glow. She was not so - primitive, so unintellectual, as not to have thought of this, else her - decision would have had less importance; she would have been no more than - an infatuated emotional woman with a touch of second class drama in her - nature. She had thought of it all, and she had made her choice. The easier - course was the course for meaner souls, and she had not one vein of thin - blood nor a small idea in her whole nature. She had a heart and mind for - great issues. She believed that Jim had a great brain, and would and could - accomplish great things. She knew that he had in him the strain of - hereditary instinct—his mother’s father had ended a brief life in a - drunken duel on the Mississippi, and Jim’s boyhood had never had - discipline or direction, or any strenuous order. He might never acquire - order, and the power that order and habit and the daily iteration of - necessary thoughts and acts bring; but the prospect did not appal her. She - had taken the risk with her eyes wide open; had set her own life and - happiness in the hazard. But Jim must be saved, must be what his talents, - his genius, entitled him to be. And the long game must have the long - thought. - </p> - <p> - So, as they drew into the great Saskatchewan Valley, her hand in his, and - hope in his eyes, and such a look of confidence and pride in her as - brought back his old strong beauty of face, and smoothed the careworn - lines of self-indulgence, she gave him his course: as a private he must - join the North-West Mounted Police, the red-coated riders of the plains, - and work his way up through every stage of responsibility, beginning at - the foot of the ladder of humbleness and self-control. She believed that - he would agree with her proposal; but her hands clasped his a little more - firmly and solicitously—there was a faint, womanly fear at her heart—as - she asked him if he would do it. The life meant more than occasional - separation; it meant that there would be periods when she would not be - with him; and there was great danger in that; but she knew that the risks - must be taken, and he must not be wholly reliant on her presence for his - moral strength. - </p> - <p> - His face fell for a moment when she made the suggestion, but it cleared - presently, and he said with a dry laugh: “Well, I guess they must make me - a sergeant pretty quick. I’m a colonel in the Kentucky Carbineers!” - </p> - <p> - She laughed, too; then a moment afterwards, womanlike, wondered if she was - right, and was a little frightened. But that was only because she was not - self-opinionated, and was anxious, more anxious than any woman in all the - North. - </p> - <p> - It happened as Jim said; he was made a sergeant at once—Sally - managed that; for, when it came to the point, and she saw the conditions - in which the privates lived, and realised that Jim must be one of them and - clean out the stables, and groom his horse and the officers’ horses, and - fetch and carry, her heart failed her, and she thought that she was making - her remedy needlessly heroical. So she went to see the Commissioner, who - was on a tour of scrutiny on their arrival at the post, and, as better men - than he had done in more knowing circles, he fell under her spell. If she - had asked for a lieutenancy, he would probably have corrupted some member - of Parliament into securing it for Jim. - </p> - <p> - But Jim was made a sergeant, and the Commissioner and the captain of the - troop kept their eyes on him. So did other members of the troop who did - not quite know their man, and attempted, figuratively, to pinch him here - and there. They found that his actions were greater than his words, and - both were in perfect harmony in the end, though his words often seemed - pointless to their minds, until they understood that they had conveyed - truths through a medium more like a heliograph than a telephone. By and by - they begin to understand his heliographing, and, when they did that, they - began to swear by him, not at him. - </p> - <p> - In time it was found that the troop never had a better disciplinarian than - Jim. He knew when to shut his eyes, and when to keep them open. To - non-essentials he kept his eyes shut; to essentials he kept them very wide - open. There were some men of good birth from England and elsewhere among - them, and these mostly understood him first. But they all understood Sally - from the beginning, and after a little they were glad enough to be - permitted to come, on occasion, to the five-roomed little house near the - barracks, and hear her talk, then answer her questions, and, as men had - done at Washington, open out their hearts to her. They noticed, however, - that while she made them barley-water, and all kinds of soft drinks from - citric acid, sarsaparilla and the like, and had one special drink of her - own invention, which she called cream-nectar, no spirits were to be had. - They also noticed that Jim never drank a drop of liquor, and by and by, - one way or another, they got a glimmer of the real truth, before it became - known who he really was or anything of his story. And the interest in the - two, and in Jim’s reformation, spread through the country, while Jim - gained reputation as the smartest man in the force. - </p> - <p> - They were on the outskirts of civilisation; as Jim used to say, “One step - ahead of the procession.” Jim’s duty was to guard the columns of - settlement and progress, and to see that every man got his own rights and - not more than his rights; that justice should be the plumb-line of march - and settlement. His principle was embodied in certain words which he - quoted once to Sally from the prophet Amos: “And the Lord said unto me, - Amos, what seest thou? And I said, A plumbline.” - </p> - <p> - On the day that Jim became a lieutenant his family increased by one. It - was a girl, and they called her Nancy, after Jim’s mother. It was the - anniversary of their marriage, and, so far, Jim had won, with what - fightings and strugglings and wrestlings of the spirit only Sally and - himself knew. And she knew as well as he, and always saw the storm coming - before it broke—a restlessness, then a moodiness, then a hungry, - eager, helpless look, and afterwards an agony of longing, a feverish - desire to break away and get the thrilling thing which would still the - demon within him. - </p> - <p> - There had been moments when his doom seemed certain—he knew and she - knew that if he once got drunk again he would fall never to rise. On one - occasion, after a hard, long, hungry ride, he was half-mad with desire, - but even as he seized the flask that was offered to him by his only enemy, - the captain of B Troop, at the next station eastward, there came a sudden - call to duty, two hundred Indians having gone upon the war-path. It saved - him; it broke the spell. He had to mount and away, with the antidote and - stimulant of responsibility driving him on. - </p> - <p> - Another occasion was equally perilous to his safety. They had been idle - for days in a hot week in summer, waiting for orders to return from the - rail-head where they had gone to quell a riot, and where drink and - hilarity were common. Suddenly—more suddenly than it had ever come, - the demon of his thirst had Jim by the throat. Sergeant Sewell, of the - grey-stubble head, who loved him more than his sour heart had loved - anybody in all his life, was holding himself ready for the physical - assault he must make upon his superior officer, if he raised a glass to - his lips, when salvation came once again. An accident had occurred far - down on the railway line, and the operator of the telegraph-office had - that very day been stricken down with pleurisy and pneumonia. In despair - the manager had sent to Jim, eagerly hoping that he might help them, for - the Riders of the Plains were a sort of court of appeal for every trouble - in the Far North. - </p> - <p> - Instantly Jim was in the saddle with his troop. Out of curiosity he had - learned telegraphy when a boy, as he had learned many things, and, arrived - at the scene of the accident, he sent messages and received them—by - sound, not on paper as did the official operator, to the amazement and - pride of the troop. Then, between caring for the injured in the accident, - against the coming of the relief train, and nursing the sick operator - through the dark moments of his dangerous illness, he passed a crisis of - his own disease triumphantly; but not the last crisis. - </p> - <p> - So the first and so the second and third years passed in safety. - </p> - <p> - III - </p> - <p> - “PLEASE, I want to go, too, Jim.” - </p> - <p> - Jim swung round and caught the child up in his arms. “Say, how dare you - call your father Jim—eh, tell me that?” - </p> - <p> - “It’s what mummy calls you—it’s pretty.” - </p> - <p> - “I don’t call her ‘mummy’ because you do, and you mustn’t call me Jim - because she does—do you hear?” The whimsical face lowered a little, - then the rare and beautiful dark blue eyes raised slowly, shaded by the - long lashes, and the voice said demurely, “Yes—Jim.” - </p> - <p> - “Nancy—Nancy,” said a voice from the corner in reproof, mingled with - suppressed laughter. “Nancy, you musn’t be saucy. You must say ‘father’ to—” - </p> - <p> - “Yes, mummy. I’ll say father to—Jim.” - </p> - <p> - “You imp—you imp of delight,” said Jim, as he strained the dainty - little lass to his breast, while she appeared interested in a wave of his - black hair, which she curled around her finger. - </p> - <p> - Sally came forwards with the little parcel of sandwiches she had been - preparing, and put them in the saddle-bags lying on a chair at the door, - in readiness for the journey Jim was about to make. Her eyes were - glistening, and her face had a heightened colour. The three years which - had passed since she married had touched her not at all to her - disadvantage, rather to her profit. She looked not an hour older; - motherhood had only added to her charm, lending it a delightful gravity. - The prairie life had given a shining quality to her handsomeness, an air - of depth and firmness, an exquisite health and clearness to the colour in - her cheeks. Her step was as light as Nancy’s, elastic and buoyant—a - gliding motion which gave a sinuous grace to the movements of her body. - There had also come into her eyes a vigilance such as deaf people possess, - a sensitive observation imparting a deeper intelligence to the face. - </p> - <p> - Here was the only change by which you could guess the story of her life. - Her eyes were like the ears of an anxious mother who can never sleep till - every child is abed; whose sense is quick to hear the faintest footstep - without or within; and who, as years go on, and her children grow older - and older, must still lie awake hearkening for the late footstep on the - stair. In Sally’s eyes was the story of the past three years: of love and - temptation and struggle, of watchfulness and yearning and anxiety, of - determination and an inviolable hope. Her eyes had a deeper look than that - in Jim’s. Now, as she gazed at him, the maternal spirit rose up from the - great well of protectiveness in her and engulfed both husband and child. - There was always something of the maternal in her eyes when she looked at - Jim. He did not see it—he saw only the wonderful blue, and the - humour which had helped him over such difficult places these past three - years. In steadying and strengthening Jim’s will, in developing him from - his Southern indolence into Northern industry and sense of responsibility, - John Appleton’s warnings had rung in Sally’s ears, and Freddy Hartzman’s - forceful and high-minded personality had passed before her eyes with an - appeal powerful and stimulating; but always she came to the same upland of - serene faith and white-hearted resolve; and Jim became dearer and dearer. - </p> - <p> - The baby had done much to brace her faith in the future and comfort her - anxious present. The child had intelligence of a rare order. She would lie - by the half-hour on the floor, turning over the leaves of a book without - pictures, and, before she could speak, would read from the pages in a - language all her own. She made a fairy world for herself, peopled by - characters to whom she gave names, to whom she assigned curious attributes - and qualities. They were as real to her as though flesh and blood, and she - was never lonely, and never cried; and she had buried herself in her - father’s heart. She had drawn to her the roughest men in the troop, and - for old Sewell, the grim sergeant, she had a specially warm place. - </p> - <p> - “You can love me if you like,” she had said to him at the very start, with - the egotism of childhood; but made haste to add, “because I love you, - Gri-Gri.” She called him Gri-Gri from the first, but they knew only long - afterwards that “gri-gri” meant “grey-grey,” to signify that she called - him after his grizzled hairs. - </p> - <p> - What she had been in the life-history of Sally and Jim they both knew. Jim - regarded her with an almost superstitious feeling. Sally was his strength, - his support, his inspiration, his bulwark of defence; Nancy was the charm - he wore about his neck—his mascot, he called her. Once, when she was - ill, he had suffered as he had never done before in his life. He could not - sleep nor eat, and went about his duties like one in a dream. When his - struggles against his enemy were fiercest, he kept saying over her name to - himself, as though she could help him. Yet always it was Sally’s hand he - held in the darkest hours, in his brutal moments; for in this fight - between appetite and will there are moments when only the animal seems to - exist, and the soul disappears in the glare and gloom of the primal - emotions. Nancy he called his “lucky sixpence,” but he called Sally his - “guinea-girl.” - </p> - <p> - From first to last his whimsicality never deserted him. In his worst - hours, some innate optimism and humour held him steady in his fight. It - was not depression that possessed him at the worst, but the violence of an - appetite most like a raging pain which men may endure with a smile upon - their lips. He carried in his face the story of a conflict, the aftermath - of bitter experience; and through all there pulsed the glow of experience. - He had grown handsomer, and the graceful decision of his figure, the - deliberate certainty of every action, heightened the force of a singular - personality. As in the eyes of Sally, in his eyes was a long reflective - look which told of things overcome, and yet of dangers present. His lips - smiled often, but the eyes said: “I have lived, I have seen, I have - suffered, and I must suffer more. I have loved, I have been loved under - the shadow of the sword. Happiness I have had, and golden hours, but not - peace—never peace. My soul has need of peace.” - </p> - <p> - In the greater, deeper experience of their lives, the more material side - of existence had grown less and less to them. Their home was a model of - simple comfort and some luxury, though Jim had insisted that Sally’s - income should not be spent, except upon the child, and should be saved for - the child, their home being kept on his pay and on the tiny income left by - his mother. With the help of an Indian girl, and a half-breed for outdoor - work and fires and gardening, Sally had cared for the house herself. - Ingenious and tasteful, with a gift for cooking and an educated hand, she - had made her little home as pretty as their few possessions would permit. - Refinement covered all, and three or four-score books were like so many - friends to comfort her when Jim was away; like kind and genial neighbours - when he was at home. From Browning she had written down in her long - sliding handwriting, and hung up beneath Jim’s looking-glass, the - heartening and inspiring words: - </p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - “One who never turned his back, but marched breast forward, - Never doubted clouds would break, - Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph, - Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, - Sleep to wake.” - </pre> - <p> - They had lived above the sordid, and there was something in the nature of - Jim’s life to help them to it. He belonged to a small handful of men who - had control over an empire, with an individual responsibility and - influence not contained in the scope of their commissions. It was a matter - of moral force and character, and of uniform, symbolical only of the great - power behind; of the long arm of the State; of the insistence of the law, - which did not rely upon force alone, but on the certainty of its - administration. In such conditions the smallest brain was bound to expand, - to take on qualities of judgment and temperateness which would never be - developed in ordinary circumstances. In the case of Jim Templeton, who - needed no stimulant to his intellect, but rather a steadying quality, a - sense of proportion, the daily routine, the command of men, the diverse - nature of his duties, half civil, half military, the personal appeals made - on all sides by the people of the country for advice, for help, for - settlement of disputes, for information which his well-instructed mind - could give—all these modified the romantic brilliance of his - intellect, made it and himself more human. - </p> - <p> - It had not come to him all at once. His intellect at first stood in his - way. His love of paradox, his deep observation, his insight, all made him - inherently satirical, though not cruelly so; but satire had become pure - whimsicality at last; and he came to see that, on the whole, the world was - imperfect, but also, on the whole, was moving towards perfection rather - than imperfection. He grew to realise that what seemed so often weakness - in men was tendency and idiosyncrasy rather than evil. And in the end he - thought better of himself as he came to think better of all others. For he - had thought less of all the world because he had thought so little of - himself. He had overestimated his own faults, had made them into crimes in - his own eyes, and, observing things in others of similar import, had - become almost a cynic in intellect, while in heart he had remained, a boy. - </p> - <p> - In all that he had changed a great deal. His heart was still the heart of - a boy, but his intellect had sobered, softened, ripened—even in this - secluded and seemingly unimportant life; as Sally had said and hoped it - would. Sally’s conviction had been right. But the triumph was not yet - achieved. She knew it. On occasion the tones of his voice told her, the - look that came into his eyes proclaimed it to her, his feverishness and - restlessness made it certain. How many a night had she thrown her arm over - his shoulder, and sought his hand and held it while in the dark silence, - wide-eyed, dry-lipped, and with a throat like fire he had held himself - back from falling. There was liquor in the house—the fight would not - have been a fight without it. She had determined that he should see his - enemy and meet him in the plains and face him down; and he was never many - feet away from his possible disaster. Yet for long over three years all - had gone well. There was another year. Would he last out the course? - </p> - <p> - At first the thought of the great stake for which she was playing in terms - of currency, with the head of Jim’s father on every note, was much with - her. The amazing nature of the offer of five millions of dollars - stimulated her imagination, roused her; gold coins are counters in the - game of success, signs and tokens. Money alone could not have lured her; - but rather what it represented—power, width of action, freedom to - help when the heart prompted, machinery for carrying out large plans, - ability to surround with advantage those whom we love. So, at first, while - yet the memories of Washington were much with her, the appeal of the - millions was strong. The gallant nature of the contest and the great stake - braced her; she felt the blood quicken in her pulse. - </p> - <p> - But, all through, the other thing really mastered her: the fixed idea that - Jim must be saved. As it deepened, the other life that she had lived - became like the sports in which we shared when children, full of vivacious - memory, shining with impulse and the stir of life, but not to be repeated—days - and deeds outgrown. So the light of one idea shone in her face. Yet she - was intensely human too; and if her eyes had not been set on the greater - glory, the other thought might have vulgarised her mind, made her end and - goal sordid—the descent of a nature rather than its ascension. - </p> - <p> - When Nancy came, the lesser idea, the stake, took on a new importance, for - now it seemed to her that it was her duty to secure for the child its - rightful heritage. Then Jim, too, appeared in a new light, as one who - could never fulfil himself unless working through the natural channels of - his birth, inheritance, and upbringing. Jim, drunken and unreliable, with - broken will and fighting to find himself—the waste places were for - him, until he was the master of his will and emotions. Once however, - secure in ability to control himself, with cleansed brain and purpose - defined, the widest field would still be too narrow for his talents—and - the five, yes, the fifty millions of his father must be his. - </p> - <p> - She had never repented having married Jim; but twice in those three years - she had broken down and wept as though her heart would break. There were - times when Jim’s nerves were shaken in his struggle against the unseen - foe, and he had spoken to her querulously, almost sharply. Yet in her - tears there was no reproach for him, rather for herself—the fear - that she might lose her influence over him, that she could not keep him - close to her heart, that he might drift away from her in the commonplaces - and monotony of work and domestic life. Everything so depended on her - being to him not only the one woman for whom he cared, but the woman - without whom he could care for nothing else. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, my God, give me his love,” she had prayed. “Let me keep it yet a - little while. For his sake, not for my own, let me have the power to hold - his love. Make my mind always quiet, and let me blow neither hot nor cold. - Help me to keep my temper sweet and cheerful, so that he will find the - room empty where I am not, and his footsteps will quicken when he comes to - the door. Not for my sake, dear God, but for his, or my heart will break—it - will break unless Thou dost help me to hold him. O Lord, keep me from - tears; make my face happy that I may be goodly to his eyes, and forgive - the selfishness of a poor woman who has little, and would keep her little - and cherish it, for Christ’s sake.” - </p> - <p> - Twice had she poured out her heart so, in the agony of her fear that she - should lose favour in Jim’s sight—she did not know how alluring she - was, in spite of the constant proofs offered her. She had had her will - with all who came her way, from governor to Indian brave. Once, in a - journey they had made far north, soon after they came, she had stayed at a - Hudson’s Bay Company’s post for some days, while there came news of - restlessness among the Indians, because of lack of food, and Jim had gone - farther north to steady the tribes, leaving her with the factor and his - wife and a halfbreed servant. - </p> - <p> - While she and the factor’s wife were alone in the yard of the post one - day, an Indian—chief, Arrowhead, in warpaint and feathers, entered - suddenly, brandishing a long knife. He had been drinking, and there was - danger in his black eyes. With a sudden inspiration she came forward - quickly, nodded and smiled to him, and then pointed to a grindstone - standing in the corner of the yard. As she did so, she saw Indians - crowding into the gate armed with knives, guns, bows, and arrows. She - beckoned to Arrowhead, and he followed her to the grindstone. She poured - some water on the wheel and began to turn it, nodding at the now impassive - Indian to begin. Presently he nodded also, and put his knife on the stone. - She kept turning steadily, singing to herself the while, as with anxiety - she saw the Indians drawing closer and closer in from the gate. Faster and - faster she turned, and at last the Indian lifted his knife from the stone. - She reached out her hand with simulated interest, felt the edge with her - thumb, the Indian looking darkly at her the while. Presently, after - feeling the edge himself, he bent over the stone again, and she went on - turning the wheel still singing softly. At last he stopped again and felt - the edge. With a smile which showed her fine white teeth, she said, “Is - that for me?” making a significant sign across her throat at the same - time. - </p> - <p> - The old Indian looked at her grimly, then slowly shook his head in - negation. - </p> - <p> - “I go hunt Yellow Hawk to-night,” he said. “I go fight; I like marry you - when I come back. How!” he said and turned away towards the gate. - </p> - <p> - Some of his braves held back, the blackness of death in their looks. He - saw. “My knife is sharp,” he said. “The woman is brave. She shall live—go - and fight Yellow Hawk, or starve and die.” - </p> - <p> - Divining their misery, their hunger, and the savage thought that had come - to them, Sally had whispered to the factor’s wife to bring food, and the - woman now came running out with two baskets full, and returned for more. - Sally ran forward among the Indians and put the food into their hands. - With grunts of satisfaction they seized what she gave, and thrust it into - their mouths, squatting on the ground. Arrowhead looked on stern and - immobile, but when at last she and the factor’s wife sat down before the - braves with confidence and an air of friendliness, he sat down also; yet, - famished as he was, he would not touch the food. At last Sally, realising - his proud defiance of hunger, offered him a little lump of pemmican and a - biscuit, and with a grunt he took it from her hands and ate it. Then, at - his command a fire was lit, the pipe of peace was brought out, and Sally - and the factor’s wife touched their lips to it, and passed it on. - </p> - <p> - So was a new treaty of peace and loyalty made with Arrowhead and his tribe - by a woman without fear, whose life had seemed not worth a minute’s - purchase; and, as the sun went down, Arrowhead and his men went forth to - make war upon Yellow Hawk beside the Nettigon River. In this wise had her - influence spread in the land. - </p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - ....................... -</pre> - <p> - Standing now with the child in his arms and his wife looking at him with a - shining moisture of the eyes, Jim laughed outright. There came upon him a - sudden sense of power, of aggressive force—the will to do. Sally - understood, and came and laughingly grasped his arm. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, Jim,” she said playfully, “you are getting muscles like steel. You - hadn’t these when you were colonel of the Kentucky Carbineers!” - </p> - <p> - “I guess I need them now,” he said, smiling, and with the child still in - his arms drew her to a window looking northward. As far as the eye could - see, nothing but snow, like a blanket spread over the land. Here and there - in the wide expanse a tree silhouetted against the sky, a tracery of - eccentric beauty, and off in the far distance a solitary horseman riding - towards the postriding hard. - </p> - <p> - “It was root, hog, or die with me, Sally,” he continued, “and I rooted ... - I wonder—that fellow on the horse—I have a feeling about him. - See, he’s been riding hard and long-you can tell by the way the horse - drops his legs. He sags a bit himself.... But isn’t it beautiful, all that - out there—the real quintessence of life.” - </p> - <p> - The air was full of delicate particles of frost on which the sun sparkled, - and though there was neither bird nor insect, nor animal, nor stir of - leaf, nor swaying branch or waving grass, life palpitated in the air, - energy sang its song in the footstep that crunched the frosty ground, that - broke the crusted snow; it was in the delicate wind that stirred the flag - by the barracks away to the left; hope smiled in the wide prospect over - which the thrilling, bracing air trembled. Sally had chosen right. - </p> - <p> - “You had a big thought when you brought me here, guinea-girl,” he added - presently. “We are going to win out here”—he set the child down—“you - and I and this lucky sixpence.” He took up his short fur coat. “Yes, we’ll - win, honey.” Then, with a brooding look in his face, he added: - </p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - “‘The end comes as came the beginning, - And shadows fail into the past; - And the goal, is it not worth the winning, - If it brings us but home at the last? - - “‘While far through the pain of waste places - We tread, ‘tis a blossoming rod - That drives us to grace from disgraces, - From the fens to the gardens of God!’” - </pre> - <p> - He paused reflectively. “It’s strange that this life up here makes you - feel that you must live a bigger life still, that this is only the wide - porch to the great labour-house—it makes you want to do things. - Well, we’ve got to win the stake first,” he added with a laugh. - </p> - <p> - “The stake is a big one, Jim—bigger than you think.” - </p> - <p> - “You and her and me—me that was in the gutter.” - </p> - <p> - “What is the gutter, dadsie?” asked Nancy. - </p> - <p> - “The gutter—the gutter is where the dish-water goes, midget,” he - answered with a dry laugh. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, I don’t think you’d like to be in the gutter,” Nancy said solemnly. - </p> - <p> - “You have to get used to it first, miss,” answered Jim. Suddenly Sally - laid both hands on Jim’s shoulders and looked him in the eyes. “You must - win the stake Jim. Think—now!” - </p> - <p> - She laid a hand on the head of the child. He did not know that he was - playing for a certain five millions, perhaps fifty millions, of dollars. - She had never told him of his father’s offer. He was fighting only for - salvation, for those he loved, for freedom. As they stood there, the - conviction had come upon her that they had come to the last battle-field, - that this journey which Jim now must take would decide all, would give - them perfect peace or lifelong pain. The shadow of battle was over them, - but he had no foreboding, no premonition; he had never been so full of - spirits and life. - </p> - <p> - To her adjuration Jim replied by burying his face in her golden hair, and - he whispered: “Say, I’ve done near four years, my girl. I think I’m all - right now—I think. This last six months, it’s been easy—pretty - fairly easy.” - </p> - <p> - “Four months more, only four months more—God be good to us!” she - said with a little gasp. - </p> - <p> - If he held out for four months more, the first great stage in their life—journey - would be passed, the stake won. - </p> - <p> - “I saw a woman get an awful fall once,” Jim said suddenly. “Her bones were - broken in twelve places, and there wasn’t a spot on her body without - injury. They set and fixed up every broken bone except one. It was split - down. They didn’t dare perform the operation; she couldn’t stand it. There - was a limit to pain, and she had reached the boundary. Two years went by, - and she got better every way, but inside her leg those broken pieces of - bone were rubbing against each other. She tried to avoid the inevitable - operation, but nature said, ‘You must do it, or die in the end.’ She - yielded. Then came the long preparations for the operation. Her heart - shrank, her mind got tortured. She’d suffered too much. She pulled herself - together, and said, ‘I must conquer this shrinking body of mine, by my - will. How shall I do it?’ Something within her said, ‘Think and do for - others. Forget yourself.’ And so, as they got her ready for her torture, - she visited hospitals, agonised cripple as she was, and smiled and talked - to the sick and broken, telling them of her own miseries endured and - dangers faced, of the boundary of human suffering almost passed; and so - she got her courage for her own trial. And she came out all right in the - end. Well, that’s the way I’ve felt sometimes. But I’m ready for my - operation now whenever it comes, and it’s coming, I know. Let it come when - it must.” He smiled. There came a knock at the door, and presently Sewell - entered. “The Commissioner wishes you to come over, sir,” he said. - </p> - <p> - “I was just coming, Sewell. Is all ready for the start?” - </p> - <p> - “Everything’s ready, sir, but there’s to be a change of orders. - Something’s happened—a bad job up in the Cree country, I think.” - </p> - <p> - A few minutes later Jim was in the Commissioner’s office. The murder of a - Hudson’s Bay Company’s man had been committed in the Cree country. The - stranger whom Jim and Sally had seen riding across the plains had brought - the news for thirty miles, word of the murder having been carried from - point to point. The Commissioner was uncertain what to do, as the Crees - were restless through want of food and the absence of game, and a force - sent to capture Arrowhead, the chief who had committed the murder, might - precipitate trouble. Jim solved the problem by offering to go alone and - bring the chief into the post. It was two hundred miles to the Cree - encampment, and the journey had its double dangers. - </p> - <p> - Another officer was sent on the expedition for which Jim had been - preparing, and he made ready to go upon his lonely duty. His wife did not - know till three days after he had gone what the nature of his mission was. - </p> - <p> - IV - </p> - <p> - Jim made his journey in good weather with his faithful dogs alone, and - came into the camp of the Crees armed with only a revolver. If he had gone - with ten men, there would have been an instant melee, in which he would - have lost his life. This is what the chief had expected, had prepared for; - but Jim was more formidable alone, with power far behind him which could - come with force and destroy the tribe, if resistance was offered, than - with fifty men. His tongue had a gift of terse and picturesque speech, - powerful with a people who had the gift of imagination. With five hundred - men ready to turn him loose in the plains without dogs or food, he carried - himself with a watchful coolness and complacent determination which got - home to their minds with great force. - </p> - <p> - For hours the struggle for the murderer went on, a struggle of mind over - inferior mind and matter. Arrowhead was a chief whose will had never been - crossed by his own people, and to master that will by a superior will, to - hold back the destructive force which, to the ignorant minds of the - braves, was only a natural force of defence, meant a task needing more - than authority behind it. For the very fear of that authority put in - motion was an incentive to present resistance to stave off the day of - trouble. The faces that surrounded Jim were thin with hunger, and the - murder that had been committed by the chief had, as its origin, the - foolish replies of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s man to their demand for - supplies. Arrowhead had killed him with his own hand. - </p> - <p> - But Jim Templeton was of a different calibre. Although he had not been - told it, he realised that, indirectly, hunger was the cause of the crime - and might easily become the cause of another; for their tempers were - sharper even than their appetites. Upon this he played; upon this he made - an exhortation to the chief. He assumed that Arrowhead had become violent, - because of his people’s straits, that Arrowhead’s heart yearned for his - people and would make sacrifice for them. Now, if Arrowhead came quietly, - he would see that supplies of food were sent at once, and that - arrangements were made to meet the misery of their situation. Therefore, - if Arrowhead came freely, he would have so much in his favour before his - judges; if he would not come quietly, then he must be brought by force; - and if they raised a hand to prevent it, then destruction would fall upon - all—all save the women and children. The law must be obeyed. They - might try to resist the law through him, but, if violence was shown, he - would first kill Arrowhead, and then destruction would descend like a wind - out of the north, darkness would swallow them, and their bones would cover - the plains. - </p> - <p> - As he ended his words a young brave sprang forwards with hatchet raised. - Jim’s revolver slipped down into his palm from his sleeve, and a bullet - caught the brave in the lifted arm. The hatchet dropped to the ground. - </p> - <p> - Then Jim’s eyes blazed, and he turned a look of anger on the chief, his - face pale and hard, as he said: “The stream rises above the banks; come - with me, chief, or all will drown. I am master, and I speak. Ye are hungry - because ye are idle. Ye call the world yours, yet ye will not stoop to - gather from the earth the fruits of the earth. Ye sit idle in the summer, - and women and children die round you when winter comes. Because the game - is gone, ye say. Must the world stand still because a handful of Crees - need a hunting-ground? Must the makers of cities and the wonders of the - earth, who fill the land with plenty—must they stand far off, - because the Crees and their chief would wander over millions of acres, for - each man a million, when by a hundred, ay, by ten, each white man would - live in plenty, and make the land rejoice. See. Here is the truth. When - the Great Spirit draws the game away so that the hunting is poor, ye sit - down and fill your hearts with murder, and in the blackness of your - thoughts kill my brother. Idle and shiftless and evil ye are, while the - earth cries out to give you of its plenty, a great harvest from a little - seed, if ye will but dig and plant, and plough and sow and reap, and lend - your backs to toil. Now hear and heed. The end is come. - </p> - <p> - “For this once ye shall be fed—by the blood of my heart, ye shall be - fed! And another year ye shall labour, and get the fruits of your labour, - and not stand waiting, as it were, till a fish shall pass the spear, or a - stag water at your door, that ye may slay and eat. The end is come, ye - idle men. O chief, harken! One of your braves would have slain me, even as - you slew my brother—he one, and you a thousand. Speak to your people - as I have spoken, and then come and answer for the deed done by your hand. - And this I say that right shall be done between men and men. Speak.” - </p> - <p> - Jim had made his great effort, and not without avail. Arrowhead rose - slowly, the cloud gone out of his face, and spoke to his people, bidding - them wait in peace until food came, and appointing his son chief in his - stead until his return. - </p> - <p> - “The white man speaks truth, and I will go,” he said. “I shall return,” he - continued, “if it be written so upon the leaves of the Tree of Life; and - if it be not so written, I shall fade like a mist, and the tepees will - know me not again. The days of my youth are spent, and my step no longer - springs from the ground. I shuffle among the grass and the fallen leaves, - and my eyes scarce know the stag from the doe. The white man is master—if - he wills it we shall die, if he wills it we shall live. And this was ever - so. It is in the tale of our people. One tribe ruled, and the others were - their slaves. If it is written on the leaves of the Tree of Life that the - white man rule us for ever, then it shall be so. I have spoken. Now, - behold I go.” - </p> - <p> - Jim had conquered, and together they sped away with the dogs through the - sweet-smelling spruce woods where every branch carried a cloth of white, - and the only sound heard was the swish of a blanket of snow as it fell to - the ground from the wide webs of green, or a twig snapped under the load - it bore. Peace brooded in the silent and comforting forest, and Jim and - Arrowhead, the Indian ever ahead, swung along, mile after mile, on their - snow-shoes, emerging at last upon the wide white prairie. - </p> - <p> - A hundred miles of sun and fair weather, sleeping at night in the open in - a trench dug in the snow, no fear in the thoughts of Jim, nor evil in the - heart of the heathen man. There had been moments of watchfulness, of - uncertainty, on Jim’s part, the first few hours of the first night after - they left the Cree reservation; but the conviction speedily came to Jim - that all was well; for the chief slept soundly from the moment he lay down - in his blankets between the dogs. Then Jim went to sleep as in his own - bed, and, waking, found Arrowhead lighting a fire from a little load of - sticks from the sledges. And between murderer and captor there sprang up - the companionship of the open road which brings all men to a certain land - of faith and understanding, unless they are perverted and vile. There was - no vileness in Arrowhead. There were no handcuffs on his hands, no sign of - captivity; they two ate out of the same dish, drank from the same basin, - broke from the same bread. The crime of Arrowhead, the gallows waiting for - him, seemed very far away. They were only two silent travellers, sharing - the same hardship, helping to give material comfort to each other—in - the inevitable democracy of those far places, where small things are not - great nor great things small; where into men’s hearts comes the knowledge - of the things that matter; where, from the wide, starry sky, from the - august loneliness, and the soul of the life which has brooded there for - untold generations, God teaches the values of this world and the next. - </p> - <p> - One hundred miles of sun and fair weather, and then fifty miles of bitter, - aching cold, with nights of peril from the increasing chill, so that Jim - dared not sleep lest he should never wake again, but die benumbed and - exhausted. Yet Arrowhead slept through all. Day after day so, and then ten - miles of storm such as come only to the vast barrens of the northlands; - and woe to the traveller upon whom the icy wind and the blinding snow - descended! Woe came upon Jim Templeton and Arrowhead, the heathen. - </p> - <p> - In the awful struggle between man and nature that followed, the captive - became the leader. The craft of the plains, the inherent instinct, the - feeling which was more than eyesight became the only hope. One whole day - to cover ten miles—an endless path of agony, in which Jim went down - again and again, but came up blinded by snow and drift, and cut as with - lashes by the angry wind. At the end of the ten miles was a Hudson’s Bay - Company’s post and safety; and through ten hours had the two struggled - towards it, going off at tangents, circling on their own tracks; but the - Indian, by an instinct as sure as the needle to the pole, getting the - direction to the post again, in the moments of direst peril and - uncertainty. To Jim the world became a sea of maddening forces which - buffeted him; a whirlpool of fire in which his brain was tortured, his - mind was shrivelled up; a vast army rending itself, each man against the - other. It was a purgatory of music, broken by discords; and then at last—how - sweet it all was, after the eternity of misery—“Church bells and - voices low,” and Sally singing to him, Nancy’s voice calling! Then, - nothing but sleep—sleep, a sinking down millions of miles in an - ether of drowsiness which thrilled him; and after—no more. - </p> - <p> - None who has suffered up to the limit of what the human body and soul may - bear can remember the history of those distracted moments when the - struggle became one between the forces in nature and the forces in man, - between agonised body and smothered mind, yet with the divine intelligence - of the created being directing, even though subconsciously, the fight. - </p> - <p> - How Arrowhead found the post in the mad storm he could never have told. - Yet he found it, with Jim unconscious on the sledge and with limbs frozen, - all the dogs gone but two, the leathers over the Indian’s shoulders as he - fell against the gate of the post with a shrill cry that roused the factor - and his people within, together with Sergeant Sewell, who had been sent - out from headquarters to await Jim’s arrival there. It was Sewell’s hand - which first felt Jim’s heart and pulse, and found that there was still - life left, even before it could be done by the doctor from headquarters, - who had come to visit a sick man at the post. - </p> - <p> - For hours they worked with snow upon the frozen limbs to bring back life - and consciousness. Consciousness came at last with half delirium, half - understanding; as emerging from the passing sleep of anaesthetics, the eye - sees things and dimly registers them, before the brain has set them in any - relation to life or comprehension. - </p> - <p> - But Jim was roused at last, and the doctor presently held to his lips a - glass of brandy. Then from infinite distance Jim’s understanding returned; - the mind emerged, but not wholly, from the chaos in which it was - travelling. His eyes stood out in eagerness. - </p> - <p> - “Brandy! brandy!” he said hungrily. - </p> - <p> - With an oath Sewell snatched the glass from the doctor’s hand, put it on - the table, then stooped to Jim’s ear and said hoarsely: “Remember—Nancy. - For God’s sake, sir, don’t drink.” - </p> - <p> - Jim’s head fell back, the fierce light went out of his eyes, the face - became greyer and sharper. “Sally—Nancy—Nancy,” he whispered, - and his fingers clutched vaguely at the quilt. - </p> - <p> - “He must have brandy or he will die. The system is pumped out. He must be - revived,” said the doctor. He reached again for the glass of spirits. - </p> - <p> - Jim understood now. He was on the borderland between life and death; his - feet were at the brink. “No—not—brandy, no!” he moaned. - “Sally-Sally, kiss me,” he said faintly, from the middle world in which he - was. - </p> - <p> - “Quick, the broth!” said Sewell to the factor, who had been preparing it. - “Quick, while there’s a chance.” He stooped and called into Jim’s ear: - “For the love of God, wake up, sir. They’re coming—they’re both - coming—Nancy’s coming. They’ll soon be here.” What matter that he - lied, a life was at stake. - </p> - <p> - Jim’s eyes opened again. The doctor was standing with the brandy in his - hand. Half madly Jim reached out. “I must live until they come,” he cried; - “the brandy—give it me! Give it—ah, no, no, I must not!” he - added, gasping, his lips trembling, his hands shaking. - </p> - <p> - Sewell held the broth to his lips. He drank a little, yet his face became - greyer and greyer; a bluish tinge spread about his mouth. - </p> - <p> - “Have you nothing else, sir?” asked Sewell in despair. The doctor put down - the brandy, went quickly to his medicine-case, dropped into a glass some - liquid from a phial, came over again, and poured a little between the - lips; then a little more, as Jim’s eyes opened again; and at last every - drop in the glass trickled down the sinewy throat. - </p> - <p> - Presently as they watched him the doctor said: “It will not do. He must - have brandy. It has life-food in it.” - </p> - <p> - Jim understood the words. He knew that if he drank the brandy the chances - against his future were terrible. He had made his vow, and he must keep - it. Yet the thirst was on him; his enemy had him by the throat again, was - dragging him down. Though his body was so cold, his throat was on fire. - But in the extremity of his strength his mind fought on—fought on, - growing weaker every moment. He was having his last fight. They watched - him with an aching anxiety, and there was anger in the doctor’s face. He - had no patience with these forces arrayed against him. - </p> - <p> - At last the doctor whispered to Sewell: “It’s no use; he must have the - brandy, or he can’t live an hour.” - </p> - <p> - Sewell weakened; the tears fell down his rough, hard cheeks. “It’ll ruin - him-it’s ruin or death.” - </p> - <p> - “Trust a little more in God, and in the man’s strength. Let us give him - the chance. Force it down his throat—he’s not responsible,” said the - physician, to whom saving life was more than all else. - </p> - <p> - Suddenly there appeared at the bedside Arrowhead, gaunt and weak, his face - swollen, the skin of it broken by the whips of storm. - </p> - <p> - “He is my brother,” he said, and, stooping, laid both hands, which he had - held before the fire for a long time, on Jim’s heart. “Take his feet, his - hands, his, legs, and his head in your hands,” he said to them all. “Life - is in us; we will give him life.” - </p> - <p> - He knelt down and kept both hands on Jim’s heart, while the others, even - the doctor, awed by his act, did as they were bidden. “Shut your eyes. Let - your life go into him. Think of him, and him alone. Now!” said Arrowhead - in a strange voice. - </p> - <p> - He murmured, and continued murmuring, his body drawing closer and closer - to Jim’s body, while in the deep silence, broken only by the chanting of - his low monotonous voice, the others pressed Jim’s hands and head and feet - and legs—six men under the command of a heathen murderer. - </p> - <p> - The minutes passed. The colour came back to Jim’s face, the skin of his - hands filled up, they ceased twitching, his pulse got stronger, his eyes - opened with a new light in them. - </p> - <p> - “I’m living, anyhow,” he said at last with a faint smile. “I’m hungry—broth, - please.” - </p> - <p> - The fight was won, and Arrowhead, the pagan murderer, drew over to the - fire and crouched down beside it, his back to the bed, impassive and - still. They brought him a bowl of broth and bread, which he drank slowly, - and placed the empty bowl between his knees. He sat there through the - night, though they tried to make him lie down. - </p> - <p> - As the light came in at the windows, Sewell touched him on the shoulder, - and said: “He is sleeping now.” - </p> - <p> - “I hear my brother breathe,” answered Arrowhead. “He will live.” - </p> - <p> - All night he had listened, and had heard Jim’s breath as only a man who - has lived in waste places can hear. “He will live. What I take with one - hand I give with the other.” - </p> - <p> - He had taken the life of the factor; he had given Jim his life. And when - he was tried three months later for murder, some one else said this for - him, and the hearts of all, judge and jury, were so moved they knew not - what to do. - </p> - <p> - But Arrowhead was never sentenced, for, at the end of the first day’s - trial, he lay down to sleep and never waked again. He was found the next - morning still and cold, and there was clasped in his hands a little doll - which Nancy had given him on one of her many visits to the prison during - her father’s long illness. They found a piece of paper in his belt with - these words in the Cree language: “With my hands on his heart at the post - I gave him the life that was in me, saving but a little until now. - Arrowhead, the chief, goes to find life again by the well at the root of - the tree. How!” - </p> - <p> - V - </p> - <p> - On the evening of the day that Arrowhead made his journey to “the well at - the root of the tree” a stranger knocked at the door of Captain - Templeton’s cottage; then, without awaiting admittance, entered. - </p> - <p> - Jim was sitting with Nancy on his knee, her head against his shoulder, - Sally at his side, her face alight with some inner joy. Before the knock - came to the door Jim had just said, “Why do your eyes shine so, Sally? - What’s in your mind?” She had been about to answer, to say to him what had - been swelling her heart with pride, though she had not meant to tell him - what he had forgotten—not till midnight. But the figure that entered - the room, a big man with deep-set eyes, a man of power who had carried - everything before him in the battle of life, answered for her. - </p> - <p> - “You have won the stake, Jim,” he said in a hoarse voice. “You and she - have won the stake, and I’ve brought it—brought it.” - </p> - <p> - Before they could speak he placed in Sally’s hands bonds for five million - dollars. - </p> - <p> - “Jim—Jim, my son!” he burst out. Then, suddenly, he sank into a - chair and, putting his head in his hands, sobbed aloud. - </p> - <p> - “My God, but I’m proud of you—speak to me, Jim. You’ve broken me - up.” He was ashamed of his tears, but he could not wipe them away. - </p> - <p> - “Father, dear old man!” said Jim, and put his hands on the broad - shoulders. - </p> - <p> - Sally knelt down beside him, took both the great hands from the - tear-stained face, and laid them against her cheek. But presently she put - Nancy on his knees. - </p> - <p> - “I don’t like you to cry,” the child said softly; “but to-day I cried too, - ‘cause my Indian man is dead.” - </p> - <p> - The old man could not speak, but he put his cheek down to hers. After a - minute, “Oh, but she’s worth ten times that!” he said as Sally came close - to him with the bundle he had thrust into her hands. - </p> - <p> - “What is it?” said Jim. - </p> - <p> - “It’s five million dollars—for Nancy,” she said. “Five-million—what?” - </p> - <p> - “The stake, Jim,” said Sally. “If you did not drink for four years—never - touched a drop—we were to have five million dollars.” - </p> - <p> - “You never told him, then—you never told him that?” asked the old - man. - </p> - <p> - “I wanted him to win without it,” she said. “If he won, he would be the - stronger; if he lost, it would not be so hard for him to bear.” - </p> - <p> - The old man drew her down and kissed her cheek. He chuckled, though the - tears were still in his eyes. “You are a wonder—the tenth wonder of - the world!” he declared. - </p> - <p> - Jim stood staring at the bundle in Nancy’s hands. “Five millions—five - million dollars!”—he kept saying to himself. - </p> - <p> - “I said Nancy’s worth ten times that, Jim.” The old man caught his hand - and pressed it. “But it was a damned near thing, I tell you,” he added. - “They tried to break me and my railways and my bank. I had to fight the - combination, and there was one day when I hadn’t that five million dollars - there, nor five. Jim, they tried to break the old man. And if they’d - broken me, they’d have made me out a scoundrel to her—to this wife - of yours who risked everything for both of us, for both of us, Jim; for - she’d given up the world to save you, and she was playing like a soul in - Hell for Heaven. If they’d broken me, I’d never have lifted my head again. - When things were at their worst I played to save that five millions,—her - stake and mine,—I played for that. I fought for it as a man fights - his way out of a burning house. And I won—I won. And it was by - fighting for that five millions I saved fifty—fifty millions, son. - They didn’t break the old man, Jim. They didn’t break him—not much.” - </p> - <p> - “There are giants in the world still,” said Jim, his own eyes full. He - knew now his father and himself, and he knew the meaning of all the bitter - and misspent life of the old days. He and his father were on a level of - understanding at last. - </p> - <p> - “Are you a giant?” asked Nancy, peering up into her grandfather’s eyes. - </p> - <p> - The old man laughed, then sighed. “Perhaps I was once, more or less, my - dear—” saying to her what he meant for the other two. “Perhaps I - was; but I’ve finished. I’m through. I’ve had my last fight.” - </p> - <p> - He looked at his son. “I pass the game on to you, Jim. You can do it. I - knew you could do it as the reports came in this year. I’ve had a - detective up here for four years. I had to do it. It was the devil in me. - </p> - <p> - “You’ve got to carry on the game, Jim; I’m done. I’ll stay home and potter - about. I want to go back to Kentucky, and build up the old place, and take - care of it a bit-your mother always loved it. I’d like to have it as it - was when she was there long ago. But I’ll be ready to help you when I’m - wanted, understand.” - </p> - <p> - “You want me to run things—your colossal schemes? You think—?” - </p> - <p> - “I don’t think. I’m old enough to know.” - </p> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0011" id="link2H_4_0011"> - <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - WHEN THE SWALLOWS HOMEWARD FLY - </h2> - <p> - The arrogant sun had stalked away into the evening, trailing behind him - banners of gold and crimson, and a swift twilight was streaming over the - land. As the sun passed, the eyes of two men on a high hill followed it, - and the look of one was like a light in a window to a lost traveller. It - had in it the sense of home and the tale of a journey done. Such a journey - this man had made as few have ever attempted, and fewer accomplished. To - the farthermost regions of snow and ice, where the shoulder of a continent - juts out into the northwestern Arctic seas, he had travelled on foot and - alone, save for his dogs, and for Indian guides, who now and then - shepherded him from point to point. The vast ice-hummocks had been his - housing, pemmican, the raw flesh of fish, and even the fat and oil of - seals had been his food. Ever and ever through long months the everlasting - white glitter of the snow and ice, ever and ever the cold stars, the - cloudless sky, the moon at full, or swung like a white sickle in the sky - to warn him that his life must be mown like grass. At night to sleep in a - bag of fur and wool, by day the steely wind, or the air shaking with a - filmy powder of frost; while the illimitably distant sun made the tiny - flakes sparkle like silver—a poudre day, when the face and hands are - most like to be frozen, and all so still and white and passionless, yet - aching with energy. Hundreds upon hundreds of miles that endless trail - went winding to the farthest North-west. No human being had ever trod its - lengths before, though Indians or a stray Hudson’s Bay Company man had - made journeys over part of it during the years that have passed since - Prince Rupert sent his adventurers to dot that northern land with posts - and forts, and trace fine arteries of civilisation through the wastes. - </p> - <p> - Where this man had gone none other had been of white men from the Western - lands, though from across the wide Pacific, from the Eastern world, - adventurers and exiles had once visited what is now known as the Yukon - Valley. So this man, browsing in the library of his grandfather, an - Eastern scholar, had come to know; and for love of adventure, and because - of the tale of a valley of gold and treasure to be had, and because he had - been ruined by bad investments, he had made a journey like none ever - essayed before. And on his way up to those regions, where the veil before - the face of God is very thin and fine, and men’s hearts glow within them, - where there was no oasis save the unguessed deposit of a great human dream - that his soul could feel, the face of a girl had haunted him. Her voice—so - sweet a voice that it rang like muffled silver in his ears, till, in the - everlasting theatre of the Pole, the stars seemed to repeat it through - millions of echoing hills, growing softer and softer as the frost hushed - it to his ears-had said to him late and early, “You must come back with - the swallows.” Then she had sung a song which had been like a fire in his - heart, not alone because of the words of it, but because of the soul in - her voice, and it had lain like a coverlet on his heart to keep it warm: - </p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - “Adieu! The sun goes awearily down, - The mist creeps up o’er the sleepy town, - The white sail bends to the shuddering mere, - And the reapers have reaped and the night is here. - - Adieu! And the years are a broken song, - The right grows weak in the strife with wrong, - The lilies of love have a crimson stain, - And the old days never will come again. - - Adieu! Where the mountains afar are dim - ‘Neath the tremulous tread of the seraphim, - Shall not our querulous hearts prevail, - That have prayed for the peace of the Holy Grail. - - Adieu! Sometime shall the veil between - The things that are and that might have been - Be folded back for our eyes to see, - And the meaning of all shall be clear to me.” - </pre> - <p> - It had been but an acquaintance of five days while he fitted out for his - expedition, but in this brief time it had sunk deep into his mind that - life was now a thing to cherish, and that he must indeed come back; though - he had left England caring little if, in the peril and danger of his - quest, he ever returned. He had been indifferent to his fate till he came - to the Valley of the Saskatchewan, to the town lying at the foot of the - maple hill beside the great northern stream, and saw the girl whose life - was knit with the far north, whose mother’s heart was buried in the great - wastes where Sir John Franklin’s expedition was lost; for her husband had - been one of the ill-fated if not unhappy band of lovers of that - civilisation for which they had risked all and lost all save immortality. - Hither the two had come after he had been cast away on the icy plains, and - as the settlement had crept north, had gone north with it, always on the - outer edge of house and field, ever stepping northward. Here, with small - income but high hearts and quiet souls, they had lived and laboured. And - when this newcomer from the old land set his face northward to an unknown - destination, the two women had prayed as the mother did in the old days - when the daughter was but a babe at her knee, and it was not yet certain - that Franklin and his men had been cast away for ever. Something in him, - his great height, his strength of body, his clear, meditative eyes, his - brave laugh, reminded her of him—her husband—who, like Sir - Humphrey Gilbert, had said that it mattered little where men did their - duty, since God was always near to take or leave as it was His will. When - Bickersteth went, it was as though one they had known all their lives had - passed; and the woman knew also that a new thought had been sown in her - daughter’s mind, a new door opened in her heart. - </p> - <p> - And he had returned. He was now looking down into the valley where the - village lay. Far, far over, two days’ march away, he could see the cluster - of houses, and the glow of the sun on the tin spire of the little Mission - Church where he had heard the girl and her mother sing, till the hearts of - all were swept by feeling and ravished by the desire for “the peace of the - Holy Grail.” The village was, in truth, but a day’s march away from him, - but he was not alone, and the journey could not be hastened. Beside him, - his eyes also upon the sunset and the village, was a man in a costume - half-trapper, half-Indian, with bushy grey beard and massive frame, and a - distant, sorrowful look, like that of one whose soul was tuned to past - suffering. As he sat, his head sunk on his breast, his elbow resting on a - stump of pine—the token of a progressive civilisation—his chin - upon his hand, he looked like the figure of Moses made immortal by Michael - Angelo. But his strength was not like that of the man beside him, who was - thirty years younger. When he walked, it was as one who had no - destination, who had no haven towards which to travel, who journeyed as - one to whom the world is a wilderness, and one tent or one hut is the same - as another, and none is home. - </p> - <p> - Like two ships meeting hull to hull on the wide seas, where a few miles of - water will hide them from each other, whose ports are thousands of miles - apart, whose courses are not the same, they two had met, the elder man, - sick and worn, and near to death, in the poor hospitality of an Indian’s - tepee. John Bickersteth had nursed the old man back to strength, and had - brought him southward with him—a silent companion, who spoke in - monosyllables, who had no conversation at all of the past, and little of - the present; but who was a woodsman and an Arctic traveller of the most - expert kind; who knew by instinct where the best places for shelter and - for sleeping might be found; who never complained, and was wonderful with - the dogs. Close as their association was, Bickersteth had felt concerning - the other that his real self was in some other sphere or place towards - which his mind was always turning, as though to bring it back. - </p> - <p> - Again and again had Bickersteth tried to get the old man to speak about - the past, but he had been met by a dumb sort of look, a straining to - understand. Once or twice the old man had taken his hands in both of his - own, and gazed with painful eagerness into his face, as though trying to - remember or to comprehend something that eluded him. Upon these occasions - the old man’s eyes dropped tears in an apathetic quiet, which tortured - Bickersteth beyond bearing. Just such a look he had seen in the eyes of a - favourite dog when he had performed an operation on it to save its life—a - reproachful, non-comprehending, loving gaze. - </p> - <p> - Bickersteth understood a little of the Chinook language, which is familiar - to most Indian tribes, and he had learned that the Indians knew nothing - exact concerning the old man; but rumours had passed from tribe to tribe - that this white man had lived for ever in the farthest north among the - Arctic tribes, and that he passed from people to people, disappearing into - the untenanted wilderness, but reappearing again among stranger tribes, - never resting, and as one always seeking what he could not find. - </p> - <p> - One thing had helped this old man in all his travels and sojourning. He - had, as it seemed to the native people, a gift of the hands; for when they - were sick, a few moments’ manipulation of his huge, quiet fingers - vanquished pain. A few herbs he gave in tincture, and these also were - praised; but it was a legend that when he was persuaded to lay on his - hands and close his eyes, and with his fingers to “search for the pain and - find it, and kill it,” he always prevailed. They believed that though his - body was on earth his soul was with Manitou, and that it was his soul - which came into him again, and gave the Great Spirit’s healing to the - fingers. This had been the man’s safety through how many years—or - how many generations—they did not know; for legends regarding the - pilgrim had grown and were fostered by the medicine men who, by giving him - great age and supernatural power, could, with more self-respect, apologise - for their own incapacity. - </p> - <p> - So the years—how many it was impossible to tell, since he did not - know or would not say—had gone on; and now, after ceaseless - wandering, his face was turned towards that civilisation out of which he - had come so long ago—or was it so long ago—one generation, or - two, or ten? It seemed to Bickersteth at times as though it were ten, so - strange, so unworldly was his companion. At first he thought that the man - remembered more than he would appear to acknowledge, but he found that - after a day or two everything that happened as they journeyed was also - forgotten. - </p> - <p> - It was only visible things, or sounds, that appeared to open the doors of - memory of the most recent happenings. These happenings, if not varied, - were of critical moment, since, passing down from the land of unchanging - ice and snow, they had come into March and April storms, and the perils of - the rapids and the swollen floods of May. Now, in June, two years and a - month since Bickersteth had gone into the wilds, they looked down upon the - goal of one at least—of the younger man who had triumphed in his - quest up in these wilds abandoned centuries ago. - </p> - <p> - With the joyous thought in his heart, that he had discovered anew one of - the greatest gold-fields of the world, that a journey unparalleled had - been accomplished, he turned towards his ancient companion, and a feeling - of pity and human love enlarged within him. He, John Bickersteth, was - going into a world again, where—as he believed—a happy fate - awaited him; but what of this old man? He had brought him out of the - wilds, out of the unknown—was he only taking him into the unknown - again? Were there friends, any friends anywhere in the world waiting for - him? He called himself by no name, he said he had no name. Whence came he? - Of whom? Whither was he wending now? Bickersteth had thought of the - problem often, and he had no answer for it save that he must be taken care - of, if not by others, then by himself; for the old man had saved him from - drowning; had also saved him from an awful death on a March day when he - fell into a great hole and was knocked insensible in the drifting snow; - had saved him from brooding on himself—the beginning of madness—by - compelling him to think for another. And sometimes, as he had looked at - the old man, his imagination had caught the spirit of the legend of the - Indians, and he had cried out, “O soul, come back and give him memory—give - him back his memory, Manitou the mighty!” - </p> - <p> - Looking on the old man now, an impulse seized him. “Dear old man,” he - said, speaking as one speaks to a child that cannot understand, “you shall - never want, while I have a penny, or have head or hands to work. But is - there no one that you care for or that cares for you, that you remember, - or that remembers you?” - </p> - <p> - The old man shook his head though not with understanding, and he laid a - hand on the young man’s shoulder, and whispered: - </p> - <p> - “Once it was always snow, but now it is green, the land. I have seen it—I - have seen it once.” His shaggy eyebrows gathered over, his eyes searched, - searched the face of John Bickersteth. “Once, so long ago—I cannot - think,” he added helplessly. - </p> - <p> - “Dear old man,” Bickersteth said gently, knowing he would not wholly - comprehend, “I am going to ask her—Alice—to marry me, and if - she does, she will help look after you, too. Neither of us would have been - here without the other, dear old man, and we shall not be separated. - Whoever you are, you are a gentleman, and you might have been my father or - hers—or hers.” - </p> - <p> - He stopped suddenly. A thought had flashed through his mind, a thought - which stunned him, which passed like some powerful current through his - veins, shocked him, then gave him a palpitating life. It was a wild - thought, but yet why not—why not? There was the chance, the faint, - far-off chance. He caught the old man by the shoulders, and looked him in - the eyes, scanned his features, pushed back the hair from the rugged - forehead. - </p> - <p> - “Dear old man,” he said, his voice shaking, “do you know what I’m - thinking? I’m thinking that you may be of those who went out to the Arctic - Sea with Sir John Franklin—with Sir John Franklin, you understand. - Did you know Sir John Franklin—is it true, dear old boy, is it true? - Are you one that has lived to tell the tale? Did you know Sir John - Franklin—is it—tell me, is it true?” - </p> - <p> - He let go the old man’s shoulders, for over the face of the other there - had passed a change. It was strained and tense. The hands were - outstretched, the eyes were staring straight into the west and the coming - night. - </p> - <p> - “It is—it is—that’s it!” cried Bickersteth. “That’s it—love - o’ God, that’s it! Sir John Franklin—Sir John Franklin, and all the - brave lads that died up there! You remember the ship—the Arctic Sea—the - ice-fields, and Franklin—you remember him? Dear old man, say you - remember Franklin?” - </p> - <p> - The thing had seized him. Conviction was upon him, and he watched the - other’s anguished face with anguish and excitement in his own. But—but - it might be, it might be her father—the eyes, the forehead are like - hers; the hands, the long hands, the pointed fingers. “Come, tell me, did - you have a wife and child, and were they both called Alice—do you - remember? Franklin—Alice! Do you remember?” - </p> - <p> - The other got slowly to his feet, his arms outstretched, the look in his - face changing, understanding struggling for its place, memory fighting for - its own, the soul contending for its mastery. - </p> - <p> - “Franklin—Alice—the snow,” he said confusedly, and sank down. - </p> - <p> - “God have mercy!” cried Bickersteth, as he caught the swaying body, and - laid it upon the ground. “He was there—almost.” - </p> - <p> - He settled the old man against the great pine stump and chafed his hands. - “Man, dear man, if you belong to her—if you do, can’t you see what - it will mean to me? She can’t say no to me then. But if it’s true, you’ll - belong to England and to all the world, too, and you’ll have fame - everlasting. I’ll have gold for her and for you, and for your Alice, too, - poor old boy. Wake up now and remember if you are Luke Allingham who went - with Franklin to the silent seas of the Pole. If it’s you, really you, - what wonder you lost your memory! You saw them all die, Franklin and all, - die there in the snow, with all the white world round them. If you were - there, what a travel you have had, what strange things you have seen! - Where the world is loneliest, God lives most. If you get close to the - heart of things, it’s no marvel you forgot what you were, or where you - came from; because it didn’t matter; you knew that you were only one of - thousands of millions who have come and gone, that make up the soul of - things, that make the pulses of the universe beat. That’s it, dear old - man. The universe would die, if it weren’t for the souls that leave this - world and fill it with life. Wake up! Wake up, Allingham, and tell us - where you’ve been and what you’ve seen.” - </p> - <p> - He did not labour in vain. Slowly consciousness came back, and the grey - eyes opened wide, the lips smiled faintly under the bushy beard; but - Bickersteth saw that the look in the face was much the same as it had been - before. The struggle had been too great, the fight for the other lost self - had exhausted him, mind and body, and only a deep obliquity and a great - weariness filled the countenance. He had come back to the verge, he had - almost again discovered himself; but the opening door had shut fast - suddenly, and he was back again in the night, the incompanionable night of - forgetfulness. - </p> - <p> - Bickersteth saw that the travail and strife had drained life and energy, - and that he must not press the mind and vitality of this exile of time and - the unknown too far. He felt that when the next test came the old man - would either break completely, and sink down into another and everlasting - forgetfulness, or tear away forever the veil between himself and his past, - and emerge into a long-lost life. His strength must be shepherded, and he - must be kept quiet and undisturbed until they came to the town yonder in - the valley, over which the night was slowly settling down. There two women - waited, the two Alices, from both of whom had gone lovers into the North. - The daughter was living over again in her young love the pangs of suspense - through which her mother had passed. Two years since Bickersteth had gone, - and not a sign! - </p> - <p> - Yet, if the girl had looked from her bedroom window, this Friday night, - she would have seen on the far hill a sign; for there burned a fire beside - which sat two travellers who had come from the uttermost limits of snow. - But as the fire burned—a beacon to her heart if she had but known it—she - went to her bed, the words of a song she had sung at choir—practice - with tears in her voice and in her heart ringing in her ears. A concert - was to be held after the service on the coming Sunday night, at which - there was to be a collection for funds to build another mission-house a - hundred miles farther North, and she had been practising music she was to - sing. Her mother had been an amateur singer of great power, and she was - renewing her mother’s gift in a voice behind which lay a hidden sorrow. As - she cried herself to sleep the words of the song which had moved her kept - ringing in her ears and echoing in her heart: - </p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - “When the swallows homeward fly, - And the roses’ bloom is o’er—” - </pre> - <p> - But her mother, looking out into the night, saw on the far hill the fire, - burning like a star, where she had never seen a fire set before, and a - hope shot into her heart for her daughter—a hope that had flamed up - and died down so often during the past year. Yet she had fanned with - heartening words every such glimmer of hope when it came, and now she went - to bed saying, “Perhaps he will come to-morrow.” In her mind, too, rang - the words of the song which had ravished her ears that night, the song she - had sung the night before her own husband, Luke Allingham, had gone with - Franklin to the Polar seas: - </p> - <p> - “When the swallows homeward fly—” - </p> - <p> - As she and her daughter entered the little church on the Sunday evening, - two men came over the prairie slowly towards the town, and both raised - their heads to the sound of the church-bell calling to prayer. In the eyes - of the younger man there was a look which has come to many in this world - returning from hard enterprise and great dangers, to the familiar streets, - the friendly faces of men of their kin and clan-to the lights of home. - </p> - <p> - The face of the older man, however, had another look. - </p> - <p> - It was such a look as is seldom seen in the faces of men, for it showed - the struggle of a soul to regain its identity. The words which the old man - had uttered in response to Bickersteth’s appeal before he fainted away, - “Franklin—Alice—the snow,” had showed that he was on the - verge; the bells of the church pealing in the summer air brought him near - it once again. How many years had gone since he had heard church-bells? - Bickersteth, gazing at him in eager scrutiny, wondered if, after all, he - might be mistaken about him. But no, this man had never been born and bred - in the far North. His was a type which belonged to the civilisation from - which he himself had come. There would soon be the test of it all. Yet he - shuddered, too, to think what might happen if it was all true, and - discovery or reunion should shake to the centre the very life of the two - long-parted ones. - </p> - <p> - He saw the look of perplexed pain and joy at once in the face of the old - man, but he said nothing, and he was almost glad when the bell stopped. - The old man turned to him. - </p> - <p> - “What is it?” he asked. “I remember—” but he stopped suddenly, - shaking his head. - </p> - <p> - An hour later, cleared of the dust of travel, the two walked slowly - towards the church from the little tavern where they were lodged. The - service was now over, but the concert had begun. The church was full, and - there were people in the porch; but these made way for the two strangers; - and, as Bickersteth was recognised by two or three present, place was - found for them. Inside, the old man stared round him in a confused and - troubled way, but his motions were quiet and abstracted and he looked like - some old viking, his workaday life done, come to pray ere he went hence - forever. They had entered in a pause in the concert, but now two ladies - came forward to the chancel steps, and one with her hands clasped before - her, began to sing: - </p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - “When the swallows homeward fly, - And the roses’ bloom is o’er, - And the nightingale’s sweet song - In the woods is heard no more—” - </pre> - <p> - It was Alice—Alice the daughter—and presently the mother, the - other Alice, joined in the refrain. At sight of them Bickersteth’s eyes - had filled, not with tears, but with a cloud of feeling, so that he went - blind. There she was, the girl he loved. Her voice was ringing in his - ears. In his own joy for one instant he had forgotten the old man beside - him, and the great test that was now upon him. He turned quickly, however, - as the old man got to his feet. For an instant the lost exile of the North - stood as though transfixed. The blood slowly drained from his face, and in - his eyes was an agony of struggle and desire. For a moment an awful - confusion had the mastery, and then suddenly a clear light broke into his - eyes, his face flushed healthily and shone, his arms went up, and there - rang in his ears the words: - </p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - “Then I think with bitter pain, - Shall we ever meet again? - When the swallows homeward fly—” - </pre> - <p> - “Alice—Alice!” he called, and tottered forward up the aisle, - followed by John Bickersteth. - </p> - <p> - “Alice, I have come back!” he cried again. - </p> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0012" id="link2H_4_0012"> - <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - GEORGE’S WIFE - </h2> - <p> - “She’s come, and she can go back. No one asked her, no one wants her, and - she’s got no rights here. She thinks she’ll come it over me, but she’ll - get nothing, and there’s no place for her here.” - </p> - <p> - The old, grey-bearded man, gnarled and angular, with overhanging brows and - a harsh face, made this little speech of malice and unfriendliness, - looking out on the snow-covered prairie through the window. Far in the - distance were a sleigh and horses like a spot in the snow, growing larger - from minute to minute. - </p> - <p> - It was a day of days. Overhead, the sun was pouring out a flood of light - and warmth, and though it was bitterly cold, life was beating hard in the - bosom of the West. Men walked lightly, breathed quickly, and their eyes - were bright with the brightness of vitality and content. Even the old man - at the window of this lonely house, in a great lonely stretch of country, - with the cedar hills behind it, had a living force which defied his - seventy odd years, though the light in his face was hard and his voice was - harder still. Under the shelter of the foothills, cold as the day was, his - cattle were feeding in the open, scratching away the thin layer of snow, - and browsing on the tender grass underneath. An arctic world in - appearance, it had an abounding life which made it friendly and generous—the - harshness belonged to the surface. So, perhaps, it was with the old man - who watched the sleigh in the distance coming nearer, but that in his - nature on which any one could feed was not so easily reached as the fresh - young grass under the protecting snow. - </p> - <p> - “She’ll get nothing out of me,” he repeated, as the others in the room - behind him made no remark, and his eyes ranged gloatingly over the cattle - under the foothills and the buildings which he had gathered together to - proclaim his substantial greatness in the West. “Not a sous markee,” he - added, clinking some coins in his pocket. “She’s got no rights.” - </p> - <p> - “Cassy’s got as much right here as any of us, Abel, and she’s coming to - say it, I guess.” - </p> - <p> - The voice which spoke was unlike a Western voice. It was deep and full and - slow, with an organ-like quality. It was in good keeping with the tall, - spare body and large, fine rugged face of the woman to whom it belonged. - She sat in a rocking-chair, but did not rock, her fingers busy with the - knitting-needles, her feet planted squarely on the home-made hassock at - her feet. - </p> - <p> - The old man waited for a minute in a painful silence, then he turned - slowly round, and, with tight-pressed lips, looked at the woman in the - rocking-chair. If it had been anyone else who had “talked back” at him, he - would have made quick work of them, for he was of that class of tyrant who - pride themselves on being self-made, and have an undue respect for their - own judgment and importance. But the woman who had ventured to challenge - his cold-blooded remarks about his dead son’s wife, now hastening over the - snow to the house her husband had left under a cloud eight years before, - had no fear of him, and, maybe, no deep regard for him. He respected her, - as did all who knew her—a very reticent, thoughtful, busy being, who - had been like a well of comfort to so many that had drunk and passed on - out of her life, out of time and time’s experiences. Seventy-nine years - saw her still upstanding, strong, full of work, and fuller of life’s - knowledge. It was she who had sent the horses and sleigh for “Gassy,” when - the old man, having read the letter that Cassy had written him, said that - she could “freeze at the station” for all of him. Aunt Kate had said - nothing then, but, when the time came, by her orders the sleigh and horses - were at the station; and the old man had made no direct protest, for she - was the one person he had never dominated nor bullied. If she had only - talked, he would have worn her down, for he was fond of talking, and it - was said by those who were cynical and incredulous about him that he had - gone to prayer-meetings, had been a local preacher, only to hear his own - voice. Probably if there had been any politics in the West in his day, he - would have been a politician, though it would have been too costly for his - taste, and religion was very cheap; it enabled him to refuse to join in - many forms of expenditure, on the ground that he “did not hold by such - things.” - </p> - <p> - In Aunt Kate, the sister of his wife, dead so many years ago, he had found - a spirit stronger than his own. He valued her; he had said more than once, - to those who he thought would never repeat it to her, that she was a - “great woman”; but self-interest was the mainspring of his appreciation. - Since she had come again to his house—she had lived with him once - before for two years when his wife was slowly dying—it had been a - different place. Housekeeping had cost less than before, yet the cooking - was better, the place was beautifully clean, and discipline without - rigidity reigned everywhere. One by one the old woman’s boys and girls had - died—four of them—and she was now alone, with not a single - grandchild left to cheer her; and the life out here with Abel Baragar had - been unrelieved by much that was heartening to a woman; for Black Andy, - Abel’s son, was not an inspiring figure, though even his moroseness gave - way under her influence. So it was that when Cassy’s letter came, her - breast seemed to grow warmer, and swell with longing to see the wife of - her nephew, who had such a bad reputation in Abel’s eyes, and to see - George’s little boy, who was coming too. After all, whatever Cassy was, - she was the mother of Abel’s son’s son; and Aunt Kate was too old and wise - to be frightened by tales told of Cassy or any one else. So, having had - her own way so far regarding Cassy’s coming, she looked Abel calmly in the - eyes, over the gold-rimmed spectacles which were her dearest possession—almost - the only thing of value she had. She was not afraid of Abel’s anger, and - he knew it; but his eldest son, Black Andy, was present, and he must make - a show of being master of the situation. - </p> - <p> - “Aunt Kate,” he said, “I didn’t make a fuss about you sending the horses - and sleigh for her, because women do fool things sometimes. I suppose - curiosity got the best of you. Anyhow, mebbe it’s right Cassy should find - out, once for all, how things stand, and that they haven’t altered since - she took George away, and ruined his life, and sent him to his grave. - That’s why I didn’t order Mick back when I saw him going out with the - team.” - </p> - <p> - “Cassy Mavor,” interjected a third voice from a corner behind the great - stove—“Cassy Mavor, of the variety-dance-and-song, and a talk with - the gallery between!” - </p> - <p> - Aunt Kate looked over at Black Andy, and stopped knitting, for there was - that in the tone of the sullen ranchman which stirred in her a sudden - anger, and anger was a rare and uncomfortable sensation to her. A flush - crept slowly over her face, then it died away, and she said quietly to - Black Andy—for she had ever prayed to be master of the demon of - temper down deep in her, and she was praying now: - </p> - <p> - “She earnt her living by singing and dancing, and she’s brought up - George’s boy by it, and singing and dancing isn’t a crime. David danced - before the Lord. I danced myself when I was a young girl, and before I - joined the church. ‘Twas about the only pleasure I ever had; ‘bout the - only one I like to remember. There’s no difference to me ‘twixt making - your feet handy and clever and full of music, and playing with your - fingers on the piano or on a melodeon at a meeting. As for singing, it’s - God’s gift; and many a time I wisht I had it. I’d have sung the blackness - out of your face and heart, Andy.” She leaned back again and began to knit - very fast. “I’d like to hear Cassy sing, and see her dance too.” - </p> - <p> - Black Andy chuckled coarsely, “I often heard her sing and saw her dance - down at Lumley’s before she took George away East. You wouldn’t have - guessed she had consumption. She knocked the boys over down to Lumley’s. - The first night at Lumley’s done for George.” - </p> - <p> - Black Andy’s face showed no lightening of its gloom as he spoke, but there - was a firing up of the black eyes, and the woman with the knitting felt - that—for whatever reason—he was purposely irritating his - father. - </p> - <p> - “The devil was in her heels and in her tongue,” Andy continued. “With her - big mouth, red hair, and little eyes, she’d have made anybody laugh. I - laughed.” - </p> - <p> - “You laughed!” snapped out his father with a sneer. - </p> - <p> - Black Andy’s eyes half closed with a morose look, then he went on. “Yes, I - laughed at Cassy. While she was out here at Lumley’s getting cured, - accordin’ to the doctor’s orders, things seemed to get a move on in the - West. But it didn’t suit professing Christians like you, dad.” He jerked - his head towards the old man and drew the spittoon near with his feet. - </p> - <p> - “The West hasn’t been any worse off since she left,” snarled the old man. - </p> - <p> - “Well, she took George with her,” grimly retorted Black Andy. - </p> - <p> - Abel Baragar’s heart had been warmer towards his dead son George than to - any one else in the world. George had been as fair of face and hair as - Andrew was dark; as cheerful and amusing as Andrew was gloomy and - dispiriting; as agile and dexterous of mind and body as his brother was - slow and angular; as emotional and warm-hearted as the other was - phlegmatic and sour—or so it seemed to the father and to nearly all - others. - </p> - <p> - In those old days they had not been very well off. The railway was not - completed, and the West had not begun “to move.” The old man had bought - and sold land and cattle and horses, always living on a narrow margin of - safety, but in the hope that one day the choice bits of land he was - shepherding here and there would take a leap up in value; and his judgment - had been right. His prosperity had all come since George went away with - Cassy Mavor. His anger at George had been the more acute, because the - thing happened at a time when his affairs were on the edge of a precipice. - He had won through it, but only by the merest shave, and it had all left - him with a bad spot in his heart, in spite of his “having religion.” - Whenever he remembered George, he instinctively thought of those black - days when a Land and Cattle Syndicate was crowding him over the edge into - the chasm of failure, and came so near doing it. A few thousand dollars - less to put up here and there, and he would have been ruined; his blood - became hotter whenever he thought of it. He had had to fight the worst of - it through alone, for George, who had been useful as a kind of buyer and - seller, who was ever all things to all men, and ready with quip and jest, - and not a little uncertain as to truth—to which the old man shut his - eyes when there was a “deal” on—had, in the end, been of no use at - all, and had seemed to go to pieces just when he was most needed. His - father had put it all down to Cassy Mavor, who had unsettled things since - she had come to Lumley’s, and being a man of very few ideas, he cherished - those he had with an exaggerated care. Prosperity had not softened him; it - had given him an arrogance unduly emphasised by a reputation for rigid - virtue and honesty. The indirect attack which Andrew now made on George’s - memory roused him to anger, as much because it seemed to challenge his own - judgment as cast a slight on the name of the boy whom he had cast off, yet - who had a firmer hold on his heart than any human being ever had. It had - only been pride which had prevented him from making it up with George - before it was too late; but, all the more, he was set against the woman - who “kicked up her heels for a living”; and, all the more, he resented - Black Andy, who, in his own grim way, had managed to remain a partner with - him in their present prosperity, and had done so little for it. - </p> - <p> - “George helped to make what you’ve got, Andy,” he said darkly now. “The - West missed George. The West said, ‘There was a good man ruined by a - woman.’ The West’d never think anything or anybody missed you, ‘cept - yourself. When you went North, it never missed you; when you come back, - its jaw fell. You wasn’t fit to black George’s boots.” - </p> - <p> - Black Andy’s mouth took on a bitter sort of smile, and his eyes drooped - furtively, as he struck the damper of the stove heavily with his foot, - then he replied slowly: - </p> - <p> - “Well, that’s all right; but if I wasn’t fit to black his boots, it ain’t - my fault. I git my nature honest, as he did. We wasn’t any cross-breeds, I - s’pose. We got the strain direct, and we was all right on her side.” He - jerked his head towards Aunt Kate, whose face was growing pale. She - interposed now. - </p> - <p> - “Can’t you leave the dead alone?” she asked in a voice ringing a little. - “Can’t you let them rest? Ain’t it enough to quarrel about the living? - Cassy’ll be here soon,” she added, peering out of the window, “and if I - was you, I’d try and not make her sorry she ever married a Baragar. It - ain’t a feeling that’d make a sick woman live long.” - </p> - <p> - Aunt Kate did not strike often, but when she did, she struck hard. Abel - Baragar staggered a little under this blow, for, at the moment, it seemed - to him that he saw his dead wife’s face looking at him from the chair - where her sister now sat. Down in his ill-furnished heart, where there had - been little which was companionable, there was a shadowed corner. Sophy - Baragar had been such a true-hearted, brave-souled woman, and he had been - so impatient and exacting with her, till the beautiful face, which had - been reproduced in George, had lost its colour and its fire, had become - careworn and sweet with that sweetness which goes early out of the world. - In all her days the vanished wife had never hinted at as much as Aunt Kate - suggested now, and Abel Baragar shut his eyes against the thing which he - was seeing. He was not all hard, after all. - </p> - <p> - Aunt Kate turned to Black Andy now. - </p> - <p> - “Mebbe Cassy ain’t for long,” she said. “Mebbe she’s come out for what she - came out for before. It seems to me it’s that, or she wouldn’t have come; - because she’s young yet, and she’s fond of her boy, and she’d not want to - bury herself alive out here with us. Mebbe her lungs is bad again.” - </p> - <p> - “Then she’s sure to get another husband out here,” said the old man, - recovering himself. “She got one before easy, on the same ticket.” With - something of malice he looked over at Black Andy. - </p> - <p> - “If she can sing and dance as she done nine years ago, I shouldn’t - wonder,” answered Black Andy smoothly. These two men knew each other; they - had said hard things to each other for many a year, yet they lived on - together unshaken by each other’s moods and bitternesses. - </p> - <p> - “I’m getting old,—I’m seventy-nine,—and I ain’t for long,” - urged Aunt Kate, looking Abel in the eyes. “Some day soon I’ll be stepping - out and away. Then things’ll go to sixes and sevens, as they did after - Sophy died. Some one ought to be here that’s got a right to be here, not a - hired woman.” - </p> - <p> - Suddenly the old man raged out. - </p> - <p> - “Her—off the stage, to look after this! Her, that’s kicked up her - heels for a living! It’s—no, she’s no good. She’s common. She’s - come, and she can go. I ain’t having sweepings from the streets living - here as if they had rights.” - </p> - <p> - Aunt Kate set her lips. - </p> - <p> - “Sweepings! You’ve got to take that back, Abel. It’s not Christian. You’ve - got to take that back.” - </p> - <p> - “He’ll take it back all right before we’ve done, I guess,” remarked Black - Andy. “He’ll take a lot back.” - </p> - <p> - “Truth’s truth, and I’ll stand by it, and—” - </p> - <p> - The old man stopped, for there came to them now, clearly, the sound of - sleigh bells. They all stood still for an instant, silent and attentive, - then Aunt Kate moved towards the door. - </p> - <p> - “Cassy’s come,” she said. “Cassy and George’s boy’ve come.” - </p> - <p> - Another instant and the door was opened on the beautiful, white, sparkling - world, and the low sleigh, with its great warm buffalo robes, in which the - small figures of a woman and a child were almost lost, stopped at the - door. Two whimsical but tired eyes looked over a rim of fur at the old - woman in the doorway, then Cassy’s voice rang out. - </p> - <p> - “Hello, that’s Aunt Kate, I know! Well, here we are, and here’s my boy. - Jump, George!” - </p> - <p> - A moment later, and the gaunt old woman folded both mother and son in her - arms and drew them into the room. The door was shut, and they all faced - each other. - </p> - <p> - The old man and Black Andy did not move, but stood staring at the trim - figure in black, with the plain face, large mouth, and tousled red hair, - and the dreamy-eyed, handsome little boy beside her. - </p> - <p> - Black Andy stood behind the stove, looking over at the new-comers with - quizzical, almost furtive eyes, and his father remained for a moment with - mouth open, gazing at his dead son’s wife and child, as though not quite - comprehending the scene. The sight of the boy had brought back, in some - strange, embarrassing way, a vision of thirty years before, when George - was a little boy in buckskin pants and jacket, and was beginning to ride - the prairie with him. This boy was like George, yet not like him. The face - was George’s, the sensuous, luxurious mouth; but the eyes were not those - of a Baragar, nor yet those of Aunt Kate’s family; and they were not - wholly like the mother’s. They were full and brimming, while hers were - small and whimsical; yet they had her quick, humourous flashes and her - quaintness. - </p> - <p> - “Have I changed so much? Have you forgotten me?” Cassy asked, looking the - old man in the eyes. “You look as strong as a bull.” She held out her hand - to him and laughed. - </p> - <p> - “Hope I see you well,” said Abel Baragar mechanically, as he took the hand - and shook it awkwardly. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, I’m all right,” answered the nonchalant little woman, undoing her - jacket. “Shake hands with your grandfather, George. That’s right—don’t - talk too much,” she added, with a half-nervous little laugh, as the old - man, with a kind of fixed smile, and the child shook hands in silence. - </p> - <p> - Presently she saw Black Andy behind the stove. “Well, Andy, have you been - here ever since?” she asked, and, as he came forward, she suddenly caught - him by both arms, stood on tiptoe, and kissed him. “Last time I saw you, - you were behind the stove at Lumley’s. Nothing’s ever too warm for you,” - she added. “You’d be shivering on the Equator. You were always hugging the - stove at Lumley’s.” - </p> - <p> - “Things was pretty warm there, too, Cassy,” he said, with a sidelong look - at his father. - </p> - <p> - She saw the look, her face flashed with sudden temper, then her eyes fell - on her boy, now lost in the arms of Aunt Kate, and she curbed herself. - </p> - <p> - “There were plenty of things doing at Lumley’s in those days,” she said - brusquely. “We were all young and fresh then,” she added, and then - something seemed to catch her voice, and she coughed a little—a - hard, dry, feverish cough. “Are the Lumleys all right? Are they still - there, at the Forks?” she asked, after the little paroxysm of coughing. - </p> - <p> - “Cleaned out—all scattered. We own the Lumleys’ place now,” replied - Black Andy, with another sidelong glance at his father, who, as he put - some more wood on the fire and opened the damper of the stove wider, - grimly watched and listened. - </p> - <p> - “Jim, and Lance, and Jerry, and Abner?” she asked almost abstractedly. - </p> - <p> - “Jim’s dead-shot by a U. S. marshal by mistake for a smuggler,” answered - Black Andy suggestively. “Lance is up on the Yukon, busted; Jerry is one - of our hands on the place; and Abner is in jail.” - </p> - <p> - “Abner-in jail!” she exclaimed in a dazed way. “What did he do? Abner - always seemed so straight.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, he sloped with a thousand dollars of the railway people’s money. They - caught him, and he got seven years.” - </p> - <p> - “He was married, wasn’t he?” she asked in a low voice. “Yes, to Phenie - Tyson. There’s no children, so she’s all right, and divorce is cheap over - in the States, where she is now.” - </p> - <p> - “Phenie Tyson didn’t marry Abner because he was a saint, but because he - was a man, I suppose,” she replied gravely. “And the old folks?” - </p> - <p> - “Both dead. What Abner done sent the old man to his grave. But Abner’s - mother died a year before.” - </p> - <p> - “What Abner done killed his father,” said Abel Baragar with dry emphasis. - “Phenie Tyson was extravagant-wanted this and that, and nothin’ was too - good for her. Abner spoilt his life gettin’ her what she wanted; and it - broke old Ezra Lumley’s heart.” - </p> - <p> - George’s wife looked at him for a moment with her eyes screwed up, and - then she laughed softly. “My, it’s curious how some folks go up and some - go down! It must be lonely for Phenie waiting all these years for Abner to - get free.... I had the happiest time in my life at Lumley’s. I was getting - better of my-cold. While I was there I got lots of strength stored up, to - last me many a year when I needed it; and, then, George and I were married - at Lumley’s....” - </p> - <p> - Aunt Kate came slowly over with the boy, and laid a hand on Cassy’s - shoulder, for there was an undercurrent to the conversation which boded no - good. The very first words uttered had plunged Abel Baragar and his son’s - wife into the midst of the difficulty which she had hoped might, after - all, be avoided. - </p> - <p> - “Come, and I’ll show you your room, Cassy,” she said. “It faces south, and - you’ll get the sun all day. It’s like a sun-parlour. We’re going to have - supper in a couple of hours, and you must rest some first. Is the house - warm enough for you?” - </p> - <p> - The little, garish woman did not reply directly, but shook back her red - hair and caught her boy to her breast and kissed him; then she said in - that staccato manner which had given her words on the stage such point and - emphasis, “Oh, this house is a’most too warm for me, Aunt Kate!” - </p> - <p> - Then she moved towards the door with the grave, kindly old woman, her - son’s hand in her own. - </p> - <p> - “You can see the Lumleys’ place from your window, Cassy,” said Black Andy - grimly. “We got a mortgage on it, and foreclosed it, and it’s ours now; - and Jerry Lumley’s stock-riding for us. Anyhow, he’s better off than - Abner, or Abner’s wife.” - </p> - <p> - Cassy turned at the door and faced him. Instinctively she caught at some - latent conflict with old Abel Baragar in what Black Andy had said, and her - face softened, for it suddenly flashed into her mind that he was not - against her. - </p> - <p> - “I’m glad to be back West,” she said. “It meant a lot to me when I was at - Lumley’s.” She coughed a little again, but turned to the door with a - laugh. - </p> - <p> - “How long have you come to stay here—out West?” asked the old man - furtively. - </p> - <p> - “Why, there’s plenty of time to think of that!” she answered brusquely, - and she heard Black Andy laugh derisively as the door closed behind her. - </p> - <p> - In a blaze of joy the sun swept down behind the southern hills, and the - windows of Lumley’s house at the Forks, catching the oblique rays, - glittered and shone like flaming silver. Nothing of life showed, save the - cattle here and there, creeping away to the shelter of the foothills for - the night. The white, placid snow made a coverlet as wide as the vision of - the eye, save where spruce and cedar trees gave a touch of warmth and - refuge here and there. A wonderful, buoyant peace seemed to rest upon the - wide, silent expanse. The birds of song were gone South over the hills, - and the living wild things of the prairies had stolen into winter - quarters. Yet, as Cassy Mavor looked out upon the exquisite beauty of the - scene, upon the splendid outspanning of the sun along the hills, the deep - plangent blue of the sky and the thrilling light, she saw a world in agony - and she heard the moans of the afflicted. The sun shone bright on the - windows of Lumley’s house, but she could hear the crying of Abner’s wife, - and of old Ezra and Eliza Lumley, when their children were stricken or - shamed; when Abel Baragar drew tighter and tighter the chains of the - mortgage, which at last made them tenants in the house once their own. - Only eight years ago, and all this had happened. And what had not happened - to her, too, in those eight years! - </p> - <p> - With George—reckless, useless, loving, lying George—she had - left Lumley’s with her sickness cured, as it seemed, after a long year in - the West, and had begun life again. What sort of life had it been? - “Kicking up her heels on the stage,” as Abel Baragar had said; but, - somehow, not as it was before she went West to give her perforated lung to - the healing air of the plains, and to live outdoors with the men—a - man’s life. Then she had never put a curb on her tongue, or greatly on her - actions, except that, though a hundred men quarrelled openly, or in their - own minds, about her, no one had ever had any right to quarrel about her. - With a tongue which made men gasp with laughter, with as comic a gift as - ever woman had, and as equally comic a face, she had been a good-natured - little tyrant in her way. She had given a kiss here and there, and had - taken one, but always there had been before her mind the picture of a - careworn woman who struggled to bring up her three children honestly, and - without the help of charity, and, with a sigh of content and weariness, - had died as Cassy made her first hit on the stage and her name became a - household word. And Cassy, garish, gay, freckled, witty and whimsical, had - never forgotten those days when her mother prayed and worked her heart out - to do her duty by her children. Cassy Mavor had made her following, had - won her place, was the idol of “the gallery”; and yet she was “of the - people,” as she had always been, until her first sickness came, and she - had gone out to Lumley’s, out along the foothills of the Rockies. - </p> - <p> - What had made her fall in love with George Baragar? - </p> - <p> - She could not have told, if she had been asked. He was wayward, given to - drink at times, given also to card-playing and racing; but he had a way - with him which few women could resist and which made men his friends; and - he had a sense of humour akin to her own. In any case, one day she let him - catch her up in his arms, and there was the end of it. But no, not the - end, after all. It was only the beginning of real life for her. All that - had gone before seemed but playing on the threshold, though it had meant - hard, bitter hard work, and temptation, and patience, and endurance of - many kinds. And now George was gone for ever. But George’s little boy lay - there on the bed in a soft sleep, with all his life before him. - </p> - <p> - She turned from the warm window and the buoyant, inspiring scene to the - bed. Stooping over, she kissed the sleeping boy with an abrupt eagerness, - and made a little awkward, hungry gesture of love over him, and her face - flushed hot with the passion of motherhood in her. - </p> - <p> - “All I’ve got now,” she murmured. “Nothing else left—nothing else at - all.” - </p> - <p> - She heard the door open behind her, and she turned round. Aunt Kate was - entering with a bowl in her hands. - </p> - <p> - “I heard you moving about, and I’ve brought you something hot to drink,” - she said. - </p> - <p> - “That’s real good of you, Aunt Kate,” was the cheerful reply. “But it’s - near supper-time, and I don’t need it.” - </p> - <p> - “It’s boneset tea—for your cold,” answered Aunt Kate gently, and put - it on the high dressing-table made of a wooden box and covered with - muslin. “For your cold, Cassy,” she repeated. - </p> - <p> - The little woman stood still a moment gazing at the steaming bowl, lines - growing suddenly around her mouth, then she looked at Aunt Kate - quizzically. “Is my cold bad—so bad that I need boneset?” she asked - in a queer, constrained voice. - </p> - <p> - “It’s comforting, is boneset tea, even when there’s no cold, ‘specially - when the whiskey’s good, and the boneset and camomile has steeped some - days.” - </p> - <p> - “Have you been steeping them some days?” Cassy asked softly, eagerly. - </p> - <p> - Aunt Kate nodded, then tried to explain. - </p> - <p> - “It’s always good to be prepared, and I didn’t know but what the cold you - used to have might be come back,” she said. “But I’m glad if it ain’t, if - that cough of yours is only one of the measly little hacks people get in - the East, where it’s so damp.” - </p> - <p> - Cassy was at the window again, looking out at the dying radiance of the - sun. Her voice seemed hollow and strange and rather rough, as she said in - reply: - </p> - <p> - “It’s a real cold, deep down, the same as I had nine years ago, Aunt Kate; - and it’s come to stay, I guess. That’s why I came back West. But I - couldn’t have gone to Lumley’s again, even if they were at the Forks now, - for I’m too poor. I’m a back-number now. I had to give up singing and - dancing a year ago, after George died. So I don’t earn my living any more, - and I had to come to George’s father with George’s boy.” - </p> - <p> - Aunt Kate had a shrewd mind, and it was tactful, too. She did not - understand why Cassy, who had earned so much money all these years, should - be so poor now, unless it was that she hadn’t saved—that she and - George hadn’t saved. But, looking at the face before her, and the child on - the bed, she was convinced that the woman was a good woman, that, singer - and dancer as she was, there was no reason why any home should be closed - to her, or any heart should shut its doors before her. She guessed a - reason for this poverty of Cassy Mavor, but it only made her lay a hand on - the little woman’s shoulders and look into her eyes. - </p> - <p> - “Cassy,” she said gently, “you was right to come here. There’s trials - before you, but for the boy’s sake you must bear them. Sophy, George’s - mother, had to bear them, and Abel was fond of her, too, in his way. He’s - stored up a lot of things to say, and he’ll say them; but you’ll keep the - boy in your mind, and be patient, won’t you, Cassy? You got rights here, - and it’s comfortable, and there’s plenty, and the air will cure your lung - as it did before. It did all right before, didn’t it?” She handed the bowl - of boneset tea. “Take it; it’ll do you good, Cassy,” she added. - </p> - <p> - Cassy said nothing in reply. She looked at the bed where her boy lay, she - looked at the angular face of the woman, with its brooding motherliness, - at the soft, grey hair, and, with a little gasp of feeling, she raised the - bowl to her lips and drank freely. Then, putting it down, she said: - </p> - <p> - “He doesn’t mean to have us, Aunt Kate, but I’ll try and keep my temper - down. Did he ever laugh in his life?” - </p> - <p> - “He laughs sometimes—kind o’ laughs.” - </p> - <p> - “I’ll make him laugh real, if I can,” Cassy rejoined. “I’ve made a lot of - people laugh in my time.” - </p> - <p> - The old woman leaned suddenly over, and drew the red, ridiculous head to - her shoulder with a gasp of affection, and her eyes were full of tears. - </p> - <p> - “Cassy,” she exclaimed, “Cassy, you make me cry.” Then she turned and - hurried from the room. - </p> - <p> - Three hours later the problem was solved in the big sitting-room where - Cassy had first been received with her boy. Aunt Kate sat with her feet on - a hassock, rocking gently and watching and listening. Black Andy was - behind the great stove with his chair tilted back, carving the bowl of a - pipe; the old man sat rigid by the table, looking straight before him and - smacking his lips now and then as he was won’t to do at meeting; while - Cassy, with her chin in her hands and elbows on her knees, gazed into the - fire and waited for the storm to break. - </p> - <p> - Her little flashes of humour at dinner had not brightened things, and she - had had an insane desire to turn cart-wheels round the room, so implacable - and highly strained was the attitude of the master of the house, so - unctuous was the grace and the thanksgiving before and after the meal. - Abel Baragar had stored up his anger and his righteous antipathy for - years, and this was the first chance he had had of visiting his - displeasure on the woman who had “ruined” George, and who had now come to - get “rights,” which he was determined she should not have. He had steeled - himself against seeing any good in her whatever. Self-will, self-pride, - and self-righteousness were big in him, and so the supper had ended in - silence, and with a little attack of coughing on the part of Cassy, which - made her angry at herself. Then the boy had been put to bed, and she had - come back to await the expected outburst. She could feel it in the air, - and while her blood tingled in a desire to fight this tyrant to the bitter - end, she thought of her boy and his future, and she calmed the tumult in - her veins. - </p> - <p> - She did not have to wait very long. The querulous voice of the old man - broke the silence. - </p> - <p> - “When be you goin’ back East? What time did you fix for goin’?” he asked. - </p> - <p> - She raised her head and looked at him squarely. “I didn’t fix any time for - going East again,” she replied. “I came out West this time to stay.” - </p> - <p> - “I thought you was on the stage,” was the rejoinder. - </p> - <p> - “I’ve left the stage. My voice went when I got a bad cold again, and I - couldn’t stand the draughts of the theatre, and so I couldn’t dance, - either. I’m finished with the stage. I’ve come out here for good and all. - </p> - <p> - “Where did you think of livin’ out here?” - </p> - <p> - “I’d like to have gone to Lumley’s, but that’s not possible, is it? - Anyway, I couldn’t afford it now. So I thought I’d stay here, if there was - room for me.” - </p> - <p> - “You want to board here?” - </p> - <p> - “I didn’t put it to myself that way. I thought perhaps you’d be glad to - have me. I’m handy. I can cook, I can sew, and I’m quite cheerful and - kind. Then there’s George—little George. I thought you’d like to - have your grandson here with you.” - </p> - <p> - “I’ve lived without him—or his father—for eight years, an’ I - could bear it a while yet, mebbe.” - </p> - <p> - There was a half-choking sound from the old woman in the rocking-chair, - but she did not speak, though her knitting dropped into her lap. - </p> - <p> - “But if you knew us better, perhaps you’d like us better,” rejoined Cassy - gently. “We’re both pretty easy to get on with, and we see the bright side - of things. He has a wonderful disposition, has George.” - </p> - <p> - “I ain’t goin’ to like you any better,” said the old man, getting to his - feet. “I ain’t goin’ to give you any rights here. I’ve thought it out, and - my mind’s made up. You can’t come it over me. You ruined my boy’s life and - sent him to his grave. He’d have lived to be an old man out here; but you - spoiled him. You trapped him into marrying you, with your kicking and your - comic songs, and your tricks of the stage, and you parted us—parted - him and me for ever.” - </p> - <p> - “That was your fault. George wanted to make it up.” - </p> - <p> - “With you!” The old man’s voice rose shrilly, the bitterness and passion - of years was shooting high in the narrow confines of his mind. The geyser - of his prejudice and antipathy was furiously alive. “To come back with you - that ruined him and broke up my family, and made my life like bitter - aloes! No! And if I wouldn’t have him with you, do you think I’ll have you - without him? By the God of Israel, no!” - </p> - <p> - Black Andy was now standing up behind the stove intently watching, his - face grim and sombre; Aunt Kate sat with both hands gripping the arms of - the rocker. - </p> - <p> - Cassy got slowly to her feet. “I’ve been as straight a woman as your - mother or your wife ever was,” she said, “and all the world knows it. I’m - poor—and I might have been rich. I was true to myself before I - married George, and I was true to George after, and all I earned he - shared; and I’ve got little left. The mining stock I bought with what I - saved went smash, and I’m poor as I was when I started to work for myself. - I can work awhile yet, but I wanted to see if I could fit in out here, and - get well again, and have my boy fixed in the house of his grandfather. - That’s the way I’m placed, and that’s how I came. But give a dog a bad - name—ah, you shame your dead boy in thinking bad of me! I didn’t - ruin him. I didn’t kill him. He never came to any bad through me. I helped - him; he was happy. Why, I—” She stopped suddenly, putting a hand to - her mouth. “Go on, say what you want to say, and let’s understand once for - all,” she added with a sudden sharpness. - </p> - <p> - Abel Baragar drew himself up. “Well, I say this. I’ll give you three - thousand dollars, and you can go somewhere else to live. I’ll keep the boy - here. That’s what I’ve fixed in my mind to do. You can go, and the boy - stays. I ain’t goin’ to live with you that spoiled George’s life.” - </p> - <p> - The eyes of the woman dilated, she trembled with a sudden rush of anger, - then stood still, staring in front of her without a word. Black Andy - stepped from behind the stove. - </p> - <p> - “You are going to stay here, Cassy,” he said; “here where you have rights - as good as any, and better than any, if it comes to that.” He turned to - his father. “You thought a lot of George,” he added. “He was the apple of - your eye. He had a soft tongue, and most people liked him; but George was - foolish—I’ve known it all these years. George was pretty foolish. He - gambled, he bet at races, he speculated—wild. You didn’t know it. He - took ten thousand dollars of your money, got from the Wonegosh farm he - sold for you. He—” - </p> - <p> - Cassy Mavor started forwards with a cry, but Black Andy waved her down. - </p> - <p> - “No, I’m going to tell it. George lost your ten thousand dollars, dad, - gambling, racing, speculating. He told her—Cassy-two days after they - was married, and she took the money she earned on the stage, and give it - to him to pay you back on the quiet through the bank. You never knew, but - that’s the kind of boy your son George was, and that’s the kind of wife he - had. George told me all about it when I was East six years ago.” - </p> - <p> - He came over to Cassy and stood beside her. “I’m standing by George’s - wife,” he said, taking her hand, while she shut her eyes in her misery—had - she not hid her husband’s wrong-doing all these years? “I’m standing by - her. If it hadn’t been for that ten thousand dollars she paid back for - George, you’d have been swamped when the Syndicate got after you, and we - wouldn’t have had Lumley’s place, nor this, nor anything. I guess she’s - got rights here, dad, as good as any.” - </p> - <p> - The old man sank slowly into a chair. “George—George stole from me—stole - money from me!” he whispered. His face was white. His pride and vainglory - were broken. He was a haggard, shaken figure. His self-righteousness was - levelled in the dust. - </p> - <p> - With sudden impulse, Cassy stole over to him, and took his hand and held - it tight. - </p> - <p> - “Don’t! Don’t feel so bad!” she said. “He was weak and wild then. But he - was all right afterwards. He was happy with me.” - </p> - <p> - “I’ve owed Cassy this for a good many years, dad,” said Black Andy, “and - it had to be paid. She’s got better stuff in her than any Baragar.” - </p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - ......................... -</pre> - <p> - An hour later, the old man said to Cassy at the door of her room: “You got - to stay here and git well. It’s yours, the same as the rest of us—what’s - here.” - </p> - <p> - Then he went downstairs and sat with Aunt Kate by the fire. - </p> - <p> - “I guess she’s a good woman,” he said at last. “I didn’t use her right.” - </p> - <p> - “You’ve been lucky with your women-folk,” Aunt Kate answered quietly. - </p> - <p> - “Yes, I’ve been lucky,” he answered. “I dunno if I deserve it. Mebbe not. - Do you think she’ll git well?” - </p> - <p> - “It’s a healing air out here,” Aunt Kate answered, and listened to the - wood of the house snapping in the sharp frost. - </p> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0013" id="link2H_4_0013"> - <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - MARCILE - </h2> - <p> - That the day was beautiful, that the harvest of the West had been a great - one, that the salmon-fishing had been larger than ever before, that gold - had been found in the Yukon, made no difference to Jacques Grassette, for - he was in the condemned cell of Bindon Jail, living out those days which - pass so swiftly between the verdict of the jury and the last slow walk - with the Sheriff. - </p> - <p> - He sat with his back to the stone wall, his hands on his knees, looking - straight before him. All that met his physical gaze was another stone - wall, but with his mind’s eye he was looking beyond it into spaces far - away. His mind was seeing a little house with dormer windows, and a steep - roof on which the snow could not lodge in winter-time; with a narrow stoop - in front where one could rest of an evening, the day’s work done; the - stone-and-earth oven near by in the open, where the bread for a family of - twenty was baked; the wooden plough tipped against the fence, to wait the - “fall” cultivation; the big iron cooler in which the sap from the maple - trees was boiled, in the days when the snow thawed and spring opened the - heart of the wood; the flash of the sickle and the scythe hard by; the - fields of the little narrow farm running back from the St. Lawrence like a - riband; and, out on the wide stream, the great rafts with their riverine - population floating down to Michelin’s mill-yards. - </p> - <p> - For hours he had sat like this, unmoving, his gnarled red hands clamping - each leg as though to hold him steady while he gazed; and he saw himself - as a little lad, barefooted, doing chores, running after the shaggy, - troublesome pony which would let him catch it when no one else could, and, - with only a halter on, galloping wildly back to the farmyard, to be - hitched up in the carriole which had once belonged to the old Seigneur. He - saw himself as a young man, back from “the States” where he had been - working in the mills, regarded austerely by little Father Roche, who had - given him his first Communion—for, down in Massachusetts he had - learned to wear his curly hair plastered down on his forehead, smoke bad - cigars, and drink “old Bourbon,” to bet and to gamble, and be a figure at - horse-races. - </p> - <p> - Then he saw himself, his money all gone, but the luck still with him, at - Mass on the Sunday before going to the backwoods lumber-camp for the - winter, as boss of a hundred men. He had a way with him, and he had - brains, had Jacques Grassette, and he could manage men, as Michelin the - lumber-king himself had found in a great river-row and strike, when - bloodshed seemed certain. Even now the ghost of a smile played at his - lips, as he recalled the surprise of the old habitants and of Father Roche - when he was chosen for this responsible post; for to run a great - lumber-camp well, hundreds of miles from civilisation, where there is no - visible law, no restraints of ordinary organised life, and where men, for - seven months together, never saw a woman or a child, and ate pork and - beans, and drank white whisky, was a task of administration as difficult - as managing a small republic new-created out of violent elements of - society. But Michelin was right, and the old Seigneur, Sir Henri - Robitaille, who was a judge of men, knew he was right, as did also - Hennepin the schoolmaster, whose despair Jacques had been, for he never - worked at his lessons as a boy, and yet he absorbed Latin and mathematics - by some sure but unexplainable process. “Ah! if you would but work, - Jacques, you vaurien, I would make a great man of you,” Hennepin had said - to him more than once; but this had made no impression on Jacques. It was - more to the point that the ground-hogs and black squirrels and pigeons - were plentiful in Casanac Woods. - </p> - <p> - And so he thought as he stood at the door of the Church of St. Francis on - that day before going “out back” to the lumber-camp. He had reached the - summit of greatness—to command men. That was more than wealth or - learning, and as he spoke to the old Seigneur going in to Mass, he still - thought so, for the Seigneur’s big house and the servants and the great - gardens had no charm for him. The horses—that was another thing; but - there would be plenty of horses in the lumber-camp; and, on the whole, he - felt himself rather superior to the old Seigneur, who now was - Lieutenant-Governor of the province in which lay Bindon Jail. - </p> - <p> - At the door of the Church of St. Francis he had stretched himself up with - good-natured pride, for he was by nature gregarious and friendly, but with - a temper quick and strong, and even savage when roused; though Michelin - the lumber-king did not know that when he engaged him as boss, having seen - him only at the one critical time, when his superior brain and will saw - its chance to command, and had no personal interest in the strife. He had - been a miracle of coolness then, and his six-foot-two of pride and muscle - was taking natural tribute at the door of the Church of St. Francis, where - he waited till nearly everyone had entered, and Father Roche’s voice could - be heard in the Mass. - </p> - <p> - Then had happened the real event of his life: a blackeyed, rose-checked - girl went by with her mother, hurrying in to Mass. As she passed him their - eyes met, and his blood leapt in his veins. He had never seen her before, - and, in a sense, he had never seen any woman before. He had danced with - many a one, and kissed a few in the old days among the flax-beaters, at - the harvesting, in the gaieties of a wedding, and also down in - Massachusetts. That, however, was a different thing, which he forgot an - hour after; but this was the beginning of the world for him; for he knew - now, of a sudden, what life was, what home meant, why “old folks” slaved - for their children, and mothers wept when girls married or sons went away - from home to bigger things; why in there, in at Mass, so many were praying - for all the people, and thinking only of one. All in a moment it came—and - stayed; and he spoke to her, to Marcile, that very night, and he spoke - also to her father, Valloir the farrier, the next morning by lamplight, - before he started for the woods. He would not be gainsaid, nor take no for - an answer, nor accept, as a reason for refusal, that she was only sixteen, - and that he did not know her, for she had been away with a childless aunt - since she was three. That she had fourteen brothers and sisters who had to - be fed and cared for did not seem to weigh with the farrier. That was an - affair of le bon Dieu, and enough would be provided for them all as - heretofore—one could make little difference; and though Jacques was - a very good match, considering his prospects and his favour with the - lumber-king, Valloir had a kind of fear of him, and could not easily - promise his beloved Marcile, the flower of his flock, to a man of whom the - priest so strongly disapproved. But it was a new sort of Jacques Grassette - who, that morning, spoke to him with the simplicity and eagerness of a - child; and the suddenly conceived gift of a pony stallion, which every man - in the parish envied Jacques, won Valloir over; and Jacques went “away - back” with the first timid kiss of Marcile Valloir burning on his cheek. - </p> - <p> - “Well, bagosh, you are a wonder!” said Jacques’ father, when he told him - the news, and saw Jacques jump into the carriole and drive away. - </p> - <p> - Here in prison, this, too, Jacques saw—this scene; and then the - wedding in the spring, and the tour through the parishes for days - together, lads and lasses journeying with them; and afterwards the new - home with a bigger stoop than any other in the village, with some old - gnarled crab-apple trees and lilac bushes, and four years of happiness, - and a little child that died; and all the time Jacques rising in the - esteem of Michelin the lumber-king, and sent on inspections, and to - organise camps; for weeks, sometimes for months, away from the house - behind the lilac bushes—and then the end of it all, sudden and - crushing and unredeemable. - </p> - <p> - Jacques came back one night and found the house empty. Marcile had gone to - try her luck with another man. - </p> - <p> - That was the end of the upward career of Jacques Grassette. He went out - upon a savage hunt which brought him no quarry, for the man and the woman - had disappeared as completely as though they had been swallowed by the - sea. And here, at last, he was waiting for the day when he must settle a - bill for a human life taken in passion and rage. - </p> - <p> - His big frame seemed out of place in the small cell, and the watcher - sitting near him, to whom he had not addressed a word nor replied to a - question since the watching began, seemed an insignificant factor in the - scene. Never had a prisoner been more self-contained, or rejected more - completely all those ministrations of humanity which relieve the horrible - isolation of the condemned cell. Grassette’s isolation was complete. He - lived in a dream, did what little there was to do in a dark abstraction, - and sat hour after hour, as he was sitting now, piercing, with a brain at - once benumbed to all outer things and afire with inward things, those - realms of memory which are infinite in a life of forty years. - </p> - <p> - “Sacre!” he muttered at last, and a shiver seemed to pass through him from - head to foot; then an ugly and evil oath fell from his lips, which made - his watcher shrink back appalled, for he also was a Catholic, and had been - chosen of purpose, in the hope that he might have an influence on this - revolted soul. It had, however, been of no use, and Grassette had refused - the advances and ministrations of the little good priest, Father Laflamme, - who had come from the coast of purpose to give him the offices of the - Church. Silent, obdurate, sullen, he had looked the priest straight in the - face and had said in broken English, “Non, I pay my bill. Nom de diable, I - will say my own Mass, light my own candle, go my own way. I have too - much.” - </p> - <p> - Now, as he sat glooming, after his outbreak of oaths, there came a - rattling noise at the door, the grinding of a key in the lock, the - shooting of bolts, and a face appeared at the little wicket in the door. - Then the door opened and the Sheriff stepped inside, accompanied by a - white-haired, stately old man. At sight of this second figure—the - Sheriff had come often before, and would come for one more doleful walk - with him—Grassette started. His face, which had never whitened in - all the dismal and terrorising doings of the capture and the trial and - sentence, though it had flushed with rage more than once, now turned a - little pale, for it seemed as if this old man had stepped out of the - visions which had just passed before his eyes. - </p> - <p> - “His Honour, the Lieutenant-Governor, Sir Henri Robitaille, has come to - speak with you.... Stand up,” the Sheriff added sharply, as Grassette kept - his seat. - </p> - <p> - Grassette’s face flushed with anger, for the prison had not broken his - spirits; then he got up slowly. “I not stand up for you,” he growled at - the Sheriff; “I stand up for him.” He jerked his head towards Sir Henri - Robitaille. This grand Seigneur, with Michelin, had believed in him in - those far-off days which he had just been seeing over again, and all his - boyhood and young manhood was rushing back on him. But now it was the - Governor who turned pale, seeing who the criminal was. - </p> - <p> - “Jacques Grassette!” he cried in consternation and emotion, for under - another name the murderer had been tried and sentenced, nor had his - identity been established—the case was so clear, the defence had - been perfunctory, and Quebec was very far away. - </p> - <p> - “M’sieu’!” was the respectful response, and Grassette’s fingers twitched. - </p> - <p> - “It was my sister’s son you killed, Grassette,” said the Governor in a - low, strained voice. - </p> - <p> - “Nom de Dieu!” said Grassette hoarsely. - </p> - <p> - “I did not know, Grassette,” the Governor went on “I did not know it was - you.” - </p> - <p> - “Why did you come, m’sieu’?” - </p> - <p> - “Call him ‘your Honour,”’ said the Sheriff sharply. Grassette’s face - hardened, and his look turned upon the Sheriff was savage and forbidding. - “I will speak as it please me. Who are you? What do I care? To hang me—that - is your business; but, for the rest, you spik to me differen’. Who are - you? Your father kep’ a tavern for thieves, vous savez bien!” It was true - that the Sheriff’s father had had no savoury reputation in the West. - </p> - <p> - The Governor turned his head away in pain and trouble, for the man’s rage - was not a thing to see—and they both came from the little parish of - St. Francis, and had passed many an hour together. - </p> - <p> - “Never mind, Grassette,” he said gently. “Call me what you will. You’ve - got no feeling against me; and I can say with truth that I don’t want your - life for the life you took.” - </p> - <p> - Grassette’s breast heaved. “He put me out of my work, the man I kill. He - pass the word against me, he hunt me out of the mountains, he call—tete - de diable! he call me a name so bad. Everything swim in my head, and I - kill him.” - </p> - <p> - The Governor made a protesting gesture. “I understand. I am glad his - mother was dead. But do you not think how sudden it was? Now here, in the - thick of life, then, out there, beyond this world in the darkin - purgatory.” - </p> - <p> - The brave old man had accomplished what everyone else, priest, lawyer, - Sheriff and watcher, had failed to do: he had shaken Grassette out of his - blank isolation and obdurate unrepentance, had touched some chord of - recognisable humanity. - </p> - <p> - “It is done—well, I pay for it,” responded Grassette, setting his - jaw. “It is two deaths for me. Waiting and remembering, and then with the - Sheriff there the other—so quick, and all.” - </p> - <p> - The Governor looked at him for some moments without speaking. The Sheriff - intervened again officiously. - </p> - <p> - “His Honour has come to say something important to you,” he remarked - oracularly. - </p> - <p> - “Hold you—does he need a Sheriff to tell him when to spik?” was - Grassette’s surly comment. Then he turned to the Governor. “Let us speak - in French,” he said in patois. “This rope-twister will not understan’. He - is no good—I spit at him.” - </p> - <p> - The Governor nodded, and, despite the Sheriff’s protest, they spoke in - French, Grassette with his eyes intently fixed on the other, eagerly - listening. - </p> - <p> - “I have come,” said the Governor, “to say to you, Grassette, that you have - still a chance of life.” - </p> - <p> - He paused, and Grassette’s face took on a look of bewilderment and vague - anxiety. A chance of life—what did it mean? - </p> - <p> - “Reprieve?” he asked in a hoarse voice. - </p> - <p> - The Governor shook his head. “Not yet; but there is a chance. Something - has happened. A man’s life is in danger, or it may be he is dead; but more - likely he is alive. You took a life; perhaps you can save one now. - Keeley’s Gulch—the mine there.” - </p> - <p> - “They have found it—gold?” asked Grassette, his eyes staring. He was - forgetting for a moment where and what he was. - </p> - <p> - “He went to find it, the man whose life is in danger. He had heard from a - trapper who had been a miner once. While he was there, a landslip came, - and the opening to the mine was closed up—” - </p> - <p> - “There were two ways in. Which one did he take?” cried Grassette. - </p> - <p> - “The only one he could take, the only one he or anyone else knew. You know - the other way in—you only, they say.” - </p> - <p> - “I found it—the easier, quick way in; a year ago I found it.” - </p> - <p> - “Was it near the other entrance?” Grassette shook his head. “A mile away.” - </p> - <p> - “If the man is alive—and we think he is—you are the only - person that can save him. I have telegraphed the Government. They do not - promise, but they will reprieve, and save your life, if you find the man.” - </p> - <p> - “Alive or dead?” - </p> - <p> - “Alive or dead, for the act would be the same. I have an order to take you - to the Gulch, if you will go; and I am sure that you will have your life, - if you do it. I will promise—ah yes, Grassette, but it shall be so! - Public opinion will demand it. You will do it?” - </p> - <p> - “To go free—altogether?” - </p> - <p> - “Well, but if your life is saved, Grassette?” - </p> - <p> - The dark face flushed, then grew almost repulsive again in its sullenness. - </p> - <p> - “Life—and this, in prison, shut in year after year. To do always - what some one else wills, to be a slave to a warder. To have men like that - over me that have been a boss of men—wasn’t it that drove me to - kill?—to be treated like dirt. And to go on with this, while outside - there is free life, and to go where you will at your own price-no! What do - I care for life! What is it to me! To live like this—ah, I would - break my head against these stone walls, I would choke myself with my own - hands! If I stayed here, I would kill again, I would kill—kill.” - </p> - <p> - “Then to go free altogether—that would be the wish of all the world, - if you save this man’s life, if it can be saved. Will you not take the - chance? We all have to die some time or other, Grassette, some sooner, - some later; and when you go, will you not want to take to God in your - hands a life saved for a life taken? Have you forgotten God, Grassette? We - used to remember Him in the Church of St. Francis down there at home.” - </p> - <p> - There was a moment’s silence, in which Grassette’s head was thrust - forwards, his eyes staring into space. The old Seigneur had touched a - vulnerable corner in his nature. - </p> - <p> - Presently he said in a low voice: “To be free altogether.... What is his - name? Who is he?” - </p> - <p> - “His name is Bignold,” the Governor answered. He turned to the Sheriff - inquiringly. “That is it, is it not?” he asked in English again. - </p> - <p> - “James Tarran Bignold,” answered the Sheriff. - </p> - <p> - The effect of these words upon Grassette was remarkable. His body appeared - to stiffen, his face became rigid, he stared at the Governor blankly, - appalled, the colour left his face, and his mouth opened with a curious - and revolting grimace. The others drew back, startled, and watched him. - </p> - <p> - “Sang de Dieu!” he murmured at last, with a sudden gesture of misery and - rage. - </p> - <p> - Then the Governor understood: he remembered that the name just given by - the Sheriff and himself was the name of the Englishman who had carried off - Grassette’s wife years ago. He stepped forwards and was about to speak, - but changed his mind. He would leave it all to Grassette; he would not let - the Sheriff know the truth, unless Grassette himself disclosed the - situation. He looked at Grassette with a look of poignant pity and - interest combined. In his own placid life he had never had any tragic - happening, his blood had run coolly, his days had been blessed by an - urbane fate; such scenes as this were but a spectacle to him; there was no - answering chord of human suffering in his own breast, to make him realise - what Grassette was undergoing now; but he had read widely, he had been an - acute observer of the world and its happenings, and he had a natural human - sympathy which had made many a man and woman eternally grateful to him. - </p> - <p> - What would Grassette do? It was a problem which had no precedent, and the - solution would be a revelation of the human mind and heart. What would the - man do? - </p> - <p> - “Well, what is all this, Grassette?” asked the Sheriff brusquely. His - official and officious intervention, behind which was the tyranny of the - little man, given a power which he was incapable of wielding wisely, would - have roused Grassette to a savage reply a half-hour before, but now it was - met by a contemptuous wave of the hand, and Grassette kept his eyes fixed - on the Governor. - </p> - <p> - “James Tarran Bignold!” Grassette said harshly, with eyes that searched - the Governor’s face; but they found no answering look there. The Governor, - then, did not remember that tragedy of his home and hearth, and the man - who had made of him an Ishmael. Still, Bignold had been almost a stranger - in the parish, and it was not curious if the Governor had forgotten. - </p> - <p> - “Bignold!” he repeated, but the Governor gave no response. - </p> - <p> - “Yes, Bignold is his name, Grassette,” said the Sheriff. “You took a life, - and now, if you save one, that’ll balance things. As the Governor says, - there’ll be a reprieve anyhow. It’s pretty near the day, and this isn’t a - bad world to kick in, so long as you kick with one leg on the ground, and—” - </p> - <p> - The Governor hastily intervened upon the Sheriff’s brutal remarks. “There - is no time to be lost, Grassette. He has been ten days in the mine.” - </p> - <p> - Grassette’s was not a slow brain. For a man of such physical and bodily - bulk, he had more talents than are generally given. If his brain had been - slower, his hand also would have been slower to strike. But his - intelligence had been surcharged with hate these many years, and since the - day he had been deserted, it had ceased to control his actions—a - passionate and reckless wilfulness had governed it. But now, after the - first shock and stupefaction, it seemed to go back to where it was before - Marcile went from him, gather up the force and intelligence it had then, - and come forwards again to this supreme moment, with all that life’s harsh - experiences had done for it, with the education that misery and misdoing - give. Revolutions are often the work of instants, not years, and the - crucial test and problem by which Grassette was now faced had lifted him - into a new atmosphere, with a new capacity alive in him. A moment ago his - eyes had been bloodshot and swimming with hatred and passion; now they - grew, almost suddenly, hard and lurking and quiet, with a strange, - penetrating force and inquiry in them. - </p> - <p> - “Bignold—where does he come from? What is he?” he asked the Sheriff. - </p> - <p> - “He is an Englishman; he’s only been out here a few months. He’s been - shooting and prospecting; but he’s a better shooter than prospector. He’s - a stranger; that’s why all the folks out here want to save him if it’s - possible. It’s pretty hard dying in a strange land far away from all - that’s yours. Maybe he’s got a wife waiting for him over there.” - </p> - <p> - “Nom de Dieu!” said Grassette with suppressed malice, under his breath. - </p> - <p> - “Maybe there’s a wife waiting for him, and there’s her to think of. The - West’s hospitable, and this thing has taken hold of it; the West wants to - save this stranger, and it’s waiting for you, Grassette, to do its work - for it, you being the only man that can do it, the only one that knows the - other secret way into Keeley’s Gulch. Speak right out, Grassette. It’s - your chance for life. Speak out quick.” - </p> - <p> - The last three words were uttered in the old slave-driving tone, though - the earlier part of the speech had been delivered oracularly, and had - brought again to Grassette’s eyes the reddish, sullen look which had made - them, a little while before, like those of some wounded, angered animal at - bay; but it vanished slowly, and there was silence for a moment. The - Sheriff’s words had left no vestige of doubt in Grassette’s mind. This - Bignold was the man who had taken Marcile away, first to the English - province, then into the States, where he had lost track of them, then over - to England. Marcile—where was Marcile now? - </p> - <p> - In Keeley’s Gulch was the man who could tell him, the man who had ruined - his home and his life. Dead or alive, he was in Keeley’s Gulch, the man - who knew where Marcile was; and if he knew where Marcile was, and if she - was alive, and he was outside these prison walls, what would he do to her? - And if he was outside these prison walls, and in the Gulch, and the man - was there alive before him, what would he do? - </p> - <p> - Outside these prison walls-to be out there in the sun, where life would be - easier to give up, if it had to be given up! An hour ago he had been - drifting on a sea of apathy, and had had his fill of life. An hour ago he - had had but one desire, and that was to die fighting, and he had even - pictured to himself a struggle in this narrow cell where he would compel - them to kill him, and so in any case let him escape the rope. Now he was - suddenly brought face to face with the great central issue of his life, - and the end, whatever that end might be, could not be the same in meaning, - though it might be the same concretely. If he elected to let things be, - then Bignold would die out there in the Gulch, starved, anguished, and - alone. If he went, he could save his own life by saving Bignold, if - Bignold was alive; or he could go—and not save Bignold’s life or his - own! What would he do? - </p> - <p> - The Governor watched him with a face controlled to quietness, but with an - anxiety which made him pale in spite of himself. - </p> - <p> - “What will you do, Grassette?” he said at last in a low voice, and with a - step forwards to him. “Will you not help to clear your conscience by doing - this thing? You don’t want to try and spite the world by not doing it. You - can make a lot of your life yet, if you are set free. Give yourself, and - give the world a chance. You haven’t used it right. Try again.” - </p> - <p> - Grassette imagined that the Governor did not remember who Bignold was, and - that this was an appeal against his despair, and against revenging himself - on the community which had applauded his sentence. If he went to the - Gulch, no one would know or could suspect the true situation, everyone - would be unprepared for that moment when Bignold and he would face each - other—and all that would happen then. - </p> - <p> - Where was Marcile? Only Bignold knew. Alive or dead? Only Bignold knew. - </p> - <p> - “Bien, I will do it, m’sieu’,” he said to the Governor. “I am to go alone—eh?” - </p> - <p> - The Sheriff shook his head. “No, two warders will go with you—and - myself.” - </p> - <p> - A strange look passed over Grassette’s face. He seemed to hesitate for a - moment, then he said again: “Bon, I will go.” - </p> - <p> - “Then there is, of course, the doctor,” said the Sheriff. - </p> - <p> - “Bon,” said Grassette. “What time is it?” “Twelve o’clock,” answered the - Sheriff, and made a motion to the warder to open the door of the cell. - </p> - <p> - “By sundown!” Grassette said, and he turned with a determined gesture to - leave the cell. - </p> - <p> - At the gate of the prison, a fresh, sweet air caught his face. - Involuntarily he drew in a great draught of it, and his eyes seemed to - gaze out, almost wonderingly, over the grass and the trees to the - boundless horizon. Then he became aware of the shouts of the crowd—shouts - of welcome. This same crowd had greeted him with shouts of execration when - he had left the Court House after his sentence. He stood still for a - moment and looked at them, as it were only half comprehending that they - were cheering him now, and that voices were saying, “Bravo, Grassette! - Save him, and we’ll save you.” - </p> - <p> - Cheer upon cheer, but he took no notice. He walked like one in a dream, a - long, strong step. He turned neither to left nor right, not even when the - friendly voice of one who had worked with him bade him: “Cheer up, and do - the trick.” He was busy working out a problem which no one but himself - could solve. He was only half conscious of his surroundings; he was moving - in a kind of detached world of his own, where the warders and the Sheriff - and those who followed were almost abstract and unreal figures. He was - living with a past which had been everlasting distant, and had now become - a vivid and buffeting present. He returned no answers to the questions - addressed to him, and would not talk, save when for a little while they - dismounted from their horses, and sat under the shade of a great ash-tree - for a few moments, and snatched a mouthful of luncheon. Then he spoke a - little and asked some questions, but lapsed into a moody silence - afterwards. His life and nature were being passed through a fiery - crucible. In all the years that had gone, he had had an ungovernable - desire to kill both Bignold and Marcile if he ever met them, a primitive, - savage desire to blot them out of life and being. His fingers had ached - for Marcile’s neck, that neck in which he had lain his face so often in - the transient, unforgettable days of their happiness. If she was alive now—if - she was still alive! Her story was hidden there in Keeley’s Gulch with - Bignold, and he was galloping hard to reach his foe. As he went, by some - strange alchemy of human experience, by that new birth of his brain, the - world seemed different from what it had ever been before, at least since - the day when he had found an empty home and a shamed hearthstone. He got a - new feeling toward it, and life appealed to him as a thing that might have - been so well worth living. But since that was not to be, then he would see - what he could do to get compensation for all that he had lost, to take - toll for the thing that had spoiled him, and given him a savage nature and - a raging temper, which had driven him at last to kill a man who, in no - real sense, had injured him. - </p> - <p> - Mile after mile they journeyed, a troop of interested people coming after, - the sun and the clear sweet air, the waving grass, the occasional - clearings where settlers had driven in the tent-pegs of home, the forest - now and then swallowing them, the mountains rising above them like a blank - wall, and then suddenly opening out before them; and the rustle and - scamper of squirrels and coyotes; and over their heads the whistle of - birds, the slow beat of wings of great wild-fowl. The tender sap of youth - was in this glowing and alert new world, and, by sudden contrast with the - prison walls which he had just left behind, the earth seemed recreated, - unfamiliar, compelling and companionable. Strange that in all the years - that had been since he had gone back to his abandoned home to find Marcile - gone, the world had had no beauty, no lure for him. In the splendour of it - all, he had only raged and stormed, hating his fellowman, waiting, however - hopelessly, for the day when he should see Marcile and the man who had - taken her from him. And yet now, under the degradation of his crime and - its penalty, and the unmanning influence of being the helpless victim of - the iron power of the law, rigid, ugly and demoralising—now with the - solution of his life’s great problem here before him in the hills, with - the man for whom he had waited so long caverned in the earth, but a - hand-reach away, as it were, his wrongs had taken a new manifestation in - him, and the thing that kept crying out in him every moment was, Where is - Marcile? - </p> - <p> - It was four o’clock when they reached the pass which only Grassette knew, - the secret way into the Gulch. There was two hours’ walking through the - thick, primeval woods, where few had ever been, except the ancient tribes - which had once lorded it here; then came a sudden drop into the earth, a - short travel through a dim cave, and afterward a sheer wall of stone - enclosing a ravine where the rocks on either side nearly met overhead. - </p> - <p> - Here Grassette gave the signal to shout aloud, and the voice of the - Sheriff called out: “Hello, Bignold! - </p> - <p> - “Hello! Hello, Bignold! Are you there?—Hello!” His voice rang out - clear and piercing, and then came a silence-a long, anxious silence. Again - the voice rang out: “Hello! Hello-o-o! Bignold! Bigno-o-ld!” - </p> - <p> - They strained their ears. Grassette was flat on the ground, his ear to the - earth. Suddenly he got to his feet, his face set, his eyes glittering. - </p> - <p> - “He is there beyon’—I hear him,” he said, pointing farther down the - Gulch. “Water—he is near it.” - </p> - <p> - “We heard nothing,” said the Sheriff, “not a sound.” “I hear ver’ good. He - is alive. I hear him—so,” responded Grassette; and his face had a - strange, fixed look which the others interpreted to be agitation at the - thought that he had saved his own life by finding Bignold—and alive; - which would put his own salvation beyond doubt. - </p> - <p> - He broke away from them and hurried down the Gulch. The others followed - hard after, the Sheriff and the warders close behind; but he outstripped - them. - </p> - <p> - Suddenly he stopped and stood still, looking at something on the ground. - They saw him lean forwards and his hands stretch out with a fierce - gesture. It was the attitude of a wild animal ready to spring. - </p> - <p> - They were beside him in an instant, and saw at his feet Bignold worn to a - skeleton, with eyes starting from his head, and fixed on Grassette in - agony and stark fear. - </p> - <p> - The Sheriff stooped to lift Bignold up, but Grassette waved them back with - a fierce gesture, standing over the dying man. - </p> - <p> - “He spoil my home. He break me—I have my bill to settle here,” he - said in a voice hoarse and harsh. “It is so? It is so—eh? Spik!” he - said to Bignold. - </p> - <p> - “Yes,” came feebly from the shrivelled lips. “Water! Water!” the wretched - man gasped. “I’m dying!” - </p> - <p> - A sudden change came over Grassette. “Water—queeck!” he said. - </p> - <p> - The Sheriff stooped and held a hatful of water to Bignold’s lips, while - another poured brandy from a flask into the water. - </p> - <p> - Grassette watched them eagerly. When the dying man had swallowed a little - of the spirit and water, Grassette leaned over him again, and the others - drew away. They realised that these two men had an account to settle, and - there was no need for Grassette to take revenge, for Bignold was going - fast. - </p> - <p> - “You stan’ far back,” said Grassette, and they fell away. - </p> - <p> - Then he stooped down to the sunken, ashen face, over which death was fast - drawing its veil. “Marcile—where is Marcile?” he asked. - </p> - <p> - The dying man’s lips opened. “God forgive me—God save my soul!” he - whispered. He was not concerned for Grassette now. - </p> - <p> - “Queeck-queeck, where is Marcile?” Grassette said sharply. “Come back, - Bignold. Listen—where is Marcile?” - </p> - <p> - He strained to hear the answer. Bignold was going, but his eyes opened - again, however, for this call seemed to pierce to his soul as it struggled - to be free. - </p> - <p> - “Ten years—since—I saw her,” he whispered. “Good girl—Marcile. - She loves you, but she—is afraid.” He tried to say something more, - but his tongue refused its office. - </p> - <p> - “Where is she-spik!” commanded Grassette in a tone of pleading and agony - now. - </p> - <p> - Once more the flying spirit came back. A hand made a motion towards his - pocket, then lay still. - </p> - <p> - Grassette felt hastily in the dead man’s pocket, drew forth a letter, and - with half-blinded eyes read the few lines it contained. It was dated from - a hospital in New York, and was signed: “Nurse Marcile.” - </p> - <p> - With a moan of relief Grassette stood staring at the dead man. When the - others came to him again, his lips were moving, but they did not hear what - he was saying. They took up the body and moved away with it up the ravine. - </p> - <p> - “It’s all right, Grassette. You’ll be a freeman,” said the Sheriff. - </p> - <p> - Grassette did not answer. He was thinking how long it would take him to - get to Marcile, when he was free. - </p> - <p> - He had a true vision of beginning life again with Marcile. - </p> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0014" id="link2H_4_0014"> - <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - A MAN, A FAMINE, AND A HEATHEN BOY - </h2> - <p> - Athabasca in the Far North is the scene of this story—Athabasca, one - of the most beautiful countries in the world in summer, but a cold, bare - land in winter. Yet even in winter it is not so bleak and bitter as the - districts south-west of it, for the Chinook winds steal through from the - Pacific and temper the fierceness of the frozen Rockies. Yet forty and - fifty degrees below zero is cold after all, and July strawberries in this - wild North land are hardly compensation for seven months of ice and snow, - no matter how clear and blue the sky, how sweet the sun during its short - journey in the day. Some days, too, the sun may not be seen even when - there is no storm, because of the fine, white, powdered frost in the air. - </p> - <p> - A day like this is called a poudre day; and woe to the man who tempts it - unthinkingly, because the light makes the delicate mist of frost shine - like silver. For that powder bites the skin white in short order, and - sometimes reckless men lose ears, or noses, or hands under its sharp - caress. But when it really storms in that Far North, then neither man nor - beast should be abroad—not even the Eskimo dogs; though times and - seasons can scarcely be chosen when travelling in Athabasca, for a storm - comes unawares. Upon the plains you will see a cloud arising, not in the - sky, but from the ground—a billowy surf of drifting snow; then - another white billow from the sky will sweep down and meet it, and you are - caught between. - </p> - <p> - He who went to Athabasca to live a generation ago had to ask himself if - the long winter, spent chiefly indoors, with, maybe, a little trading with - the Indians, meagre sport, and scant sun, savages and half-breeds the only - companions, and out of all touch with the outside world, letters coming - but once a year; with frozen fish and meat, always the same, as the staple - items in a primitive fare; with danger from starvation and marauding - tribes; with endless monotony, in which men sometimes go mad—he had - to ask himself if these were to be cheerfully endured because, in the - short summer, the air is heavenly, the rivers and lakes are full of fish, - the flotilla of canoes of the fur-hunters is pouring down, and all is - gaiety and pleasant turmoil; because there is good shooting in the autumn, - and the smell of the land is like a garden, and hardy fruits and flowers - are at hand. - </p> - <p> - That is a question which was asked William Rufus Holly once upon a time. - </p> - <p> - William Rufus Holly, often called “Averdoopoy,” sometimes “Sleeping - Beauty,” always Billy Rufus, had had a good education. He had been to high - school and to college, and he had taken one or two prizes en route to - graduation; but no fame travelled with him, save that he was the laziest - man of any college year for a decade. He loved his little porringer, which - is to say that he ate a good deal; and he loved to read books, which is - not to say that he loved study; he hated getting out of bed, and he was - constantly gated for morning chapel. More than once he had sweetly gone to - sleep over his examination papers. This is not to say that he failed at - his examinations—on the contrary, he always succeeded; but he only - did enough to pass and no more; and he did not wish to do more than pass. - His going to sleep at examinations was evidence that he was either - indifferent or self-indulgent, and it certainly showed that he was without - nervousness. He invariably roused himself, or his professor roused him, a - half-hour before the papers should be handed in, and, as it were by a - mathematical calculation, he had always done just enough to prevent him - being plucked. - </p> - <p> - He slept at lectures, he slept in hall, he slept as he waited his turn to - go to the wicket in a cricket match, and he invariably went to sleep - afterwards. He even did so on the day he had made the biggest score, in - the biggest game ever played between his college and the pick of the - country; but he first gorged himself with cake and tea. The day he took - his degree he had to be dragged from a huge grandfather’s chair, and - forced along in his ragged gown—“ten holes and twelve tatters”—to - the function in the convocation hall. He looked so fat and shiny, so balmy - and sleepy when he took his degree and was handed his prize for a poem on - Sir John Franklin, that the public laughed, and the college men in the - gallery began singing: - </p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - “Bye O, my baby, - Father will come to you soo-oon!” - </pre> - <p> - He seemed not to care, but yawned in his hand as he put his prize book - under his arm through one of the holes in his gown, and in two minutes was - back in his room, and in another five was fast asleep. - </p> - <p> - It was the general opinion that William Rufus Holly, fat, yellow-haired, - and twenty-four years old, was doomed to failure in life, in spite of the - fact that he had a little income of a thousand dollars a year, and had - made a century in an important game of cricket. Great, therefore, was the - surprise of the college, and afterward of the Province, when, at the - farewell dinner of the graduates, Sleeping Beauty announced, between his - little open-eyed naps, that he was going Far North as a missionary. - </p> - <p> - At first it was thought he was joking, but when at last, in his calm and - dreamy look, they saw he meant what he said, they rose and carried him - round the room on a chair, making impromptu songs as they travelled. They - toasted Billy Rufus again and again, some of them laughing till they cried - at the thought of Averdoopoy going to the Arctic regions. But an uneasy - seriousness fell upon these “beautiful, bountiful, brilliant boys,” as - Holly called them later, when in a simple, honest, but indolent speech he - said he had applied for ordination. - </p> - <p> - Six months later William Rufus Holly, a deacon in holy orders, journeyed - to Athabasca in the Far North. On his long journey there was plenty of - time to think. He was embarked on a career which must for ever keep him in - the wilds; for very seldom indeed does a missionary of the North ever - return to the crowded cities or take a permanent part in civilised life. - </p> - <p> - What the loneliness of it would be he began to feel, as for hours and - hours he saw no human being on the plains; in the thrilling stillness of - the night; in fierce storms in the woods, when his half-breed guides bent - their heads to meet the wind and rain, and did not speak for hours; in the - long, adventurous journey on the river by day, in the cry of the plaintive - loon at night; in the scant food for every meal. Yet what the pleasure - would be he felt in the joyous air, the exquisite sunshine, the flocks of - wild-fowl flying North, honking on their course; in the song of the - half-breeds as they ran the rapids. Of course, he did not think these - things quite as they are written here—all at once and all together; - but in little pieces from time to time, feeling them rather than saying - them to himself. - </p> - <p> - At least he did understand how serious a thing it was, his going as a - missionary into the Far North. Why did he do it? Was it a whim, or the - excited imagination of youth, or that prompting which the young often have - to make the world better? Or was it a fine spirit of adventure with a good - heart behind it? Perhaps it was a little of all these; but there was also - something more, and it was to his credit. - </p> - <p> - Lazy as William Rufus Holly had been at school and college, he had still - thought a good deal, even when he seemed only sleeping; perhaps he thought - more because he slept so much, because he studied little and read a great - deal. He always knew what everybody thought—that he would never do - anything but play cricket till he got too heavy to run, and then would - sink into a slothful, fat, and useless middle and old age; that his life - would be a failure. And he knew that they were right; that if he stayed - where he could live an easy life, a fat and easy life he would lead; that - in a few years he would be good for nothing except to eat and sleep—no - more. One day, waking suddenly from a bad dream of himself so fat as to be - drawn about on a dray by monstrous fat oxen with rings through their - noses, led by monkeys, he began to wonder what he should do—the - hardest thing to do; for only the hardest life could possibly save him - from failure, and, in spite of all, he really did want to make something - of his life. He had been reading the story of Sir John Franklin’s Arctic - expedition, and all at once it came home to him that the only thing for - him to do was to go to the Far North and stay there, coming back about - once every ten years to tell the people in the cities what was being done - in the wilds. Then there came the inspiration to write his poem on Sir - John Franklin, and he had done so, winning the college prize for poetry. - But no one had seen any change in him in those months; and, indeed, there - had been little or no change, for he had an equable and practical, though - imaginative, disposition, despite his avoirdupois, and his new purpose did - not stir him yet from his comfortable sloth. - </p> - <p> - And in all the journey West and North he had not been stirred greatly from - his ease of body, for the journey was not much harder than playing cricket - every day, and there were only the thrill of the beautiful air, the new - people, and the new scenes to rouse him. As yet there was no great - responsibility. He scarcely realised what his life must be, until one - particular day. Then Sleeping Beauty waked wide up, and from that day lost - the name. Till then he had looked and borne himself like any other - traveller, unrecognised as a parson or “mikonaree.” He had not had prayers - in camp en route, he had not preached, he had held no meetings. He was as - yet William Rufus Holly, the cricketer, the laziest dreamer of a college - decade. His religion was simple and practical; he had never had any morbid - ideas; he had lived a healthy, natural, and honourable life, until he went - for a mikonaree, and if he had no cant, he had not a clear idea of how - many-sided, how responsible, his life must be—until that one - particular day. This is what happened then. - </p> - <p> - From Fort O’Call, an abandoned post of the Hudson’s Bay Company on the - Peace River, nearly the whole tribe of the Athabasca Indians in possession - of the post now had come up the river, with their chief, - Knife-in-the-Wind, to meet the mikonaree. Factors of the Hudson’s Bay - Company, coureurs de bois, and voyageurs had come among them at times, and - once the renowned Father Lacombe, the Jesuit priest, had stayed with them - three months; but never to this day had they seen a Protestant mikonaree, - though once a factor, noted for his furious temper, his powers of running, - and his generosity, had preached to them. These men, however, were both - over fifty years old. The Athabascas did not hunger for the Christian - religion, but a courier from Edmonton had brought them word that a - mikonaree was coming to their country to stay, and they put off their - stoical manner and allowed themselves the luxury of curiosity. That was - why even the squaws and papooses came up the river with the braves, all - wondering if the stranger had brought gifts with him, all eager for their - shares; for it had been said by the courier of the tribe that - “Oshondonto,” their name for the newcomer, was bringing mysterious loads - of well-wrapped bales and skins. Upon a point below the first rapids of - the Little Manitou they waited with their camp-fires burning and their - pipe of peace. - </p> - <p> - When the canoes bearing Oshondonto and his voyageurs shot the rapids to - the song of the river, - </p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - “En roulant, ma boule roulant, - En roulant, ma boule!” - </pre> - <p> - with the shrill voices of the boatmen rising to meet the cry of the - startled water-fowl, the Athabascas crowded to the high banks. They - grunted “How!” in greeting, as the foremost canoe made for the shore. - </p> - <p> - But if surprise could have changed the countenances of Indians, these - Athabascas would not have known one another when the missionary stepped - out upon the shore. They had looked to see a grey-bearded man like the - chief factor who quarrelled and prayed; but they found instead a - round-faced, clean-shaven youth, with big, good-natured eyes, yellow hair, - and a roundness of body like that of a month-old bear’s cub. They expected - to find a man who, like the factor, could speak their language, and they - found a cherub sort of youth who talked only English, French, and Chinook—that - common language of the North—and a few words of their own language - which he had learned on the way. - </p> - <p> - Besides, Oshondonto was so absent-minded at the moment, so absorbed in - admiration of the garish scene before him, that he addressed the chief in - French, of which Knife-in-the-Wind knew but the one word cache, which all - the North knows. - </p> - <p> - But presently William Rufus Holly recovered himself, and in stumbling - Chinook made himself understood. Opening a bale, he brought out beads and - tobacco and some bright red flannel, and two hundred Indians sat round him - and grunted “How!” and received his gifts with little comment. Then the - pipe of peace went round, and Oshondonto smoked it becomingly. - </p> - <p> - But he saw that the Indians despised him for his youth, his fatness, his - yellow hair as soft as a girl’s, his cherub face, browned though it was by - the sun and weather. - </p> - <p> - As he handed the pipe to Knife-in-the-Wind, an Indian called Silver - Tassel, with a cruel face, said grimly: - </p> - <p> - “Why does Oshondonto travel to us?” - </p> - <p> - William Rufus Holly’s eyes steadied on those of the Indian as he replied - in Chinook: “To teach the way to Manitou the Mighty, to tell the - Athabascas of the Great Chief who died to save the world.” - </p> - <p> - “The story is told in many ways; which is right? There was the factor, - Word of Thunder. There is the song they sing at Edmonton—I have - heard.” - </p> - <p> - “The Great Chief is the same Chief,” answered the missionary. “If you tell - of Fort O’Call, and Knife-in-the-Wind tells of Fort O’Call, he and you - will speak different words, and one will put in one thing and one will - leave out another; men’s tongues are different. But Fort O’Call is - the-same, and the Great Chief is the same.” - </p> - <p> - “It was a long time ago,” said Knife-in-the-Wind sourly, “many thousand - moons, as the pebbles in the river, the years.” - </p> - <p> - “It is the same world, and it is the same Chief, and it was to save us,” - answered William Rufus Holly, smiling, yet with a fluttering heart, for - the first test of his life had come. - </p> - <p> - In anger Knife-in-the-Wind thrust an arrow into the ground and said: - </p> - <p> - “How can the white man who died thousands of moons ago in a far country - save the red man to-day?” - </p> - <p> - “A strong man should bear so weak a tale,” broke in Silver Tassel - ruthlessly. “Are we children that the Great Chief sends a child as - messenger?” - </p> - <p> - For a moment Billy Rufus did not know how to reply, and in the pause - Knife-in-the-Wind broke in two pieces the arrow he had thrust in the - ground in token of displeasure. - </p> - <p> - Suddenly, as Oshondonto was about to speak, Silver Tassel sprang to his - feet, seized in his arms a lad of twelve who was standing near, and - running to the bank, dropped him into the swift current. - </p> - <p> - “If Oshondonto be not a child, let him save the lad,” said Silver Tassel, - standing on the brink. - </p> - <p> - Instantly William Rufus Holly was on his feet. His coat was off before - Silver Tassel’s words were out of his mouth, and crying, “In the name of - the Great White Chief!” he jumped into the rushing current. “In the name - of your Manitou, come on, Silver Tassel!” he called up from the water, and - struck out for the lad. - </p> - <p> - Not pausing an instant, Silver Tassel sprang into the flood, into the - whirling eddies and dangerous current below the first rapids and above the - second. - </p> - <p> - Then came the struggle for Wingo of the Cree tribe, a waif among the - Athabascas, whose father had been slain as they travelled, by a wandering - tribe of Blackfeet. Never was there a braver rivalry, although the odds - were with the Indian-in lightness, in brutal strength. With the mikonaree, - however, were skill, and that sort of strength which the world calls - “moral,” the strength of a good and desperate purpose. Oshondonto knew - that on the issue of this shameless business—this cruel sport of - Silver Tassel—would depend his future on the Peace River. As he shot - forward with strong strokes in the whirling torrent after the helpless - lad, who, only able to keep himself afloat, was being swept down towards - the rapids below, he glanced up to the bank along which the Athabascas - were running. He saw the garish colours of their dresses; he saw the - ignorant medicine man, with his mysterious bag, making incantations; he - saw the tepee of the chief, with its barbarous pennant above; he saw the - idle, naked children tearing at the entrails of a calf; and he realised - that this was a deadly tournament between civilisation and barbarism. - </p> - <p> - Silver Tassel was gaining on him, they were both overhauling the boy; it - was now to see which should reach Wingo first, which should take him to - shore. That is, if both were not carried under before they reached him; - that is, if, having reached him, they and he would ever get to shore; for, - lower down, before it reached the rapids, the current ran horribly smooth - and strong, and here and there were jagged rocks just beneath the surface. - </p> - <p> - Still Silver Tassel gained on him, as they both gained on the boy. - Oshondonto swam strong and hard, but he swam with his eye on the struggle - for the shore also; he was not putting forth his utmost strength, for he - knew it would be bitterly needed, perhaps to save his own life by a last - effort. - </p> - <p> - Silver Tassel passed him when they were about fifty feet from the boy. - Shooting by on his side, with a long stroke and the plunge of his body - like a projectile, the dark face with the long black hair plastering it - turned towards his own, in fierce triumph Silver Tassel cried “How!” in - derision. - </p> - <p> - Billy Rufus set his teeth and lay down to his work like a sportsman. His - face had lost its roses, and it was set and determined, but there was no - look of fear upon it, nor did his heart sink when a cry of triumph went up - from the crowd on the banks. The white man knew by old experience in the - cricket-field and in many a boat-race that it is well not to halloo till - you are out of the woods. His mettle was up, he was not the Reverend - William Rufus Holly, missionary, but Billy Rufus, the champion cricketer, - the sportsman playing a long game. - </p> - <p> - Silver Tassel reached the boy, who was bruised and bleeding and at his - last gasp, and throwing an arm round him, struck out for the shore. The - current was very strong, and he battled fiercely as Billy Rufus, not far - above, moved down toward them at an angle. For a few yards Silver Tassel - was going strong, then his pace slackened, he seemed to sink lower in the - water, and his stroke became splashing and irregular. Suddenly he struck a - rock, which bruised him badly, and, swerving from his course, he lost his - stroke and let go the boy. - </p> - <p> - By this time the mikonaree had swept beyond them, and he caught the boy by - his long hair as he was being swept below. Striking out for the shore, he - swam with bold, strong strokes, his judgment guiding him well past rocks - beneath the surface. Ten feet from shore he heard a cry of alarm from - above. It concerned Silver Tassel, he knew, but he could not look round - yet. - </p> - <p> - In another moment the boy was dragged up the bank by strong hands, and - Billy Rufus swung round in the water towards Silver Tassel, who, in his - confused energy, had struck another rock, and, exhausted now, was being - swept towards the rapids. Silver Tassel’s shoulder scarcely showed, his - strength was gone. In a flash Billy Rufus saw there was but one thing to - do. He must run the rapids with Silver Tassel-there was no other way. It - would be a fight through the jaws of death; but no Indian’s eyes had a - better sense for river-life than William Rufus Holly’s. - </p> - <p> - How he reached Silver Tassel, and drew the Indian’s arm over his own - shoulder; how they drove down into the boiling flood; how Billy Rufus’s - fat body was battered and torn and ran red with blood from twenty flesh - wounds; but how by luck beyond the telling he brought Silver Tassel - through safely into the quiet water a quarter of a mile below the rapids, - and was hauled out, both more dead than alive, is a tale still told by the - Athabascas around their camp-fire. The rapids are known to-day as the - Mikonaree Rapids. - </p> - <p> - The end of this beginning of the young man’s career was that Silver Tassel - gave him the word of eternal friendship, Knife-in-the-Wind took him into - the tribe, and the boy Wingo became his very own, to share his home, and - his travels, no longer a waif among the Athabascas. - </p> - <p> - After three days’ feasting, at the end of which the missionary held his - first service and preached his first sermon, to the accompaniment of - grunts of satisfaction from the whole tribe of Athabascas, William Rufus - Holly began his work in the Far North. - </p> - <p> - The journey to Fort O’Call was a procession of triumph, for, as it was - summer, there was plenty of food, the missionary had been a success, and - he had distributed many gifts of beads and flannel. - </p> - <p> - All went well for many moons, although converts were uncertain and - baptisms few, and the work was hard and the loneliness at times terrible. - But at last came dark days. - </p> - <p> - One summer and autumn there had been poor fishing and shooting, the caches - of meat were fewer on the plains, and almost nothing had come up to Fort - O’Call from Edmonton, far below. The yearly supplies for the missionary, - paid for out of his private income—the bacon, beans, tea, coffee and - flour—had been raided by a band of hostile Indians, and he viewed - with deep concern the progress of the severe winter. Although three years - of hard, frugal life had made his muscles like iron, they had only - mellowed his temper, increased his flesh and rounded his face; nor did he - look an hour older than on the day when he had won Wingo for his willing - slave and devoted friend. - </p> - <p> - He never resented the frequent ingratitude of the Indians; he said little - when they quarrelled over the small comforts his little income brought - them yearly from the South. He had been doctor, lawyer, judge among them, - although he interfered little in the larger disputes, and was forced to - shut his eyes to intertribal enmities. He had no deep faith that he could - quite civilise them; he knew that their conversion was only on the - surface, and he fell back on his personal influence with them. By this he - could check even the excesses of the worst man in the tribe, his old - enemy, Silver Tassel of the bad heart, who yet was ready always to give a - tooth for a tooth, and accepted the fact that he owed Oshondonto his life. - </p> - <p> - When famine crawled across the plains to the doors of the settlement and - housed itself at Fort O’Call, Silver Tassel acted badly, however, and - sowed fault-finding among the thoughtless of the tribe. - </p> - <p> - “What manner of Great Spirit is it who lets the food of his chief - Oshondonto fall into the hands of the Blackfeet?” he said. “Oshondonto - says the Great Spirit hears. What has the Great Spirit to say? Let - Oshondonto ask.” - </p> - <p> - Again, when they all were hungrier, he went among them with complaining - words. “If the white man’s Great Spirit can do all things, let him give - Oshondonto and the Athabascas food.” - </p> - <p> - The missionary did not know of Silver Tassel’s foolish words, but he saw - the downcast face of Knife-in-the-Wind, the sullen looks of the people; - and he unpacked the box he had reserved jealously for the darkest days - that might come. For meal after meal he divided these delicacies among - them—morsels of biscuit, and tinned meats, and dried fruits. But his - eyes meanwhile were turned again and again to the storm raging without, as - it had raged for this the longest week he had ever spent. If it would but - slacken, a boat could go out to the nets set in the lake near by some days - before, when the sun of spring had melted the ice. From the hour the nets - had been set the storm had raged. On the day when the last morsel of meat - and biscuit had been given away the storm had not abated, and he saw with - misgiving the gloomy, stolid faces of the Indians round him. One man, two - children, and three women had died in a fortnight. He dreaded to think - what might happen, his heart ached at the looks of gaunt suffering in the - faces of all; he saw, for the first time, how black and bitter - Knife-in-the-Wind looked as Silver Tassel whispered to him. - </p> - <p> - With the colour all gone from his cheeks, he left the post and made his - way to the edge of the lake where his canoe was kept. Making it ready for - the launch, he came back to the Fort. Assembling the Indians, who had - watched his movements closely, he told them that he was going through the - storm to the nets on the lake, and asked for a volunteer to go with him. - </p> - <p> - No one replied. He pleaded-for the sake of the women and children. - </p> - <p> - Then Knife-in-the-Wind spoke. “Oshondonto will die if he goes. It is a - fool’s journey—does the wolverine walk into an empty trap?” - </p> - <p> - Billy Rufus spoke passionately now. His genial spirit fled; he reproached - them. - </p> - <p> - Silver Tassel spoke up loudly. “Let Oshondonto’s Great Spirit carry him to - the nets alone, and back again with fish for the heathen the Great Chief - died to save.” - </p> - <p> - “You have a wicked heart, Silver Tassel. You know well that one man can’t - handle the boat and the nets also. Is there no one of you—?” - </p> - <p> - A figure shot forwards from a corner. “I will go with Oshondonto,” came - the voice of Wingo, the waif of the Crees. - </p> - <p> - The eye of the mikonaree flashed round in contempt on the tribe. Then - suddenly it softened, and he said to the lad: “We will go together, - Wingo.” - </p> - <p> - Taking the boy by the hand, he ran with him through the rough wind to the - shore, launched the canoe on the tossing lake, and paddled away through - the tempest. - </p> - <p> - The bitter winds of an angry spring, the sleet and wet snow of a belated - winter, the floating blocks of ice crushing against the side of the boat, - the black water swishing over man and boy, the harsh, inclement world near - and far.... The passage made at last to the nets; the brave Wingo - steadying the canoe—a skilful hand sufficing where the strength of a - Samson would not have availed; the nets half full, and the breaking cry of - joy from the lips of the waif-a cry that pierced the storm and brought - back an answering cry from the crowd of Indians on the far shore... The - quarter-hour of danger in the tossing canoe; the nets too heavy to be - dragged, and fastened to the thwarts instead; the canoe going shoreward - jerkily, a cork on the waves with an anchor behind; heavier seas and winds - roaring down on them as they slowly near the shore; and at last, in one - awful moment, the canoe upset, and the man and the boy in the water. ... - Then both clinging to the upturned canoe as it is driven nearer and nearer - shore.... The boy washed off once, twice, and the man with his arm round - clinging-clinging, as the shrieking storm answers to the calling of the - Athabascas on the shore, and drives craft and fish and man and boy down - upon the banks; no savage bold enough to plunge in to their rescue. ... At - last a rope thrown, a drowning man’s wrists wound round it, his teeth set - in it—and now, at last, a man and a heathen boy, both insensible, - being carried to the mikonaree’s but and laid upon two beds, one on either - side of the small room, as the red sun goes slowly down. ... The two still - bodies on bearskins in the hut, and a hundred superstitious Indians flying - from the face of death.... The two alone in the light of the flickering - fire; the many gone to feast on fish, the price of lives. - </p> - <p> - But the price was not yet paid, for the man waked from insensibility—waked - to see himself with the body of the boy beside him in the red light of the - fires. - </p> - <p> - For a moment his heart stopped beating, he turned sick and faint. Deserted - by those for whom he risked his life!... How long had he lain there? What - time was it? When was it that he had fought his way to the nets and back - again-hours maybe? And the dead boy there, Wingo, who had risked his life, - also dead—how long? His heart leaped—ah! not hours, only - minutes maybe. It was sundown as unconsciousness came on him—Indians - would not stay with the dead after sundown. Maybe it was only ten - minutes-five minutes—one minute ago since they left him!... - </p> - <p> - His watch! Shaking fingers drew it out, wild eyes scanned it. It was not - stopped. Then it could have only been minutes ago. Trembling to his feet, - he staggered over to Wingo, he felt the body, he held a mirror to the - lips. Yes, surely there was light moisture on the glass. - </p> - <p> - Then began another fight with death—William Rufus Holly struggling - to bring to life again Wingo, the waif of the Crees. - </p> - <p> - The blood came back to his own heart with a rush as the mad desire to save - this life came on him. He talked to the dumb face, he prayed in a kind of - delirium, as he moved the arms up and down, as he tilted the body, as he - rubbed, chafed and strove. He forgot he was a missionary, he almost cursed - himself. “For them—for cowards, I risked his life, the brave lad - with no home. Oh, God! give him back to me!” he sobbed. “What right had I - to risk his life for theirs? I should have shot the first man that refused - to go.... Wingo, speak! Wake up! Come back!” - </p> - <p> - The sweat poured from him in his desperation and weakness. He said to - himself that he had put this young life into the hazard without cause. Had - he, then, saved the lad from the rapids and Silver Tassel’s brutality only - to have him drag fish out of the jaws of death for Silver Tassel’s meal? - </p> - <p> - It seemed to him that he had been working for hours, though it was in fact - only a short time, when the eyes of the lad slowly opened and closed - again, and he began to breathe spasmodically. A cry of joy came from the - lips of the missionary, and he worked harder still. At last the eyes - opened wide, stayed open, saw the figure bent over him, and the lips - whispered, “Oshondonto—my master,” as a cup of brandy was held to - his lips. - </p> - <p> - He had conquered the Athabascas for ever. Even Silver Tassel acknowledged - his power, and he as industriously spread abroad the report that the - mikonaree had raised Wingo from the dead, as he had sown dissension during - the famine. But the result was that the missionary had power in the land, - and the belief in him was so great, that, when Knife-in-the-Wind died, the - tribe came to ask him to raise their chief from the dead. They never quite - believed that he could not—not even Silver Tassel, who now rules the - Athabascas and is ruled by William Rufus Holly: which is a very good thing - for the Athabascas. - </p> - <p> - Billy Rufus the cricketer had won the game, and somehow the Reverend - William Rufus Holly the missionary never repented the strong language he - used against the Athabascas, as he was bringing Wingo back to life, though - it was not what is called “strictly canonical.” - </p> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0015" id="link2H_4_0015"> - <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - THE HEALING SPRINGS AND THE PIONEERS - </h2> - <p> - He came out of the mysterious South one summer day, driving before him a - few sheep, a cow, and a long-eared mule which carried his tent and other - necessaries, and camped outside the town on a knoll, at the base of which - was a thicket of close shrub. During the first day no one in Jansen - thought anything of it, for it was a land of pilgrimage, and hundreds came - and went on their journeys in search of free homesteads and good water and - pasturage. But when, after three days, he was still there, Nicolle - Terasse, who had little to do, and an insatiable curiosity, went out to - see him. He found a new sensation for Jansen. This is what he said when he - came back: - </p> - <p> - “You want know ‘bout him, bagosh! Dat is somet’ing to see, dat man—Ingles - is his name. Sooch hair—mooch long an’ brown, and a leetla beard not - so brown, an’ a leather sole onto his feet, and a grey coat to his ankles—yes, - so like dat. An’ his voice—voila, it is like water in a cave. He is - a great man—I dunno not; but he spik at me like dis, ‘Is dere sick, - and cripple, and stay in-bed people here dat can’t get up?’ he say. An’ I - say, ‘Not plenty, but some-bagosh! Dere is dat Miss Greet, an’ ole Ma’am - Drouchy, an’ dat young Pete Hayes—an’ so on.’ ‘Well, if they have - faith I will heal them,’ he spik at me. ‘From de Healing Springs dey shall - rise to walk,’ he say. Bagosh, you not t’ink dat true? Den you go see.” - </p> - <p> - So Jansen turned out to see, and besides the man they found a curious - thing. At the foot of the knoll, in a space which he had cleared, was a - hot spring that bubbled and rose and sank, and drained away into the - thirsty ground. Luck had been with Ingles the Faith Healer. Whether he - knew of the existence of this spring, or whether he chanced upon it, he - did not say; but while he held Jansen in the palm of his hand, in the - feverish days that followed, there were many who attached mysterious - significance to it, who claimed for it supernatural origin. In any case, - the one man who had known of the existence of this spring was far away - from Jansen, and he did not return till a day of reckoning came for the - Faith Healer. - </p> - <p> - Meanwhile Jansen made pilgrimage to the Springs of Healing, and at - unexpected times Ingles suddenly appeared in the town, and stood at street - corners; and in his “Patmian voice,” as Flood Rawley the lawyer called it, - warned the people to flee their sins, and purifying their hearts, learn to - cure all ills of mind and body, the weaknesses of the sinful flesh and the - “ancient evil” in their souls, by faith that saves. - </p> - <p> - “‘Is not the life more than meat’” he asked them. “And if, peradventure, - there be those among you who have true belief in hearts all purged of - evil, and yet are maimed, or sick of body, come to me, and I will lay my - hands upon you, and I will heal you.” Thus he cried. - </p> - <p> - There were those so wrought upon by his strange eloquence and spiritual - passion, so hypnotised by his physical and mental exaltation, that they - rose up from the hand-laying and the prayer eased of their ailments. - Others he called upon to lie in the hot spring at the foot of the hill for - varying periods, before the laying on of hands, and these also, crippled, - or rigid with troubles’ of the bone, announced that they were healed. - </p> - <p> - People flocked from other towns, and though, to some who had been cured, - their pains and sickness returned, there were a few who bore perfect - evidence to his teaching and healing, and followed him, “converted and - consecrated,” as though he were a new Messiah. In this corner of the West - was such a revival as none could remember—not even those who had - been to camp meetings in the East in their youth, and had seen the Spirit - descend upon hundreds and draw them to the anxious seat. - </p> - <p> - Then came the great sensation—the Faith Healer converted Laura - Sloly. Upon which Jansen drew its breath painfully; for, while it was - willing to bend to the inspiration of the moment, and to be swept on a - tide of excitement into that enchanted field called Imagination, it wanted - to preserve its institutions—and Laura Sloly had come to be an - institution. Jansen had always plumed itself, and smiled, when she passed; - and even now the most sentimentally religious of them inwardly anticipated - the time when the town would return to its normal condition; and that - condition would not be normal if there were any change in Laura Sloly. It - mattered little whether most people were changed or not because one state - of their minds could not be less or more interesting than another; but a - change in Laura. Sloly could not be for the better. - </p> - <p> - Her father had come to the West in the early days, and had prospered by - degrees until a town grew up beside his ranch; and though he did not - acquire as much permanent wealth from this golden chance as might have - been expected, and lost much he did make by speculation, still he had his - rich ranch left, and it, and he, and Laura were part of the history of - Jansen. Laura had been born at Jansen before even it had a name. Next to - her father she was the oldest inhabitant, and she had a prestige which was - given to no one else. - </p> - <p> - Everything had conspired to make her a figure of moment and interest. She - was handsome in almost a mannish sort of way, being of such height and - straightness, and her brown eyes had a depth and fire in which more than a - few men had drowned themselves. Also, once she had saved a settlement by - riding ahead of a marauding Indian band to warn their intended victims, - and had averted another tragedy of pioneer life. Pioneers proudly told - strangers to Jansen of the girl of thirteen who rode a hundred and twenty - miles without food, and sank inside the palisade of the Hudson’s Bay - Company’s fort, as the gates closed upon the settlers taking refuge, the - victim of brain fever at last. Cerebrospinal meningitis, the doctor from - Winnipeg called it, and the memory of that time when men and women would - not sleep till her crisis was past, was still fresh on the tongues of all. - </p> - <p> - Then she had married at seventeen, and, within a year, had lost both her - husband and her baby, a child bereaved of her Playmates—for her - husband had been but twenty years old and was younger far than she in - everything. And since then, twelve years before, she had seen generations - of lovers pass into the land they thought delectable; and their children - flocked to her, hung about her, were carried off by her to the ranch, and - kept for days, against the laughing protests of their parents. Flood - Rawley called her the Pied Piper of Jansen, and indeed she had a voice - that fluted and piped, and yet had so whimsical a note, that the hardest - faces softened at the sound of it; and she did not keep its best notes for - the few. She was impartial, almost impersonal; no woman was her enemy, and - every man was her friend—and nothing more. She had never had an - accepted lover since the day her Playmates left her. Every man except one - had given up hope that he might win her; and though he had been gone from - Jansen for two years, and had loved her since the days before the - Playmates came and went, he never gave up hope, and was now to return and - say again what he had mutely said for years—what she understood, and - he knew she understood. - </p> - <p> - Tim Denton had been a wild sort in his brief day. He was a rough diamond, - but he was a diamond, and was typical of the West—its heart, its - courage, its freedom, and its force; capable of exquisite gentleness, - strenuous to exaggeration, with a very primitive religion; and the only - religion Tim knew was that of human nature. Jansen did not think Tim good - enough—not within a comet shot—for Laura Sloly; but they - thought him better than any one else. - </p> - <p> - But now Laura was a convert to the prophet of the Healing Springs, and - those people who still retain their heads in the eddy of religious emotion - were in despair. They dreaded to meet Laura; they kept away from the - “protracted meetings,” but were eager to hear about her and what she said - and did. What they heard allayed their worst fears. She still smiled, and - seemed as cheerful as before, they heard, and she neither spoke nor prayed - in public, but she led the singing always. Now the anxious and the - sceptical and the reactionary ventured out to see and hear; and seeing and - hearing gave them a satisfaction they hardly dared express. She was more - handsome than ever, and if her eyes glistened with a light they had never - seen before, and awed them, her lips still smiled, and the old laugh came - when she spoke to them. Their awe increased. This was “getting religion” - with a difference. - </p> - <p> - But presently they received a shock. A whisper grew that Laura was in love - with the Faith Healer. Some woman’s instinct drove straight to the centre - of a disconcerting possibility, and in consternation she told her husband; - and Jansen husbands had a freemasonry of gossip. An hour, and all Jansen - knew, or thought they knew; and the “saved” rejoiced; and the rest of the - population, represented by Nicolle Terasse at one end and Flood Rawley at - the other, flew to arms. No vigilance committee was ever more determined - and secret and organised than the unconverted civic patriots, who were - determined to restore Jansen to its old-time condition. They pointed out - cold-bloodedly that the Faith Healer had failed three times where he had - succeeded once; and that, admitting the successes, there was no proof that - his religion was their cause. There were such things as hypnotism and - magnetism and will-power, and abnormal mental stimulus on the part of the - healed—to say nothing of the Healing Springs. - </p> - <p> - Carefully laying their plans, they quietly spread the rumour that Ingles - had promised to restore to health old Mary Jewell, who had been bedridden - ten years, and had sent word and prayed to have him lay his hands upon her—Catholic - though she was. The Faith Healer, face to face with this supreme and - definite test, would have retreated from it but for Laura Sloly. She - expected him to do it, believed that he could, said that he would, herself - arranged the day and the hour, and sang so much exaltation into him, that - at last a spurious power seemed to possess him. He felt that there had - entered into him something that could be depended on, not the mere flow of - natural magnetism fed by an outdoor life and a temperament of great - emotional force, and chance, and suggestion—and other things. If, at - first, he had influenced Laura, some ill-controlled, latent idealism in - him, working on a latent poetry and spirituality in her, somehow bringing - her into nearer touch with her lost Playmates than she had been in the - long years that had passed; she, in turn, had made his unrationalised - brain reel; had caught him up into a higher air, on no wings of his own; - had added another lover to her company of lovers—and the first - impostor she had ever had. She who had known only honest men as friends, - in one blind moment lost her perspicuous sense; her instinct seemed - asleep. She believed in the man and in his healing. Was there anything - more than that? - </p> - <p> - The day of the great test came, hot, brilliant, vivid. The air was of a - delicate sharpness, and, as it came toward evening, the glamour of an - August when the reapers reap was upon Jansen; and its people gathered - round the house of Mary Jewell to await the miracle of faith. Apart from - the emotional many who sang hymns and spiritual songs were a few - determined men, bent on doing justice to Jansen though the heavens might - fall. Whether or no Laura Sloly was in love with the Faith Healer, Jansen - must look to its own honour—and hers. In any case, this peripatetic - saint at Sloly’s Ranch—the idea was intolerable; women must be saved - in spite of themselves. - </p> - <p> - Laura was now in the house by the side of the bedridden Mary Jewell, - waiting, confident, smiling, as she held the wasted hand on the coverlet. - With her was a minister of the Baptist persuasion, who was swimming with - the tide, and who approved of the Faith Healer’s immersions in the hot - Healing Springs; also a medical student who had pretended belief in - Ingles, and two women weeping with unnecessary remorse for human failings - of no dire kind. The windows were open, and those outside could see. - Presently, in a lull of the singing, there was a stir in the crowd, and - then, sudden loud greetings: - </p> - <p> - “My, if it ain’t Tim Denton! Jerusalem! You back, Tim!” - </p> - <p> - These and other phrases caught the ear of Laura Sloly in the sick-room. A - strange look flashed across her face, and the depth of her eyes was - troubled for a moment, as to the face of the old comes a tremor at the - note of some long-forgotten song. Then she steadied herself and waited, - catching bits of the loud talk which still floated towards her from - without. - </p> - <p> - “What’s up? Some one getting married—or a legacy, or a saw-off? Why, - what a lot of Sunday-go-to-meeting folks to be sure!” Tim laughed loudly. - </p> - <p> - After which the quick tongue of Nicolle Terasse: “You want know? Tiens, be - quiet; here he come. He cure you body and soul, ver’ queeck—yes.” - </p> - <p> - The crowd swayed and parted, and slowly, bare head uplifted, face looking - to neither right nor left, the Faith Healer made his way to the door of - the little house. The crowd hushed. Some were awed, some were - overpoweringly interested, some were cruelly patient. Nicolle Terasse and - others were whispering loudly to Tim Denton. That was the only sound, - until the Healer got to the door. Then, on the steps, he turned to the - multitude. - </p> - <p> - “Peace be to you all, and upon this house,” he said and stepped through - the doorway. - </p> - <p> - Tim Denton, who had been staring at the face of the Healer, stood for an - instant like one with all his senses arrested. Then he gasped, and - exclaimed, “Well, I’m eternally—” and broke off with a low laugh, - which was at first mirthful, and then became ominous and hard. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, magnificent—magnificent—jerickety!” he said into the sky - above him. - </p> - <p> - His friends who were not “saved,” closed in on him to find the meaning of - his words, but he pulled himself together, looked blankly at them, and - asked them questions. They told him so much more than he cared to hear, - that his face flushed a deep red—the bronze of it most like the - colour of Laura Sloly’s hair; then he turned pale. Men saw that he was - roused beyond any feeling in themselves. - </p> - <p> - “‘Sh!” he said. “Let’s see what he can do.” With the many who were - silently praying, as they had been, bidden to do, the invincible ones - leant forwards, watching the little room where healing—or tragedy—was - afoot. As in a picture, framed by the window, they saw the kneeling - figures, the Healer standing with outstretched arms. They heard his voice, - sonorous and appealing, then commanding—and yet Mary Jewell did not - rise from her bed and walk. Again, and yet again, the voice rang out, and - still the woman lay motionless. Then he laid his hands upon her, and again - he commanded her to rise. - </p> - <p> - There was a faint movement, a desperate struggle to obey, but Nature and - Time and Disease had their way. Yet again there was the call. An agony - stirred the bed. Then another great Healer came between, and mercifully - dealt the sufferer a blow—Death has a gentle hand sometimes. Mary - Jewell was bedridden still—and for ever. - </p> - <p> - Like a wind from the mountains the chill knowledge of death wailed through - the window, and over the heads of the crowd. All the figures were upright - now in the little room. Then those outside saw Laura Sloly lean over and - close the sightless eyes. This done, she came to the door and opened it, - and motioned for the Healer to leave. He hesitated, hearing the harsh - murmur from the outskirts of the crowd. Once again she motioned, and he - came. With a face deadly pale she surveyed the people before her silently - for a moment, her eyes all huge and staring. - </p> - <p> - Presently she turned to Ingles and spoke to him quickly in a low voice; - then, descending the steps, passed out through the lane made for her by - the crowd, he following with shaking limbs and bowed bead. - </p> - <p> - Warning words had passed among the few invincible ones who waited where - the Healer must pass into the open, and there was absolute stillness as - Laura advanced. Their work was to come—quiet and swift and sure; but - not yet. - </p> - <p> - Only one face Laura saw, as she led the way to the moment’s safety—Tim - Denton’s; and it was as stricken as her own. She passed, then turned, and - looked at him again. He understood; she wanted him. - </p> - <p> - He waited till she sprang into her waggon, after the Healer had mounted - his mule and ridden away with ever-quickening pace into the prairie. Then - he turned to the set, fierce men beside him. - </p> - <p> - “Leave him alone,” he said, “leave him to me. I know him. You hear? Ain’t - I no rights? I tell you I knew him—South. You leave him to me.” - </p> - <p> - They nodded, and he sprang into his saddle and rode away. They watched the - figure of the Healer growing smaller in the dusty distance. - </p> - <p> - “Tim’ll go to her,” one said, “and perhaps they’ll let the snake get off. - Hadn’t we best make sure?” - </p> - <p> - “Perhaps you’d better let him vamoose,” said Flood Rawley anxiously. - “Jansen is a law-abiding place!” The reply was decisive. Jansen had its - honour to keep. It was the home of the Pioneers—Laura Sloly was a - Pioneer. - </p> - <p> - Tim Denton was a Pioneer, with all the comradeship which lay in the word, - and he was that sort of lover who has seen one woman, and can never see - another—not the product of the most modern civilisation. Before - Laura had had Playmates he had given all he had to give; he had waited and - hoped ever since; and when the ruthless gossips had said to him before - Mary Jewell’s house that she was in love with the Faith Healer, nothing - changed in him. For the man, for Ingles, Tim belonged to a primitive - breed, and love was not in his heart. As he rode out to Sloly’s Ranch, he - ground his teeth in rage. But Laura had called him to her, and: “Well, - what you say goes, Laura,” he muttered at the end of a long hour of human - passion and its repression. “If he’s to go scot-free, then he’s got to go; - but the boys yonder’ll drop on me, if he gets away. Can’t you see what a - swab he is, Laura?” - </p> - <p> - The brown eyes of the girl looked at him gently. The struggle between them - was over; she had had her way—to save the preacher, impostor though - he was; and now she felt, as she had never felt before in the same - fashion, that this man was a man of men. - </p> - <p> - “Tim, you do not understand,” she urged. “You say he was a landsharp in - the South, and that he had to leave-” - </p> - <p> - “He had to vamoose, or take tar and feathers.” - </p> - <p> - “But he had to leave. And he came here preaching and healing; and he is a - hypocrite and a fraud—I know that now, my eyes are opened. He didn’t - do what he said he could do, and it killed Mary Jewell—the shock; - and there were other things he said he could do, and he didn’t do them. - Perhaps he is all bad, as you say—I don’t think so. But he did some - good things, and through him I’ve felt as I’ve never felt before about God - and life, and about Walt and the baby—as though I’ll see them again, - sure. I’ve never felt that before. It was all as if they were lost in the - hills, and no trail home, or out to where they are. Like as not God was - working in him all the time, Tim; and he failed because he counted too - much on the little he had, and made up for what he hadn’t by what he - pretended.” - </p> - <p> - “He can pretend to himself, or God Almighty, or that lot down there”—he - jerked a finger towards the town—“but to you, a girl, and a Pioneer—” - </p> - <p> - A flash of humour shot into her eyes at his last words, then they filled - with tears, through which the smile shone. To pretend to “a Pioneer”—the - splendid vanity and egotism of the West! - </p> - <p> - “He didn’t pretend to me, Tim. People don’t usually have to pretend to - like me.” - </p> - <p> - “You know what I’m driving at.” - </p> - <p> - “Yes, yes, I know. And whatever he is, you’ve said that you will save him. - I’m straight, you know that. Somehow, what I felt from his preaching—well, - everything got sort of mixed up with him, and he was—was different. - It was like the long dream of Walt and the baby, and he a part of it. I - don’t know what I felt, or what I might have felt for him. I’m a woman—I - can’t understand. But I know what I feel now. I never want to see him - again on earth—or in Heaven. It needn’t be necessary even in Heaven; - but what happened between God and me through him stays, Tim; and so you - must help him get away safe. It’s in your hands—you say they left it - to you.” - </p> - <p> - “I don’t trust that too much.” - </p> - <p> - Suddenly he pointed out of the window towards the town. “See, I’m right; - there they are, a dozen of ‘em mounted. They’re off, to run him down.” - </p> - <p> - Her face paled; she glanced towards the Hill of Healing. “He’s got an - hour’s start,” she said; “he’ll get into the mountains and be safe.” - </p> - <p> - “If they don’t catch him ‘fore that.” - </p> - <p> - “Or if you don’t get to him first,” she said, with nervous insistence. - </p> - <p> - He turned to her with a hard look; then, as he met her soft, fearless, - beautiful eyes, his own grew gentle. “It takes a lot of doing. Yet I’ll do - it for you, Laura,” he said. “But it’s hard on the Pioneers.” Once more - her humour flashed, and it seemed to him that “getting religion” was not - so depressing after all—wouldn’t be, anyhow, when this nasty job was - over. “The Pioneers will get over it, Tim,” she rejoined. “They’ve - swallowed a lot in their time. Heaven’s gate will have to be pretty wide - to let in a real Pioneer,” she added. “He takes up so much room—ah, - Timothy Denton!” she added, with an outburst of whimsical merriment. - </p> - <p> - “It hasn’t spoiled you—being converted, has it?” he said, and gave a - quick little laugh, which somehow did more for his ancient cause with her - than all he had ever said or done. Then he stepped outside and swung into - his saddle. - </p> - <p> - It had been a hard and anxious ride, but Tim had won, and was keeping his - promise. The night had fallen before he got to the mountains, which he and - the Pioneers had seen the Faith Healer enter. They had had four miles’ - start of Tim, and had ridden fiercely, and they entered the gulch into - which the refugee had disappeared still two miles ahead. - </p> - <p> - The invincibles had seen Tim coming, but they had determined to make a - sure thing of it, and would themselves do what was necessary with the - impostor, and take no chances. So they pressed their horses, and he saw - them swallowed by the trees, as darkness gathered. Changing his course, he - entered the familiar hills, which he knew better than any pioneer of - Jansen, and rode a diagonal course over the trail they would take. But - night fell suddenly, and there was nothing to do but to wait till morning. - There was comfort in this—the others must also wait, and the refugee - could not go far. In any case, he must make for settlement or perish, - since he had left behind his sheep and his cow. - </p> - <p> - It fell out better than Tim hoped. The Pioneers were as good hunters as - was he, their instinct was as sure, their scouts and trackers were many, - and he was but one. They found the Faith Healer by a little stream, eating - bread and honey, and, like an ancient woodlander drinking from a horn—relics - of his rank imposture. He made no resistance. They tried him formally, if - perfunctorily; he admitted his imposture, and begged for his life. Then - they stripped him naked, tied a bit of canvas round his waist, fastened - him to a tree, and were about to complete his punishment when Tim Denton - burst upon them. - </p> - <p> - Whether the rage Tim showed was all real or not; whether his accusations - of bad faith came from so deeply wounded a spirit as he would have them - believe, he was not likely to tell; but he claimed the prisoner as his - own, and declined to say what he meant to do. - </p> - <p> - When, however, they saw the abject terror of the Faith Healer as he begged - not to be left alone with Tim—for they had not meant death, and - Ingles thought he read death in Tim’s ferocious eyes—they laughed - cynically, and left it to Tim to uphold the honour of Jansen and the - Pioneers. - </p> - <p> - As they disappeared, the last thing they saw was Tim with his back to - them, his hands on his hips, and a knife clasped in his fingers. - </p> - <p> - “He’ll lift his scalp and make a monk of him,” chuckled the oldest and - hardest of them. - </p> - <p> - “Dat Tim will cut his heart out, I t’ink-bagosh!” said Nicolle Terasse, - and took a drink of white-whiskey. For a long time Tim stood looking at - the other, until no sound came from the woods, whither the Pioneers had - gone. Then at last, slowly, and with no roughness, as the terror-stricken - impostor shrank and withered, he cut the cords. - </p> - <p> - “Dress yourself,” he said shortly, and sat down beside the stream, and - washed his face and hands, as though to cleanse them from contamination. - He appeared to take no notice of the other, though his ears keenly noted - every movement. - </p> - <p> - The impostor dressed nervously, yet slowly; he scarce comprehended - anything, except that he was not in immediate danger. When he had - finished, he stood looking at Tim, who was still seated on a log plunged - in meditation. - </p> - <p> - It seemed hours before Tim turned round, and now his face was quiet, if - set and determined. He walked slowly over, and stood looking at his victim - for some time without speaking. The other’s eyes dropped, and a greyness - stole over his features. This steely calm was even more frightening than - the ferocity which had previously been in his captor’s face. At length the - tense silence was broken. - </p> - <p> - “Wasn’t the old game good enough? Was it played out? Why did you take to - this? Why did you do it, Scranton?” - </p> - <p> - The voice quavered a little in reply. “I don’t know. Something sort of - pushed me into it.” - </p> - <p> - “How did you come to start it?” - </p> - <p> - There was a long silence, then the husky reply came. “I got a sickener - last time—” - </p> - <p> - “Yes, I remember, at Waywing.” - </p> - <p> - “I got into the desert, and had hard times—awful for a while. I - hadn’t enough to eat, and I didn’t know whether I’d die by hunger, or - fever, or Indians—or snakes.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, you were seeing snakes!” said Tim grimly. - </p> - <p> - “Not the kind you mean; I hadn’t anything to drink—” - </p> - <p> - “No, you never did drink, I remember—just was crooked, and slopped - over women. Well, about the snakes?” - </p> - <p> - “I caught them to eat, and they were poison-snakes often. And I wasn’t - quick at first to get them safe by the neck—they’re quick, too.” - </p> - <p> - Tim laughed inwardly. “Getting your food by the sweat of your brow—and - a snake in it, same as Adam! Well, was it in the desert you got your taste - for honey, too, same as John the Baptist—that was his name, if I - recomember?” He looked at the tin of honey on the ground. - </p> - <p> - “Not in the desert, but when I got to the grass-country.” - </p> - <p> - “How long were you in the desert?” - </p> - <p> - “Close to a year.” - </p> - <p> - Tim’s eyes opened wider. He saw that the man was speaking the truth. - </p> - <p> - “Got to thinking in the desert, and sort of willing things to come to - pass, and mooning along, you, and the sky, and the vultures, and the hot - hills, and the snakes, and the flowers—eh?” - </p> - <p> - “There weren’t any flowers till I got to the grass-country.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, cuss me, if you ain’t simple for your kind! I know all about that. - And when you got to the grass-country, you just picked up the honey, and - the flowers, and a calf, and a lamb, and a mule here and there, ‘without - money and without price,’ and walked on—that it?” - </p> - <p> - The other shrank before the steel in the voice, and nodded his head. - </p> - <p> - “But you kept thinking in the grass-country of what you’d felt and said - and done—and willed, in the desert, I suppose?” - </p> - <p> - Again the other nodded. - </p> - <p> - “It seemed to you in the desert, as if you’d saved your own life a hundred - times, as if you’d just willed food and drink and safety to come; as if - Providence had been at your elbow?” - </p> - <p> - “It was like a dream, and it stayed with me. I had to think in the desert - things I’d never thought before,” was the half-abstracted answer. - </p> - <p> - “You felt good in the desert?” The other hung his head in shame. - </p> - <p> - “Makes you seem pretty small, doesn’t it? You didn’t stay long enough, I - guess, to get what you were feeling for; you started in on the new racket - too soon. You never got really possessed that you was a sinner. I expect - that’s it.” - </p> - <p> - The other made no reply. - </p> - <p> - “Well, I don’t know much about such things. I was loose brought up; but - I’ve a friend”—Laura was before his eyes—“that says religion’s - all right, and long ago as I can remember my mother used to pray three - times a day—with grace at meals, too. I know there’s a lot in it for - them that need it; and there seems to be a lot of folks needing it, if I’m - to judge by folks down there at Jansen, specially when there’s the - laying-on of hands and the Healing Springs. Oh, that was a pigsty game, - Scranton, that about God giving you the Healing Springs, like Moses and - the rock! Why, I discovered them springs myself two years ago, before I - went South, and I guess God wasn’t helping me any—not after I’ve - kept out of His way as I have. But, anyhow, religion’s real; that’s my - sense of it; and you can get it, I bet, if you try. I’ve seen it got. A - friend of mine got it—got it under your preaching; not from you; but - you was the accident that brought it about, I expect. It’s funny—it’s - merakilous, but it’s so. Kneel down!” he added, with peremptory - suddenness. “Kneel, Scranton!” - </p> - <p> - In fear the other knelt. - </p> - <p> - “You’re going to get religion now—here. You’re going to pray for - what you didn’t get—and almost got—in the desert. You’re going - to ask forgiveness for all your damn tricks, and pray like a fanning-mill - for the spirit to come down. You ain’t a scoundrel at heart—a friend - of mine says so. You’re a weak vessel, cracked, perhaps. You’ve got to be - saved, and start right over again—and ‘Praise God from whom all - blessings flow!’ Pray—pray, Scranton, and tell the whole truth, and - get it—get religion. Pray like blazes. You go on, and pray out loud. - Remember the desert, and Mary Jewell, and your mother—did you have a - mother, Scranton—say, did you have a mother, lad?” - </p> - <p> - Tim’s voice suddenly lowered before the last word, for the Faith Healer - had broken down in a torrent of tears. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, my mother—O God!” he groaned. - </p> - <p> - “Say, that’s right—that’s right—go on,” said the other, and - drew back a little, and sat down on a log. The man on his knees was - convulsed with misery. Denton, the world, disappeared. He prayed in agony. - Presently Tim moved uneasily, then got up and walked about; and at last, - with a strange, awed look, when an hour was past, he stole back into the - shadow of the trees, while still the wounded soul poured out its misery - and repentance. - </p> - <p> - Time moved on. A curious shyness possessed Tim now, a thing which he had - never felt in his life. He moved about self-consciously, awkwardly, until - at last there was a sudden silence over by the brook. - </p> - <p> - Tim looked, and saw the face of the kneeling man cleared, and quiet and - shining. He hesitated, then stepped out, and came over. - </p> - <p> - “Have you got it?” he asked quietly. “It’s noon now.” - </p> - <p> - “May God help me to redeem my past,” answered the other in a new voice. - </p> - <p> - “You’ve got it—sure?” Tim’s voice was meditative. “God has spoken to - me,” was the simple answer. “I’ve got a friend’ll be glad to hear that,” - he said; and once more, in imagination, he saw Laura Sloly standing at the - door of her home, with a light in her eyes he had never seen before. - </p> - <p> - “You’ll want some money for your journey?” Tim asked. - </p> - <p> - “I want nothing but to go away—far away,” was the low reply. - </p> - <p> - “Well, you’ve lived in the desert—I guess you can live in the - grass-country,” came the dry response. “Good-bye-and good luck, Scranton.” - </p> - <p> - Tim turned to go, moved on a few steps, then looked back. - </p> - <p> - “Don’t be afraid—they’ll not follow,” he said. “I’ll fix it for you - all right.” - </p> - <p> - But the man appeared not to hear; he was still on his knees. - </p> - <p> - Tim faced the woods once more. - </p> - <p> - He was about to mount his horse when he heard a step behind him. He turned - sharply—and faced Laura. “I couldn’t rest. I came out this morning. - I’ve seen everything,” she said. - </p> - <p> - “You didn’t trust me,” he said heavily. - </p> - <p> - “I never did anything else,” she answered. - </p> - <p> - He gazed half-fearfully into her eyes. “Well?” he asked. “I’ve done my - best, as I said I would.” - </p> - <p> - “Tim,” she said, and slipped a hand in his, “would you mind the religion—if - you had me?” - </p> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0016" id="link2H_4_0016"> - <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - THE LITTLE WIDOW OF JANSEN - </h2> - <p> - Her advent to Jansen was propitious. Smallpox in its most virulent form - had broken out in the French-Canadian portion of the town, and, coming - with some professional nurses from the East, herself an amateur, to attend - the sufferers, she worked with such skill and devotion that the official - thanks of the Corporation were offered her, together with a tiny gold - watch, the gift of grateful citizens. But she still remained on at Jansen, - saying always, however, that she was “going East in the spring.” - </p> - <p> - Five years had passed, and still she had not gone East, but remained - perched in the rooms she had first taken, over the Imperial Bank, while - the town grew up swiftly round her. And even when the young bank manager - married, and wished to take over the rooms, she sent him to the - right-about from his own premises in her gay, masterful way. The young - manager behaved well in the circumstances, because he had asked her to - marry him, and she had dismissed him with a warning against challenging - his own happiness—that was the way she had put it. Perhaps he was - galled the less because others had striven for the same prize, and had - been thrust back, with an almost tender misgiving as to their sense of - self-preservation and sanity. Some of them were eligible enough, and all - were of some position in the West. Yet she smiled them firmly away, to the - wonder of Jansen, and to its satisfaction, for was it not a tribute to all - that she would distinguish no particular unit by her permanent favour? But - for one so sprightly and almost frivolous in manner at times, the - self-denial seemed incongruous. She was unconventional enough to sit on - the side-walk with a half-dozen children round her blowing bubbles, or to - romp in any garden, or in the street, playing Puss-in-the-ring; yet this - only made her more popular. Jansen’s admiration was at its highest, - however, when she rode in the annual steeplechase with the best horsemen - of the province. She had the gift of doing as well as of being. - </p> - <p> - “‘Tis the light heart she has, and slippin’ in and out of things like a - humming-bird, no easier to ketch, and no longer to stay,” said Finden, the - rich Irish landbroker, suggestively to Father Bourassa, the huge - French-Canadian priest who had worked with her through all the dark weeks - of the smallpox epidemic, and who knew what lay beneath the outer gaiety. - She had been buoyant of spirit beside the beds of the sick, and her words - were full of raillery and humour, yet there was ever a gentle note behind - all; and the priest had seen her eyes shining with tears, as she bent over - some stricken sufferer bound upon an interminable journey. - </p> - <p> - “Bedad! as bright a little spark as ever struck off the steel,” added - Finden to the priest, with a sidelong, inquisitive look, “but a heart no - bigger than a marrowfat pea-selfishness, all self. Keepin’ herself for - herself when there’s manny a good man needin’ her. Mother o’ Moses, how - manny! From Terry O’Ryan, brother of a peer, at Latouche, to Bernard - Bapty, son of a millionaire, at Vancouver, there’s a string o’ them. All - pride and self; and as fair a lot they’ve been as ever entered for the - Marriage Cup. Now, isn’t that so, father?” - </p> - <p> - Finden’s brogue did not come from a plebeian origin. It was part of his - commercial equipment, an asset of his boyhood spent among the peasants on - the family estate in Galway. - </p> - <p> - Father Bourassa fanned himself with the black broadbrim hat he wore, and - looked benignly but quizzically on the wiry, sharp-faced Irishman. - </p> - <p> - “You t’ink her heart is leetla. But perhaps it is your mind not so big - enough to see—hein?” The priest laughed noiselessly, showing white - teeth. “Was it so selfish in Madame to refuse the name of Finden—n’est-ce - pas?” - </p> - <p> - Finden flushed, then burst into a laugh. “I’d almost forgotten I was one - of them—the first almost. Blessed be he that expects nothing, for - he’ll get it, sure. It was my duty, and I did it. Was she to feel that - Jansen did not price her high? Bedad, father, I rose betimes and did it, - before anny man should say he set me the lead. Before the carpet in the - parlour was down, and with the bare boards soundin’ to my words, I offered - her the name of Finden.” - </p> - <p> - “And so—the first of the long line! Bien, it is an honour.” The - priest paused a moment, looked at Finden with a curious reflective look, - and then said: “And so you t’ink there is no one; that she will say yes - not at all—no?” - </p> - <p> - They were sitting on Father Bourassa’s veranda, on the outskirts of the - town, above the great river, along which had travelled millions of bygone - people, fighting, roaming, hunting, trapping; and they could hear it - rushing past, see the swirling eddies, the impetuous currents, the - occasional rafts moving majestically down the stream. They were facing the - wild North, where civilisation was hacking and hewing and ploughing its - way to newer and newer cities, in an empire ever spreading to the Pole. - </p> - <p> - Finden’s glance loitered on this scene before he replied. At length, - screwing up one eye, and with a suggestive smile, he answered: “Sure, it’s - all a matter of time, to the selfishest woman. ‘Tis not the same with - women as with men; you see, they don’t get younger—that’s a point. - But”—he gave a meaning glance at the priest—“but perhaps she’s - not going to wait for that, after all. And there he rides, a fine figure - of a man, too, if I have to say it!” - </p> - <p> - “M’sieu’ Varley?” the priest responded, and watched a galloping horseman - to whom Finden had pointed, till he rounded the corner of a little wood. - </p> - <p> - “Varley, the great London surgeon, sure! Say, father, it’s a hundred to - one she’d take him, if—” - </p> - <p> - There was a curious look in Father Bourassa’s face, a cloud in his eyes. - He sighed. “London, it is ver’ far away,” he remarked obliquely. - </p> - <p> - “What’s to that? If she is with the right man, near or far is nothing.” - </p> - <p> - “So far—from home,” said the priest reflectively, but his eyes - furtively watched the other’s face. - </p> - <p> - “But home’s where man and wife are.” - </p> - <p> - The priest now looked him straight in the eyes. “Then, as you say, she - will not marry M’sieu’ Varley—hein?” - </p> - <p> - The humour died out of Finden’s face. His eyes met the priest’s eyes - steadily. “Did I say that? Then my tongue wasn’t making a fool of me, - after all. How did you guess I knew—everything, father?” - </p> - <p> - “A priest knows many t’ings—so.” - </p> - <p> - There was a moment of gloom, then the Irishman brightened. He came - straight to the heart of the mystery around which they had been - maneuvering. “Have you seen her husband—Meydon—this year? It - isn’t his usual time to come yet.” - </p> - <p> - Father Bourassa’s eyes drew those of his friend into, the light of a new - understanding and revelation. They understood and trusted each other. - </p> - <p> - “Helas! He is there in the hospital,” he answered, and nodded towards a - building not far away, which had been part of an old Hudson’s Bay - Company’s fort. It had been hastily adapted as a hospital for the smallpox - victims. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, it’s Meydon, is it, that bad case I heard of to-day?” - </p> - <p> - The priest nodded again and ‘pointed. “Voila, Madame Meydon, she is - coming. She has seen him—her hoosban’.” - </p> - <p> - Finden’s eyes followed the gesture. The little widow of Jansen was coming - from the hospital, walking slowly towards the river. - </p> - <p> - “As purty a woman, too—as purty and as straight bewhiles. What is - the matter with him—with Meydon?” Finden asked, after a moment. - </p> - <p> - “An accident in the woods—so. He arrive, it is las’ night, from - Great Slave Lake.” - </p> - <p> - Finden sighed. “Ten years ago he was a man to look at twice—before - he did It and got away. Now his own mother wouldn’t know him—bad - ‘cess to him! I knew him from the cradle almost. I spotted him here by a - knife-cut I gave him in the hand when we were lads together. A divil of a - timper always both of us had, but the good-nature was with me, and I - didn’t drink and gamble and carry a pistol. It’s ten years since he did - the killing, down in Quebec, and I don’t suppose the police will get him - now. He’s been counted dead. I recognised him here the night after I asked - her how she liked the name of Finden. She doesn’t know that I ever knew - him. And he didn’t recognise me-twenty-five years since we met before! It - would be better if he went under the sod. Is he pretty sick, father?” - </p> - <p> - “He will die unless the surgeon’s knife it cure him before twenty-four - hours, and—” - </p> - <p> - “And Doctor Brydon is sick, and Doctor Hadley away at Winnipeg, and this - is two hundred miles from nowhere! It looks as if the police’ll never get - him, eh?” - </p> - <p> - “You have not tell any one—never?” - </p> - <p> - Finden laughed. “Though I’m not a priest, I can lock myself up as tight as - anny. There’s no tongue that’s so tied, when tying’s needed, as the one - that babbles most bewhiles. Babbling covers a lot of secrets.” - </p> - <p> - “So you t’ink it better Meydon should die, as Hadley is away and Brydon is - sick-hein?” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, I think—” - </p> - <p> - Finden stopped short, for a horse’s hoofs sounded on the turf beside the - house, and presently Varley, the great London surgeon, rounded the corner - and stopped his horse in front of the veranda. - </p> - <p> - He lifted his hat to the priest. “I hear there’s a bad case at the - hospital,” he said. - </p> - <p> - “It is ver’ dangerous,” answered Father Bourassa; “but, voila, come in! - There is something cool to drink. Ah yes, he is ver’ bad, that man from - the Great Slave Lake.” - </p> - <p> - Inside the house, with the cooling drinks, Varley pressed his questions, - and presently, much interested, told at some length of singular cases - which had passed through his hands—one a man with his neck broken, - who had lived for six months afterward. - </p> - <p> - “Broken as a man’s neck is broken by hanging—dislocation, really—the - disjointing of the medulla oblongata, if you don’t mind technicalities,” - he said. “But I kept him living just the same. Time enough for him to - repent in and get ready to go. A most interesting case. He was a criminal, - too, and wanted to die; but you have to keep life going if you can, to the - last inch of resistance.” - </p> - <p> - The priest looked thoughtfully out of the window; Finden’s eyes were - screwed up in a questioning way, but neither made any response to Varley’s - remarks. There was a long minute’s silence. They were all three roused by - hearing a light footstep on the veranda. - </p> - <p> - Father Bourassa put down his glass and hastened into the hallway. Finden - caught a glimpse of a woman’s figure, and, without a word, passed abruptly - from the dining-room where they were, into the priest’s study, leaving - Varley alone. Varley turned to look after him, stared, and shrugged his - shoulders. - </p> - <p> - “The manners of the West,” he said good-humouredly, and turned again to - the hallway, from whence came the sound of the priest’s voice. Presently - there was another voice—a woman’s. He flushed slightly and - involuntarily straightened himself. - </p> - <p> - “Valerie,” he murmured. - </p> - <p> - An instant afterwards she entered the room with the priest. She was - dressed in a severely simple suit of grey, which set off to advantage her - slim, graceful figure. There seemed no reason why she should have been - called the little widow of Jansen, for she was not small, but she was very - finely and delicately made, and the name had been but an expression of - Jansen’s paternal feeling for her. She had always had a good deal of fresh - colour, but to-day she seemed pale, though her eyes had a strange - disturbing light. It was not that they brightened on seeing this man - before her; they had been brighter, burningly bright, when she left the - hospital, where, since it had been built, she had been the one visitor of - authority—Jansen had given her that honour. She had a gift of - smiling, and she smiled now, but it came from grace of mind rather than - from humour. As Finden had said, “She was for ever acting, and never doin’ - any harm by it.” - </p> - <p> - Certainly she was doing no harm by it now; nevertheless, it was acting. - Could it be otherwise, with what was behind her life—a husband who - had ruined her youth, had committed homicide, had escaped capture, but who - had not subsequently died, as the world believed he had done, so - circumstantial was the evidence. He was not man enough to make the - accepted belief in his death a fact. What could she do but act, since the - day she got a letter from the Far North, which took her out to Jansen, - nominally to nurse those stricken with smallpox under Father Bourassa’s - care, actually to be where her wretched husband could come to her once a - year, as he had asked with an impossible selfishness? - </p> - <p> - Each year she had seen him for an hour or less, giving him money, speaking - to him over a gulf so wide that it seemed sometimes as though her voice - could not be heard across it; each year opening a grave to look at the - embalmed face of one who had long since died in shame, which only brought - back the cruellest of all memories, that which one would give one’s best - years to forget. With a fortitude beyond description she had faced it, - gently, quietly, but firmly faced it—firmly, because she had to be - firm in keeping him within those bounds the invasion of which would have - killed her. And after the first struggle with his unchangeable brutality - it had been easier: for into his degenerate brain there had come a faint - understanding of the real situation and of her. He had kept his side of - the gulf, but gloating on this touch between the old luxurious, indulgent - life, with its refined vices, and this present coarse, hard life, where - pleasures were few and gross. The free Northern life of toil and hardship - had not refined him. He greedily hung over this treasure, which was not - for his spending, yet was his own—as though in a bank he had hoards - of money which he might not withdraw. - </p> - <p> - So the years had gone on, with their recurrent dreaded anniversaries, - carrying misery almost too great to be borne by this woman mated to the - loathed phantom of a sad, dead life; and when this black day of each year - was over, for a few days afterwards she went nowhere, was seen by none. - Yet, when she did appear again, it was with her old laughing manner, her - cheerful and teasing words, her quick response to the emotions of others. - </p> - <p> - So it had gone till Varley had come to follow the open air life for four - months, after a heavy illness due to blood-poisoning got in his surgical - work in London. She had been able to live her life without too great a - struggle till he came. Other men had flattered her vanity, had given her a - sense of power, had made her understand her possibilities, but nothing - more—nothing of what Varley brought with him. And before three - months had gone, she knew that no man had ever interested her as Varley - had done. Ten years before, she would not have appreciated or understood - him, this intellectual, clean-shaven, rigidly abstemious man, whose - pleasures belonged to the fishing-rod and the gun and the horse, and who - had come to be so great a friend of him who had been her best friend—Father - Bourassa. Father Bourassa had come to know the truth—not from her, - for she had ever been a Protestant, but from her husband, who, Catholic by - birth and a renegade from all religion, had had a moment of spurious - emotion, when he went and confessed to Father Bourassa and got absolution, - pleading for the priest’s care of his wife. Afterwards Father Bourassa - made up his mind that the confession had a purpose behind it other than - repentance, and he deeply resented the use to which he thought he was - being put—a kind of spy upon the beautiful woman whom Jansen loved, - and who, in spite of any outward flippancy, was above reproach. - </p> - <p> - In vital things the instinct becomes abnormally acute, and, one day, when - the priest looked at her commiseratingly, she had divined what moved him. - However it was, she drove him into a corner with a question to which he - dare not answer yes, but to which he might not answer no, and did not; and - she realised that he knew the truth, and she was the better for his - knowing, though her secret was no longer a secret. She was not aware that - Finden also knew. Then Varley came, bringing a new joy and interest in her - life, and a new suffering also, for she realised that if she were free, - and Varley asked her to marry him, she would consent. - </p> - <p> - But when he did ask her, she said no with a pang that cut her heart in - two. He had stayed his four months, and it was now six months, and he was - going at last-tomorrow. He had stayed to give her time to learn to say - yes, and to take her back with him to London; and she knew that he would - speak again to-day, and that she must say no again; but she had kept him - from saying the words till now. And the man who had ruined her life and - had poisoned her true spirit was come back broken and battered. He was - hanging between life and death; and now—for he was going to-morrow—Varley - would speak again. - </p> - <p> - The half-hour she had just spent in the hospital with Meydon had tried her - cruelly. She had left the building in a vortex of conflicting emotions, - with the call of duty and of honour ringing through a thousand other - voices of temptation and desire, the inner pleadings for a little - happiness while yet she was young. After she married Meydon, there had - only been a few short weeks of joy before her black disillusion came, and - she had realised how bitter must be her martyrdom. - </p> - <p> - When she left the hospital, she seemed moving in a dream, as one, - intoxicated by some elixir, might move unheeding among event and accident - and vexing life and roaring multitudes. And all the while the river - flowing through the endless prairies, high-banked, ennobled by living - woods, lipped with green, kept surging in her ears, inviting her, alluring - her—alluring her with a force too deep and powerful for weak human - nature to bear for long. It would ease her pain, it said; it would still - the tumult and the storm; it would solve her problem, it would give her - peace. But as she moved along the river-bank among the trees, she met the - little niece of the priest, who lived in his house, singing as though she - was born but to sing, a song which Finden had written and Father Bourassa - had set to music. Did not the distant West know Father Bourassa’s gift, - and did not Protestants attend Mass to hear him play the organ afterwards? - The fresh, clear voice of the child rang through the trees, stealing the - stricken heart away from the lure of the river: - </p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - “Will you come back home, where the young larks are singin’? - The door is open wide, and the bells of Lynn are ringin’; - There’s a little lake I know, - And a boat you used to row - To the shore beyond that’s quiet—will you come back home? - - Will you come back, darlin’? Never heed the pain and blightin’, - Never trouble that you’re wounded, that you bear the scars of - fightin’; - Here’s the luck o’ Heaven to you, - Here’s the hand of love will brew you - The cup of peace—ah, darlin’, will you come back home?” - </pre> - <p> - She stood listening for a few moments, and, under the spell of the fresh, - young voice, the homely, heart-searching words, and the intimate sweetness - of the woods, the despairing apathy lifted slowly away. She started - forwards again with a new understanding, her footsteps quickened. She - would go to Father Bourassa. He would understand. She would tell him all. - He would help her to do what now she knew she must do, ask Leonard Varley - to save her husband’s life—Leonard Varley to save her husband’s - life! - </p> - <p> - When she stepped upon the veranda of the priest’s house, she did not know - that Varley was inside. She had no time to think. She was ushered into the - room where he was, with the confusing fact of his presence fresh upon her. - She had had but a word or two with the priest, but enough for him to know - what she meant to do, and that it must be done at once. - </p> - <p> - Varley advanced to meet her. She shuddered inwardly to think what a - difference there was between the fallen creature she had left behind in - the hospital and this tall, dark, self-contained man, whose name was - familiar in the surgeries of Europe, who had climbed from being the son of - a clockmaker to his present distinguished place. - </p> - <p> - “Have you come for absolution, also?” he asked with a smile; “or is it to - get a bill of excommunication against your only enemy—there couldn’t - be more than one?” - </p> - <p> - Cheerful as his words were, he was shrewdly observing her, for her - paleness, and the strange light in her eyes, gave him a sense of anxiety. - He wondered what trouble was on her. - </p> - <p> - “Excommunication?” he repeated. - </p> - <p> - The unintended truth went home. She winced, even as she responded with - that quaint note in her voice which gave humour to her speech. “Yes, - excommunication,” she replied; “but why an enemy? Do we not need to - excommunicate our friends sometimes?” - </p> - <p> - “That is a hard saying,” he answered soberly. Tears sprang to her eyes, - but she mastered herself, and brought the crisis abruptly. - </p> - <p> - “I want you to save a man’s life,” she said, with her eyes looking - straight into his. “Will you do it?” - </p> - <p> - His face grew grave and eager. “I want you to save a man’s happiness,” he - answered. “Will you do it?” - </p> - <p> - “That man yonder will die unless your skill saves him,” she urged. - </p> - <p> - “This man here will go away unhappy and alone, unless your heart befriends - him,” he replied, coming closer to her. - </p> - <p> - “At sunrise to-morrow he goes.” He tried to take her hand. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, please, please,” she pleaded, with a quick, protesting gesture. - “Sunrise is far off, but the man’s fate is near, and you must save him. - You only can do so, for Doctor Hadley is away, and Doctor Brydon is sick, - and in any case Doctor Brydon dare not attempt the operation alone. It is - too critical and difficult, he says.” - </p> - <p> - “So I have heard,” he answered, with a new note in his voice, his - professional instinct roused in spite of himself. “Who is this man? What - interests you in him?” - </p> - <p> - “To how many unknown people have you given your skill for nothing—your - skill and all your experience to utter strangers, no matter how low or - poor! Is it not so? Well, I cannot give to strangers what you have given - to so many, but I can help in my own way.” - </p> - <p> - “You want me to see the man at once?” - </p> - <p> - “If you will.” - </p> - <p> - “What is his name? I know of his accident and the circumstances.” - </p> - <p> - She hesitated for an instant, then said, “He is called Draper—a - trapper and woodsman.” - </p> - <p> - “But I was going away to-morrow at sunrise. All my arrangements are made,” - he urged, his eyes holding hers, his passion swimming in his eyes again. - </p> - <p> - “But you will not see a man die, if you can save him?” she pleaded, unable - now to meet his look, its mastery and its depth. - </p> - <p> - Her heart had almost leaped with joy at the suggestion that he could not - stay; but as suddenly self-reproach and shame filled her mind, and she had - challenged him so. But yet, what right had she to sacrifice this man she - loved to the perverted criminal who had spoiled her youth and taken away - from her every dear illusion of her life and heart? By every right of - justice and humanity she was no more the wife of Henry Meydon than if she - had never seen him. He had forfeited every claim upon her, dragged in the - mire her unspotted life—unspotted, for in all temptation, in her - defenceless position, she had kept the whole commandment; she had, while - at the mercy of her own temperament, fought her way through all, with a - weeping heart and laughing lips. Had she not longed for a little home with - a great love, and a strong, true man? Ah, it had been lonely, bitterly - lonely! Yet she had remained true to the scoundrel, from whom she could - not free herself without putting him in the grasp of the law to atone for - his crime. She was punished for his crimes; she was denied the exercise of - her womanhood in order to shield him. Still she remembered that once she - had loved him, those years ago, when he first won her heart from those so - much better than he, who loved her so much more honestly; and this memory - had helped her in a way. She had tried to be true to it, that dead, lost - thing, of which this man who came once a year to see her, and now, lying - with his life at stake in the hospital, was the repellent ghost. - </p> - <p> - “Ah, you will not see him die?” she urged. - </p> - <p> - “It seems to move you greatly what happens to this man,” he said, his - determined dark eyes searching hers, for she baffled him. If she could - feel so much for a “casual,” why not a little more feeling for him? - Suddenly, as he drew her eyes to him again, there came the conviction that - they were full of feeling for him. They were sending a message, an - appealing, passionate message, which told him more than he had ever heard - from her or seen in her face before. Yes, she was his! Without a spoken - word she had told him so. What, then, held her back? But women were a race - by themselves, and he knew that he must wait till she chose to have him - know what she had unintentionally conveyed but now. - </p> - <p> - “Yes, I am moved,” she continued slowly. “Who can tell what this man might - do with his life, if it is saved! Don’t you think of that? It isn’t the - importance of a life that’s at stake; it’s the importance of living; and - we do not live alone, do we?” - </p> - <p> - His mind was made up. “I will not, cannot promise anything till I have - seen him. But I will go and see him, and I’ll send you word later what I - can do, or not do. Will that satisfy you? If I cannot do it, I will come - to say good-by.” - </p> - <p> - Her face was set with suppressed feeling. She held out her hand to him - impulsively, and was about to speak, but suddenly caught the hand away - again from his thrilling grasp and, turning hurriedly, left the room. In - the hall she met Father Bourassa. - </p> - <p> - “Go with him to the hospital,” she whispered, and disappeared through the - doorway. - </p> - <p> - Immediately after she had gone, a man came driving hard to bring Father - Bourassa to visit a dying Catholic in the prairie, and it was Finden who - accompanied Varley to the hospital, waited for him till his examination of - the “casual” was concluded, and met him outside. - </p> - <p> - “Can it be done?” he asked of Varley. “I’ll take word to Father Bourassa.” - </p> - <p> - “It can be done—it will be done,” answered Varley absently. “I do - not understand the man. He has been in a different sphere of life. He - tried to hide it, but the speech—occasionally! I wonder.” - </p> - <p> - “You wonder if he’s worth saving?” - </p> - <p> - Varley shrugged his shoulders impatiently. “No, that’s not what I meant.” - </p> - <p> - Finden smiled to himself. “Is it a difficult case?” he asked. - </p> - <p> - “Critical and delicate; but it has been my specialty.” - </p> - <p> - “One of the local doctors couldn’t do it, I suppose?” - </p> - <p> - “They would be foolish to try.” - </p> - <p> - “And you are going away at sunrise to-morrow?” - </p> - <p> - “Who told you that?” Varley’s voice was abrupt, impatient. - </p> - <p> - “I heard you say so-everybody knows it.... That’s a bad man yonder, - Varley.” He jerked his thumb towards the hospital. “A terrible bad man, - he’s been. A gentleman once, and fell down—fell down hard. He’s done - more harm than most men. He’s broken a woman’s heart and spoilt her life, - and, if he lives, there’s no chance for her, none at all. He killed a man, - and the law wants him; and she can’t free herself without ruining him; and - she can’t marry the man she loves because of that villain yonder, crying - for his life to be saved. By Josh and by Joan, but it’s a shame, a dirty - shame, it is!” - </p> - <p> - Suddenly Varley turned and gripped his arm with fingers of steel. - </p> - <p> - “His name—his real name?” - </p> - <p> - “His name’s Meydon—and a dirty shame it is, Varley.” - </p> - <p> - Varley was white. He had been leading his horse and talking to Finden. He - mounted quickly now, and was about to ride away, but stopped short again. - “Who knows—who knows the truth?” he asked. - </p> - <p> - “Father Bourassa and me—no others,” he answered. “I knew Meydon - thirty years ago.” - </p> - <p> - There was a moment’s hesitation, then Varley said hoarsely, “Tell me—tell - me all.” - </p> - <p> - When all was told, he turned his horse towards the wide waste of the - prairie, and galloped away. Finden watched him till he was lost to view - beyond the bluff. - </p> - <p> - “Now, a man like that, you can’t guess what he’ll do,” he said - reflectively. “He’s a high-stepper, and there’s no telling what - foolishness will get hold of him. It’d be safer if he got lost on the - prairie for twenty-four hours. He said that Meydon’s only got twenty-four - hours, if the trick isn’t done! Well—” - </p> - <p> - He took a penny from his pocket. “I’ll toss for it. Heads he does it, and - tails he doesn’t.” - </p> - <p> - He tossed. It came down heads. “Well, there’s one more fool in the world - than I thought,” he said philosophically, as though he had settled the - question; as though the man riding away into the prairie with a dark - problem to be solved had told the penny what he meant to do. - </p> - <p> - Mrs. Meydon, Father Bourassa, and Finden stood in the little waiting-room - of the hospital at Jansen, one at each window, and watched the wild - thunderstorm which had broken over the prairie. The white heliographs of - the elements flashed their warnings across the black sky, and the roaring - artillery of the thunder came after, making the circle of prairie and tree - and stream a theatre of anger and conflict. The streets of Jansen were - washed with flood, and the green and gold things of garden and field and - harvest crumbled beneath the sheets of rain. - </p> - <p> - The faces at the window of the little room of the hospital, however, were - but half-conscious of the storm; it seemed only an accompaniment of their - thoughts, to typify the elements of tragedy surrounding them. - </p> - <p> - For Varley there had been but one thing to do. A life might be saved, and - it was his duty to save it. He had ridden back from the prairie as the sun - was setting the night before, and had made all arrangements at the - hospital, giving orders that Meydon should have no food whatever till the - operation was performed the next afternoon, and nothing to drink except a - little brandy-and-water. - </p> - <p> - The operation was performed successfully, and Varley had issued from the - operating-room with the look of a man who had gone through an ordeal which - had taxed his nerve to the utmost, to find Valerie Meydon waiting, with a - piteous, dazed look in her eyes. But this look passed when she heard him - say, “All right!” The words brought a sense of relief, for if he had - failed it would have seemed almost unbearable in the circumstances—the - cup of trembling must be drunk to the dregs. - </p> - <p> - Few words had passed between them, and he had gone, while she remained - behind with Father Bourassa, till the patient should wake from the sleep - into which he had fallen when Varley left. - </p> - <p> - But within two hours they sent for Varley again, for Meydon was in evident - danger. Varley had come, and had now been with the patient for some time. - </p> - <p> - At last the door opened and Varley came in quickly. He beckoned to Mrs. - Meydon and to Father Bourassa. “He wishes to speak with you,” he said to - her. “There is little time.” - </p> - <p> - Her eyes scarcely saw him, as she left the room and passed to where Meydon - lay nerveless, but with wide-open eyes, waiting for her. The eyes closed, - however, before she reached the bed. Presently they opened again, but the - lids remained fixed. He did not hear what she said. - </p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - ...................... -</pre> - <p> - In the little waiting-room, Finden said to Varley, “What happened?” - </p> - <p> - “Food was absolutely forbidden, but he got it from another patient early - this morning while the nurse was out for a moment. It has killed him.” - </p> - <p> - “‘Twas the least he could do, but no credit’s due him. It was to be. I’m - not envying Father Bourassa nor her there with him.” - </p> - <p> - Varley made no reply. He was watching the receding storm with eyes which - told nothing. - </p> - <p> - Finden spoke once more, but Varley did not hear him. Presently the door - opened and Father Bourassa entered. He made a gesture of the hand to - signify that all was over. - </p> - <p> - Outside, the sun was breaking through the clouds upon the Western prairie, - and there floated through the evening air the sound of a child’s voice - singing beneath the trees that fringed the river: - </p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - “Will you come back, darlin’? Never heed the pain and blightin’, - Never trouble that you’re wounded, that you bear the scars of - fightin’; - Here’s the luck o’ Heaven to you, - Here’s the hand of love will brew you - The cup of peace-ah, darlin’, will you come back home?” - </pre> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0017" id="link2H_4_0017"> - <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - WATCHING THE RISE OF ORION - </h2> - <p> - “In all the wide border his steed was the best,” and the name and fame of - Terence O’Ryan were known from Strathcona to Qu’appelle. He had ambition - of several kinds, and he had the virtue of not caring who knew of it. He - had no guile, and little money; but never a day’s work was too hard for - him, and he took bad luck, when it came, with a jerk of the shoulder and a - good-natured surprise on his clean-shaven face that suited well his wide - grey eyes and large, luxurious mouth. He had an estate, half ranch, half - farm, with a French Canadian manager named Vigon, an old prospector who - viewed every foot of land in the world with the eye of the discoverer. - Gold, coal, iron, oil, he searched for them everywhere, making sure that - sooner or later he would find them. Once Vigon had found coal. That was - when he worked for a man called Constantine Jopp, and had given him great - profit; but he, the discoverer, had been put off with a horse and a - hundred dollars. He was now as devoted to Terence O’Ryan as he had been - faithful to Constantine Jopp, whom he cursed waking and sleeping. - </p> - <p> - In his time O’Ryan had speculated, and lost; he had floated a coal mine, - and “been had”; he had run for the local legislature, had been elected, - and then unseated for bribery committed by an agent; he had run races at - Regina, and won—he had won for three years in succession; and this - had kept him going and restored his finances when they were at their - worst. He was, in truth, the best rider in the country, and, so far, was - the owner also of the best three-year-old that the West had produced. He - achieved popularity without effort. The West laughed at his enterprises - and loved him; he was at once a public moral and a hero. It was a legend - of the West that his forbears had been kings in Ireland like Brian - Borhoime. He did not contradict this; he never contradicted anything. His - challenge to all fun and satire and misrepresentation was, “What’ll be the - differ a hundred years from now!” - </p> - <p> - He did not use this phrase, however, towards one experience—the - advent of Miss Molly Mackinder, the heiress, and the challenge that - reverberated through the West after her arrival. Philosophy deserted him - then; he fell back on the primary emotions of mankind. - </p> - <p> - A month after Miss Mackinder’s arrival at La Touche a dramatic performance - was given at the old fort, in which the officers of the Mounted Police - took part, together with many civilians who fancied themselves. By that - time the district had realised that Terry O’Ryan had surrendered to what - they called “the laying on of hands” by Molly Mackinder. It was not - certain, however, that the surrender was complete, because O’Ryan had been - wounded before, and yet had not been taken captive altogether. His - complete surrender seemed now more certain to the public because the lady - had a fortune of two hundred thousand dollars, and that amount of money - would be useful to an ambitious man in the growing West. It would, as Gow - Johnson said, “Let him sit back and view the landscape o’er, before he - puts his ploughshare in the mud.” - </p> - <p> - There was an outdoor scene in the play produced by the impetuous amateurs, - and dialogue had been interpolated by three “imps of fame” at the - suggestion of Constantine Jopp, one of the three, who bore malice towards - O’Ryan, though this his colleagues did not know distinctly. The scene was - a camp-fire—a starlit night, a colloquy between the three, upon - which the hero of the drama, played by Terry O’Ryan, should break, after - having, unknown to them, but in sight of the audience, overheard their - kind of intentions towards himself. - </p> - <p> - The night came. When the curtain rose for the third act there was exposed - a star-sown sky, in which the galaxy of Orion was shown with distinctness, - each star sharply twinkling from the electric power behind-a pretty scene - evoking great applause. O’Ryan had never seen this back curtain—they - had taken care that he should not—and, standing in the wings - awaiting his cue, he was unprepared for the laughter of the audience, - first low and uncertain, then growing, then insistent, and now a peal of - ungovernable mirth, as one by one they understood the significance of the - stars of Orion on the back curtain. - </p> - <p> - O’Ryan got his cue, and came on to an outburst of applause which shook the - walls. La Touche rose at him, among them Miss Molly Mackinder in the front - row with the notables. - </p> - <p> - He did not see the back curtain, or Orion blazing in the ultramarine blue. - According to the stage directions, he was to steal along the trees at the - wings, and listen to the talk of the men at the fire plotting against him, - who were presently to pretend good comradeship to his face. It was a - vigorous melodrama with some touches of true Western feeling. After - listening for a moment, O’Ryan was to creep up the stage again towards the - back curtain, giving a cue for his appearance. - </p> - <p> - When the hilarious applause at his entrance had somewhat subsided, the - three took up their parable, but it was not the parable of the play. They - used dialogue not in the original. It had a significance which the - audience were not slow to appreciate, and went far to turn “The Sunburst - Trail” at this point into a comedy-farce. When this new dialogue began, - O’Ryan could scarcely trust his ears, or realise what was happening. - </p> - <p> - “Ah, look,” said Dicky Fergus at the fire, “as fine a night as ever I saw - in the West! The sky’s a picture. You could almost hand the stars down, - they’re so near.” - </p> - <p> - “What’s that clump together on the right—what are they called in - astronomy?” asked Constantine Jopp, with a leer. - </p> - <p> - “Orion is the name—a beauty, ain’t it?” answered Fergus. - </p> - <p> - “I’ve been watching Orion rise,” said the third—Holden was his name. - “Many’s the time I’ve watched Orion rising. Orion’s the star for me. Say, - he wipes ‘em all out—right out. Watch him rising now.” - </p> - <p> - By a manipulation of the lights Orion moved up the back curtain slowly, - and blazed with light nearer the zenith. And La Touche had more than the - worth of its money in this opening to the third act of the play. O’Ryan - was a favourite, at whom La Touche loved to jeer, and the parable of the - stars convulsed them. - </p> - <p> - At the first words O’Ryan put a hand on himself and tried to grasp the - meaning of it all, but his entrance and the subsequent applause had - confused him. Presently, however, he turned to the back curtain, as Orion - moved slowly up the heavens, and found the key to the situation. He - gasped. Then he listened to the dialogue which had nothing to do with “The - Sunburst Trail.” - </p> - <p> - “What did Orion do, and why does he rise? Has he got to rise? Why was the - gent called Orion in them far-off days?” asked Holden. - </p> - <p> - “He did some hunting in his time—with a club,” Fergus replied. “He - kept making hits, he did. Orion was a spoiler. When he took the field - there was no room for the rest of the race. Why does he rise? Because it - is a habit. They could always get a rise out of Orion. The Athens - Eirenicon said that yeast might fail to rise, but touch the button and - Orion would rise like a bird.” - </p> - <p> - At that instant the galaxy jerked up the back curtain again, and when the - audience could control itself, Constantine Jopp, grinning meanly, asked: - </p> - <p> - “Why does he wear the girdle?” - </p> - <p> - “It is not a girdle—it is a belt,” was Dicky Fergus’s reply. “The - gods gave it to him because he was a favourite. There was a lady called - Artemis—she was the last of them. But he went visiting with Eos, - another lady of previous acquaintance, down at a place called Ortygia, and - Artemis shot him dead with a shaft Apollo had given her; but she didn’t - marry Apollo neither. She laid Orion out on the sky, with his glittering - belt, around him. And Orion keeps on rising.” - </p> - <p> - “Will he ever stop rising?” asked Holden. - </p> - <p> - Followed for the conspirators a disconcerting moment; for, when the - laughter had subsided, a lazy voice came from the back of the hall, “He’ll - stop long enough to play with Apollo a little, I guess.” - </p> - <p> - It was Gow Johnson who had spoken, and no man knew Terry O’Ryan better, or - could gauge more truly the course he would take. He had been in many an - enterprise, many a brush with O’Ryan, and his friendship would bear any - strain. - </p> - <p> - O’Ryan recovered himself from the moment he saw the back curtain, and he - did not find any fun in the thing. It took a hold on him out of all - proportion to its importance. He realised that he had come to the parting - of the ways in his life. It suddenly came upon him that something had been - lacking in him in the past; and that his want of success in many things - had not been wholly due to bad luck. He had been eager, enterprising, a - genius almost at seeing good things; and yet others had reaped where he - had sown. He had believed too much in his fellow-man. For the first time - in his life he resented the friendly, almost affectionate satire of his - many friends. It was amusing, it was delightful; but down beneath it all - there was a little touch of ridicule. He had more brains than any of them, - and he had known it in a way; he had led them sometimes, too, as on raids - against cattle-stealers, and in a brush with half-breeds and Indians; as - when he stood for the legislature; but he felt now for the first time that - he had not made the most of himself, that there was something hurting to - self-respect in this prank played upon him. When he came to that point his - resentment went higher. He thought of Molly Mackinder, and he heard all - too acutely the vague veiled references to her in their satire. By the - time Gow Johnson spoke he had mastered himself, however, and had made up - his mind. He stood still for a moment. - </p> - <p> - “Now, please, my cue,” he said quietly and satirically from the trees near - the wings. - </p> - <p> - He was smiling, but Gow Johnson’s prognostication was right; and ere long - the audience realised that he was right. There was standing before them - not the Terry O’Ryan they had known, but another. He threw himself fully - into his part—a young rancher made deputy sheriff, who by the - occasional exercise of his duty had incurred the hatred of a small - floating population that lived by fraud, violence, and cattle-stealing. - The conspiracy was to raid his cattle, to lure him to pursuit, to ambush - him, and kill him. Terry now played the part with a naturalness and force - which soon lifted the play away from the farcical element introduced into - it by those who had interpolated the gibes at himself. They had gone a - step too far. - </p> - <p> - “He’s going large,” said Gow Johnson, as the act drew near its close, and - the climax neared, where O’Ryan was to enter upon a physical struggle with - his assailants. “His blood’s up. There’ll be hell to pay.” - </p> - <p> - To Gow Johnson the play had instantly become real, and O’Ryan an injured - man at bay, the victim of the act—not of the fictitious characters - of the play, but of the three men, Fergus, Holden, and Constantine Jopp, - who had planned the discomfiture of O’Ryan; and he felt that the victim’s - resentment would fall heaviest on Constantine Jopp, the bully, an old - schoolmate of Terry’s. - </p> - <p> - Jopp was older than O’Ryan by three years, which in men is little, but in - boys, at a certain time of life, is much. It means, generally, weight and - height, an advantage in a scrimmage. Constantine Jopp had been the plague - and tyrant of O’Ryan’s boyhood. He was now a big, leering fellow with much - money of his own, got chiefly from the coal discovered on his place by - Vigon, the half-breed French Canadian. He had a sense of dark and - malicious humour, a long horse-like face, with little beady eyes and a - huge frame. - </p> - <p> - Again and again had Terry fought him as a boy at school, and often he had - been badly whipped, but he had never refused the challenge of an insult - when he was twelve and Jopp fifteen. The climax to their enmity at school - had come one day when Terry was seized with a cramp while bathing, and - after having gone down twice was rescued by Jopp, who dragged him out by - the hair of the head. He had been restored to consciousness on the bank - and carried to his home, where he lay ill for days. During the course of - the slight fever which followed the accident his hair was cut close to his - head. Impetuous always, his first thought was to go and thank Constantine - Jopp for having saved his life. As soon as he was able he went forth to - find his rescuer, and met him suddenly on turning a corner of the street. - Before he could stammer out the gratitude that was in his heart, Jopp, - eyeing him with a sneering smile, said drawlingly: - </p> - <p> - “If you’d had your hair cut like that I couldn’t have got you out, could - I? Holy, what a sight! Next time I’ll take you by the scruff, putty-face—bah!” - </p> - <p> - That was enough for Terry. He had swallowed the insult, stuttered his - thanks to the jeering laugh of the lank bully, and had gone home and cried - in shame and rage. - </p> - <p> - It was the one real shadow in his life. Ill luck and good luck had been - taken with an equable mind; but the fact that he must, while he lived, own - the supreme debt of his life to a boy and afterwards to a man whom he - hated by instinct was a constant cloud on him. Jopp owned him. For some - years they did not meet, and then at last they again were thrown together - in the West, when Jopp settled at La Touche. It was gall and wormwood to - Terry, but he steeled himself to be friendly, although the man was as - great a bully as the boy, as offensive in mind and character; but withal - acute and able in his way, and with a reputation for commercial sharpness - which would be called by another name in a different civilisation. They - met constantly, and O’Ryan always put a hand on himself, and forced - himself to be friendly. Once when Jopp became desperately ill there had - been—though he fought it down, and condemned himself in every term - of reproach—a sense of relief in the thought that perhaps his - ancient debt would now be cancelled. It had gone on so long. And - Constantine Jopp had never lost an opportunity of vexing him, of torturing - him, of giving veiled thrusts, which he knew O’Ryan could not resent. It - was the constant pin-prick of a mean soul, who had an advantage of which - he could never be dispossessed—unless the ledger was balanced in - some inscrutable way. - </p> - <p> - Apparently bent on amusement only, and hiding his hatred from his - colleagues, Jopp had been the instigator and begetter of the huge joke of - the play; but it was the brains of Dick Fergus which had carried it out, - written the dialogue, and planned the electric appliances of the back - curtain—for he was an engineer and electrician. Neither he nor - Holden had known the old antipathy of Terry and Constantine Jopp. There - was only one man who knew the whole truth, and that was Gow Johnson, to - whom Terry had once told all. At the last moment Fergus had interpolated - certain points in the dialogue which were not even included at rehearsal. - These referred to Apollo. He had a shrewd notion that Jopp had an idea of - marrying Molly Mackinder if he could, cousins though they were; and he was - also aware that Jopp, knowing Molly’s liking for Terry, had tried to - poison her mind against him, through suggestive gossip about a little - widow at Jansen, thirty miles away. He had in so far succeeded that, on - the very day of the performance, Molly had declined to be driven home from - the race-course by Terry, despite the fact that Terry had won the chief - race and owned the only dog-cart in the West. - </p> - <p> - As the day went on Fergus realised, as had Gow Johnson, that Jopp had - raised a demon. The air was electric. The play was drawing near to its - climax—an attempt to capture the deputy sheriff, tie him to a tree, - and leave him bound and gagged alone in the waste. There was a glitter in - Terry’s eyes, belying the lips which smiled in keeping with the character - he presented. A look of hardness was stamped on his face, and the outlines - of the temples were as sharp as the chin was set and the voice slow and - penetrating. - </p> - <p> - Molly Mackinder’s eyes were riveted on him. She sat very still, her hands - clasped in her lap, watching his every move. Instinct told her that Terry - was holding himself in; that some latent fierceness and iron force in him - had emerged into life; and that he meant to have revenge on Constantine - Jopp one way or another, and that soon; for she had heard the rumour - flying through the hall that her cousin was the cause of the practical - joke just played. From hints she had had from Constantine that very day - she knew that the rumour was the truth; and she recalled now with - shrinking dislike the grimace accompanying the suggestion. She had not - resented it then, being herself angry with Terry because of the little - widow at Jansen. - </p> - <p> - Presently the silence in the hall became acute; the senses of the audience - were strained to the utmost. The acting before them was more realistic - than anything they had ever seen, or were ever likely to see again in La - Touche. All three conspirators, Fergus, Holden, and Jopp, realised that - O’Ryan’s acting had behind it an animal anger which transformed him. When - he looked into their eyes it was with a steely directness harder and - fiercer than was observed by the audience. Once there was occasion for - O’Ryan to catch Fergus by the arm, and Fergus winced from the grip. When - standing in the wings with Terry he ventured to apologise playfully for - the joke, but Terry made no answer; and once again he had whispered - good-naturedly as they stood together on the stage; but the reply had been - a low, scornful laugh. Fergus realised that a critical moment was at hand. - The play provided for some dialogue between Jopp and Terry, and he - observed with anxiety that Terry now interpolated certain phrases meant to - warn Constantine, and to excite him to anger also. - </p> - <p> - The moment came upon them sooner than the text of the play warranted. - O’Ryan deliberately left out several sentences, and gave a later cue, and - the struggle for his capture was precipitated. Terry meant to make the - struggle real. So thrilling had been the scene that to an extent the - audience was prepared for what followed; but they did not grasp the full - reality—that the play was now only a vehicle for a personal issue of - a desperate character. No one had ever seen O’Ryan angry; and now that the - demon of rage was on him, directed by a will suddenly grown to its full - height, they saw not only a powerful character in a powerful melodrama, - but a man of wild force. When the three desperadoes closed in on O’Ryan, - and, with a blow from the shoulder which was not a pretence, he sent - Holden into a far corner gasping for breath and moaning with pain, the - audience broke out into wild cheering. It was superb acting, they thought. - As most of them had never seen the play, they were not surprised when - Holden did not again join the attack on the deputy sheriff. Those who did - know the drama—among them Molly Mackinder—became dismayed, - then anxious. Fergus and Jopp knew well from the blow O’Ryan had given - that, unless they could drag him down, the end must be disaster to some - one. They were struggling with him for personal safety now. The play was - forgotten, though mechanically O’Ryan and Fergus repeated the exclamations - and the few phrases belonging to the part. Jopp was silent, fighting with - a malice which belongs to only half-breed, or half-bred, natures; and from - far back in his own nature the distant Indian strain in him was working in - savage hatred. The two were desperately hanging on to O’Ryan like pumas on - a grizzly, when suddenly, with a twist he had learned from Ogami the Jap - on the Smoky River, the slim Fergus was slung backward to the ground with - the tendons of his arm strained and the arm itself useless for further - work. There remained now Constantine Jopp, heavier and more powerful than - O’Ryan. - </p> - <p> - For O’Ryan the theatre, the people, disappeared. He was a boy again on the - village green, with the bully before him who had tortured his young days. - He forgot the old debt to the foe who saved his life; he forgot - everything, except that once again, as of old, Constantine Jopp was - fighting him, with long, strong arms trying to bring him to the ground. - Jopp’s superior height gave him an advantage in a close grip; the strength - of his gorilla-like arms was difficult to withstand. Both were forgetful - of the world, and the two other injured men, silent and awed, were - watching the fight, in which one of them, at least, was powerless to take - part. - </p> - <p> - The audience was breathless. Most now saw the grim reality of the scene - before them; and when at last O’Ryan’s powerful right hand got a grip upon - the throat of Jopp, and they saw the grip tighten, tighten, and Jopp’s - face go from red to purple, a hundred people gasped. Excited men made as - though to move toward the stage; but the majority still believed that it - all belonged to the play, and shouted “Sit down!” - </p> - <p> - Suddenly the voice of Gow Johnson was heard “Don’t kill him—let go, - boy!” - </p> - <p> - The voice rang out with sharp anxiety, and pierced the fog of passion and - rage in which O’Ryan was moving. He realised what he was doing, the real - sense of it came upon him. Suddenly he let go the lank throat of his - enemy, and, by a supreme effort, flung him across the stage, where Jopp - lay resting on his hands, his bleared eyes looking at Terry with the fear - and horror still in them which had come with that tightening grip on his - throat. - </p> - <p> - Silence fell suddenly on the theatre. The audience was standing. A woman - sobbed somewhere in a far corner, but the rest were dismayed and - speechless. A few steps before them all was Molly Mackinder, white and - frightened, but in her eyes was a look of understanding as she gazed at - Terry. Breathing hard, Terry stood still in the middle of the stage, the - red fog not yet gone out of his eyes, his hands clasped at his side, - vaguely realising the audience again. Behind him was the back curtain in - which the lights of Orion twinkled aggressively. The three men who had - attacked him were still where he had thrown them. - </p> - <p> - The silence was intense, the strain oppressive. But now a drawling voice - came from the back of the hall. “Are you watching the rise of Orion?” it - said. It was the voice of Gow Johnson. - </p> - <p> - The strain was broken; the audience dissolved in laughter; but it was not - hilarious; it was the nervous laughter of relief, touched off by a native - humour always present in the dweller of the prairie. - </p> - <p> - “I beg your pardon,” said Terry quietly and abstractedly to the audience. - </p> - <p> - And the scene-shifter bethought himself and let down the curtain. - </p> - <p> - The fourth act was not played that night. The people had had more than the - worth of their money. In a few moments the stage was crowded with people - from the audience, but both Jopp and O’Ryan had disappeared. - </p> - <p> - Among the visitors to the stage was Molly Mackinder. There was a meaning - smile upon her face as she said to Dicky Fergus: - </p> - <p> - “It was quite wonderful, wasn’t it—like a scene out of the classics—the - gladiators or something?” - </p> - <p> - Fergus gave a wary smile as he answered: “Yes. I felt like saying Ave - Caesar, Ave! and I watched to see Artemis drop her handkerchief.” - </p> - <p> - “She dropped it, but you were too busy to pick it up. It would have been a - useful sling for your arm,” she added with thoughtful malice. “It seemed - so real—you all acted so well, so appropriately. And how you keep it - up!” she added, as he cringed when some one knocked against his elbow, - hurting the injured tendons. - </p> - <p> - Fergus looked at her meditatively before he answered. “Oh, I think we’ll - likely keep it up for some time,” he rejoined ironically. - </p> - <p> - “Then the play isn’t finished?” she added. “There is another act? Yes, I - thought there was, the programme said four.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh yes, there’s another act,” he answered, “but it isn’t to be played - now; and I’m not in it.” - </p> - <p> - “No, I suppose you are not in it. You really weren’t in the last act. Who - will be in it?” - </p> - <p> - Fergus suddenly laughed outright, as he looked at Holden expostulating - intently to a crowd of people round him. “Well, honour bright, I don’t - think there’ll be anybody in it except little Conny Jopp and gentle Terry - O’Ryan; and Conny mayn’t be in it very long. But he’ll be in it for a - while, I guess. You see, the curtain came down in the middle of a - situation, not at the end of it. The curtain has to rise again.” - </p> - <p> - “Perhaps Orion will rise again—you think so?” She laughed in satire; - for Dicky Fergus had made love to her during the last three months with - unsuppressed activity, and she knew him in his sentimental moments; which - is fatal. It is fatal if, in a duet, one breathes fire and the other - frost. - </p> - <p> - “If you want my opinion,” he said in a lower voice, as they moved towards - the door, while people tried to listen to them—“if you want it - straight, I think Orion has risen—right up where shines the evening - star—Oh, say, now,” he broke off, “haven’t you had enough fun out of - me? I tell you, it was touch and go. He nearly broke my arm—would - have done it, if I hadn’t gone limp to him; and your cousin Conny Jopp, - little Conny Jopp, was as near Kingdom Come as a man wants at his age. I - saw an elephant go ‘must’ once in India, and it was as like O’Ryan as - putty is to dough. It isn’t all over either, for O’Ryan will forget and - forgive, and Jopp won’t. He’s your cousin, but he’s a sulker. If he has to - sit up nights to do it, he’ll try to get back on O’Ryan. He’ll sit up - nights, but he’ll do it, if he can. And whatever it is, it won’t be - pretty.” - </p> - <p> - Outside the door they met Gow Johnson, excitement in his eyes. He heard - Fergus’s last words. - </p> - <p> - “He’ll see Orion rising if he sits up nights,” Gow Johnson said. “The game - is with Terry—at last.” Then he called to the dispersing gossiping - crowd: “Hold on—hold on, you people. I’ve got news for you. Folks, - this is O’Ryan’s night. It’s his in the starry firmament. Look at him - shine,” he cried, stretching out his arm towards the heavens, where the - glittering galaxy hung near the zenith. “Terry O’Ryan, our O’Ryan—he’s - struck oil—on his ranch it’s been struck. Old Vigon found it. - Terry’s got his own at last. O’Ryan’s in it—in it alone. Now, let’s - hear the prairie-whisper,” he shouted, in a great raucous voice. “Let’s - hear the prairie-whisper. What is it?” - </p> - <p> - The crowd responded in a hoarse shout for O’Ryan and his fortune. Even the - women shouted—all except Molly Mackinder. She was wondering if - O’Ryan risen would be the same to her as O’Ryan rising. She got into her - carriage with a sigh, though she said to the few friends with her: - </p> - <p> - “If it’s true, it’s splendid. He deserves it too. Oh, I’m glad—I’m - so glad.” She laughed; but the laugh was a little hysterical. - </p> - <p> - She was both glad and sorry. Yet as she drove home over the prairie she - was silent. Far off in the east was a bright light. It was a bonfire built - on O’Ryan’s ranch, near where he had struck oil—struck it rich. The - light grew and grew, and the prairie was alive with people hurrying - towards it. La Touche should have had the news hours earlier, but the - half-breed French-Canadian, Vigon, who had made the discovery, and had - started for La Touche with the news, went suddenly off his head with - excitement, and had ridden away into the prairie fiercely shouting his joy - to an invisible world. The news had been brought in later by a farmhand. - </p> - <p> - Terry O’Ryan had really struck oil, and his ranch was a scene of decent - revelry, of which Gow Johnson was master. But the central figure of it - all, the man who had, in truth, risen like a star, had become to La Touche - all at once its notoriety as well as its favourite, its great man as well - as its friend, he was nowhere to be found. He had been seen riding full - speed into the prairie towards the Kourmash Wood, and the starlit night - had swallowed him. Constantine Jopp had also disappeared; but at first no - one gave that thought or consideration. - </p> - <p> - As the night went on, however, a feeling began to stir which it is not - good to rouse in frontier lands. It is sure to exhibit itself in forms - more objective than are found in great populations where methods of - punishment are various, and even when deadly are often refined. But - society in new places has only limited resources, and is thrown back on - primary ways and means. La Touche was no exception, and the keener - spirits, to whom O’Ryan had ever been “a white man,” and who so rejoiced - in his good luck now that they drank his health a hundred times in his own - whiskey and cider, were simmering with desire for a public reproval of - Constantine Jopp’s conduct. Though it was pointed out to them by the - astute Gow Johnson that Fergus and Holden had participated in the colossal - joke of the play, they had learned indirectly also the whole truth - concerning the past of the two men. They realised that Fergus and Holden - had been duped by Jopp into the escapade. Their primitive sense of justice - exonerated the humourists and arraigned the one malicious man. As the - night wore on they decided on the punishment to be meted out by La Touche - to the man who had not “acted on the square.” - </p> - <p> - Gow Johnson saw, too late, that he had roused a spirit as hard to appease - as the demon roused in O’Ryan earlier in the evening. He would have - enjoyed the battue of punishment under ordinary circumstances; but he knew - that Miss Molly Mackinder would be humiliated and indignant at the - half-savage penalty they meant to exact. He had determined that O’Ryan - should marry her; and this might be an obstruction in the path. It was - true that O’Ryan now would be a rich man—one of the richest in the - West, unless all signs failed; but meanwhile a union of fortunes would - only be an added benefit. Besides, he had seen that O’Ryan was in earnest, - and what O’Ryan wanted he himself wanted even more strongly. He was not - concerned greatly for O’Ryan’s absence. He guessed that Terry had ridden - away into the night to work off the dark spirit that was on him, to have - it out with himself. Gow Johnson was a philosopher. He was twenty years - older than O’Ryan, and he had studied his friend as a pious monk his - missal. - </p> - <p> - He was right in his judgment. When Terry left the theatre he was like one - in a dream, every nerve in his body at tension, his head aflame, his - pulses throbbing. For miles he rode away into the waste along the northern - trail, ever away from La Touche and his own home. He did not know of the - great good fortune that had come to him; and if, in this hour, he had - known, he would not have cared. As he rode on and on remorse drew him into - its grasp. Shame seized him that he had let passion be his master, that he - had lost his self-control, had taken a revenge out of all proportion to - the injury and insult to himself. It did not ease his mind that he knew - Constantine Jopp had done the thing out of meanness and malice; for he was - alive to-night in the light of the stars, with the sweet crisp air blowing - in his face, because of an act of courage on the part of his schooldays’ - foe. He remembered now that, when he was drowning, he had clung to Jopp - with frenzied arms and had endangered the bully’s life also. The long - torture of owing this debt to so mean a soul was on him still, was rooted - in him; but suddenly, in the silent searching night, some spirit whispered - in his ear that this was the price which he must pay for his life saved to - the world, a compromise with the Inexorable Thing. On the verge of - oblivion and the end, he had been snatched back by relenting Fate, which - requires something for something given, when laws are overridden and doom - defeated. Yes, the price he was meant to pay was gratitude to one of - shrivelled soul and innate antipathy; and he had not been man enough to - see the trial through to the end! With a little increased strain put upon - his vanity and pride he had run amuck. Like some heathen gladiator he had - ravaged in the ring. He had gone down into the basements of human life and - there made a cockpit for his animal rage, till, in the contest, brain and - intellect had been saturated by the fumes and sweat of fleshly fury. - </p> - <p> - How quiet the night was, how soothing to the fevered mind and body, how - the cool air laved the heated head and flushed the lungs of the rheum of - passion! He rode on and on, farther and farther away from home, his back - upon the scenes where his daily deeds were done. It was long past midnight - before he turned his horse’s head again homeward. - </p> - <p> - Buried in his thoughts, now calm and determined, with a new life grown up - in him, a new strength different from the mastering force which gave him a - strength in the theatre like one in delirium, he noticed nothing. He was - only conscious of the omniscient night and its warm penetrating - friendliness; as, in a great trouble, when no words can be spoken, a cool - kind palm steals into the trembling hand of misery and stills it, gives it - strength and life and an even pulse. He was now master in the house of his - soul, and had no fear or doubt as to the future, or as to his course. - </p> - <p> - His first duty was to go to Constantine Jopp, and speak his regret like a - man. And after that it would be his duty to carry a double debt his life - long for the life saved, for the wrong done. He owed an apology to La - Touche, and he was scarcely aware that the native gentlemanliness in him - had said through his fever of passion over the footlights: “I beg your - pardon.” In his heart he felt that he had offered a mean affront to every - person present, to the town where his interests lay, where his heart lay. - </p> - <p> - Where his heart lay—Molly Mackinder! He knew now that vanity had - something to do, if not all to do, with his violent acts, and though there - suddenly shot through his mind, as he rode back, a savage thrill at the - remembrance of how he had handled the three, it was only a passing - emotion. He was bent on putting himself right with Jopp and with La - Touche. With the former his way was clear; he did not yet see his way as - to La Touche. How would he be able to make the amende honorable to La - Touche? - </p> - <p> - By and by he became somewhat less absorbed and enveloped by the comforting - night. He saw the glimmer of red light afar, and vaguely wondered what it - was. It was in the direction of O’Ryan’s Ranch, but he thought nothing of - it, because it burned steadily. It was probably a fire lighted by settlers - trailing to the farther north. While the night wore on he rode as slowly - back to the town as he had galloped from it like a centaur with a captive. - </p> - <p> - Again and again Molly Mackinder’s face came before him; but he resolutely - shut it out of his thoughts. He felt that he had no right to think of her - until he had “done the right thing” by Jopp and by La Touche. Yet the look - in her face as the curtain came down, it was not that of one indifferent - to him or to what he did. He neared the town half-way between midnight and - morning. Almost unconsciously avoiding the main streets, he rode a - roundabout way towards the little house where Constantine Jopp lived. He - could hear loud noises in the streets, singing, and hoarse shouts. Then - silence came, then shouts, and silence again. It was all quiet as he rode - up to Jopp’s house, standing on the outskirts of the town. There was a - bright light in the window of a room. - </p> - <p> - Jopp, then, was still up. He would not wait till tomorrow. He would do the - right thing now. He would put things straight with his foe before he - slept; he would do it at any sacrifice to his pride. He had conquered his - pride. - </p> - <p> - He dismounted, threw the bridle over a post, and, going into the garden, - knocked gently at the door. There was no response. He knocked again, and - listened intently. Now he heard a sound-like a smothered cry or groan. He - opened the door quickly and entered. It was dark. In another room beyond - was a light. From it came the same sound he had heard before, but louder; - also there was a shuffling footstep. Springing forward to the half-open - door, he pushed it wide, and met the terror-stricken eyes of Constantine - Jopp—the same look that he had seen at the theatre when his hands - were on Jopp’s throat, but more ghastly. - </p> - <p> - Jopp was bound to a chair by a lasso. Both arms were fastened to the - chair-arm, and beneath them, on the floor, were bowls into which blood - dripped from his punctured wrists. - </p> - <p> - He had hardly taken it all in—the work of an instant—when he - saw crouched in a corner, madness in his eyes, his half-breed Vigon. He - grasped the situation in a flash. Vigon had gone mad, had lain in wait in - Jopp’s house, and when the man he hated had seated himself in the chair, - had lassoed him, bound him, and was slowly bleeding him to death. - </p> - <p> - He had no time to think. Before he could act Vigon was upon him also, - frenzy in his eyes, a knife clutched in his hand. Reason had fled, and he - only saw in O’Ryan the frustrator of his revenge. He had watched the drip, - drip from his victim’s wrists with a dreadful joy. - </p> - <p> - They were man and man, but O’Ryan found in this grisly contest a vaster - trial of strength than in the fight upon the stage a few hours ago. The - first lunge that Vigon made struck him on the tip of the shoulder, and - drew blood; but he caught the hand holding the knife in an iron grasp, - while the half-breed, with superhuman strength, tried in vain for the long - brown throat of the man for whom he had struck oil. As they struggled and - twisted, the eyes of the victim in the chair watched them with agonised - emotions. For him it was life or death. He could not cry out—his - mouth was gagged; but to O’Ryan his groans were like a distant echo of his - own hoarse gasps as he fought his desperate fight. Terry was as one in an - awful dream battling with vague impersonal powers which slowly strangled - his life, yet held him back in torture from the final surrender. - </p> - <p> - For minutes they struggled. At last O’Ryan’s strength came to the point of - breaking, for Vigon was a powerful man, and to this was added a madman’s - energy. He felt that the end was coming. But all at once, through the - groans of the victim in the chair, Terry became conscious of noises - outside—such noises as he had heard before he entered the house, - only nearer and louder. At the same time he heard a horse’s hoofs, then a - knock at the door, and a voice calling: “Jopp! Jopp!” - </p> - <p> - He made a last desperate struggle, and shouted hoarsely. - </p> - <p> - An instant later there were footsteps in the room, followed by a cry of - fright and amazement. - </p> - <p> - It was Gow Johnson. He had come to warn Constantine Jopp that a crowd were - come to tar and feather him, and to get him away on his own horse. - </p> - <p> - Now he sprang to the front door, called to the approaching crowd for help, - then ran back to help O’Ryan. A moment later a dozen men had Vigon secure, - and had released Constantine Jopp, now almost dead from loss of blood. - </p> - <p> - As they took the gag from his mouth and tied their handkerchiefs round his - bleeding wrists, Jopp sobbed aloud. His eyes were fixed on Terry O’Ryan. - Terry met the look, and grasped the limp hand lying on the chair-arm. - </p> - <p> - “I’m sorry, O’Ryan, I’m sorry for all I’ve done to you,” Jopp sobbed. “I - was a sneak, but I want to own it. I want to be square now. You can tar - and feather me, if you like. I deserve it.” He looked at the others. “I - deserve it,” he repeated. - </p> - <p> - “That’s what the boys had thought would be appropriate,” said Gow Johnson - with a dry chuckle, and the crowd looked at each other and winked. The - wink was kindly, however. “To own up and take your gruel” was the easiest - way to touch the men of the prairie. - </p> - <p> - A half-hour later the roisterers, who had meant to carry Constantine Jopp - on a rail, carried Terry O’Ryan on their shoulders through the town, - against his will. As they passed the house where Miss Mackinder lived some - one shouted: - </p> - <p> - “Are you watching the rise of Orion?” - </p> - <p> - Many a time thereafter Terry O’Ryan and Molly Mackinder looked at the - galaxy in the evening sky with laughter and with pride. It had played its - part with Fate against Constantine Jopp and the little widow at Jansen. It - had never shone so brightly as on the night when Vigon struck oil on - O’Ryan’s ranch. But Vigon had no memory of that. Such is the irony of - life. - </p> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0018" id="link2H_4_0018"> - <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - THE ERROR OF THE DAY - </h2> - <p> - The “Error of the Day” may be defined as “The difference between the - distance or range which must be put upon the sights in order to hit the - target and the actual distance from the gun to the target.”—Admiralty - Note. - </p> - <p> - A great naval gun never fires twice alike. It varies from day to day, and - expert allowance has to be made in sighting every time it is fired. - Variations in atmosphere, condition of ammunition, and the wear of the gun - are the contributory causes to the ever-varying “Error of the Day.” - </p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - ......................... -</pre> - <p> - “Say, ain’t he pretty?” - </p> - <p> - “A Jim-dandy-oh, my!” - </p> - <p> - “What’s his price in the open market?” - </p> - <p> - “Thirty millions-I think not.” - </p> - <p> - Then was heard the voice of Billy Goat—his name was William Goatry - </p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - “Out in the cold world, out in the street; - Nothing to wear, and nothing to eat, - Fatherless, motherless, sadly I roam, - Child of misfortune, I’m driven from home.” - </pre> - <p> - A loud laugh followed, for Billy Goat was a popular person at Kowatin in - the Saskatchewan country. He had an inimitable drollery, heightened by a - cast in his eye, a very large mouth, and a round, good-humoured face; also - he had a hand and arm like iron, and was altogether a great man on a - “spree.” - </p> - <p> - There had been a two days’ spree at Kowatin, for no other reason than that - there had been great excitement over the capture and the subsequent escape - of a prairie-rover, who had robbed the contractor’s money-chest at the - rail-head on the Canadian Pacific Railroad. Forty miles from Kowatin he - had been caught by, and escaped from, the tall, brown-eyed man with the - hard-bitten face who leaned against the open window of the tavern, looking - indifferently at the jeering crowd before him. For a police officer he was - not unpopular with them, but he had been a failure for once, and, as Billy - Goat had said: “It tickled us to death to see a rider of the plains off - his trolley—on the cold, cold ground, same as you and me.” - </p> - <p> - They did not undervalue him. If he had been less a man than he was, they - would not have taken the trouble to cover him with their drunken ribaldry. - He had scored off them in the past in just such sprees as this, when he - had the power to do so, and used the power good-naturedly and quietly—but - used it. - </p> - <p> - Then, he was Sergeant Foyle of the Royal North-West Mounted Police, on - duty in a district as large as the United Kingdom. And he had no greater - admirer than Billy Goat, who now reviled him. Not without cause, in a way, - for he had reviled himself to this extent, that when the prairie-rover, - Halbeck, escaped on the way to Prince Albert, after six months’ hunt for - him and a final capture in the Kowatin district, Foyle resigned the Force - before the Commissioner could reproach him or call him to account. Usually - so exact, so certain of his target, some care had not been taken, he had - miscalculated, and there had been the Error of the Day. Whatever it was, - it had seemed to him fatal; and he had turned his face from the barrack - yard. - </p> - <p> - Then he had made his way to the Happy Land Hotel at Kowatin, to begin life - as “a free and independent gent on the loose,” as Billy Goat had said. To - resign had seemed extreme; because, though the Commissioner was vexed at - Halbeck’s escape, Foyle was the best non-commissioned officer in the - Force. He had frightened horse thieves and bogus land-agents and - speculators out of the country; had fearlessly tracked down a criminal or - a band of criminals when the odds were heavy against him. He carried on - his cheek the scars of two bullets, and there was one white lock in his - brown hair, where an arrow had torn the scalp away as, alone, he drove - into the Post a score of Indians, fresh from raiding the cattle of an - immigrant trailing north. - </p> - <p> - Now he was out of work, or so it seemed; he had stepped down from his - scarlet-coated dignity, from the place of guardian and guide of - civilisation, into the idleness of a tavern stoop. - </p> - <p> - As the little group swayed round him, and Billy Goat started another song, - Foyle roused himself as though to move away—he was waiting for the - mail-stage to take him south: - </p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - “Oh, father, dear father, come home with me now, - The clock in the steeple strikes one; - You said you were coming right home from the shop - As soon as your day’s work was done. - Come home—come home—” - </pre> - <p> - The song arrested him, and he leaned back against the window again. A - curious look came into his eyes, a look that had nothing to do with the - acts of the people before him. It was searching into a scene beyond this - bright sunlight and the far green-brown grass, and the little oasis of - trees in the distance marking a homestead and the dust of the - wagon-wheels, out on the trail beyond the grain-elevator-beyond the blue - horizon’s rim, quivering in the heat, and into regions where this crisp, - clear, life-giving, life-saving air never blew. - </p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - “You said you were coming right home from the shop - As soon as your day’s work was done. - Come home—come home—” - </pre> - <p> - He remembered when he had first heard this song in a play called ‘Ten - Nights in a Bar-room’, many years before, and how it had wrenched his - heart and soul, and covered him with a sudden cloud of shame and anger. - For his father had been a drunkard, and his brother had grown up a - drunkard, that brother whom he had not seen for ten years until—until— - </p> - <p> - He shuddered, closed his eyes, as though to shut out something that the - mind saw. He had had a rough life, he had become inured to the seamy side - of things—there was a seamy side even in this clean, free, wide - land; and he had no sentimentality; though something seemed to hurt and - shame him now. - </p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - “As soon as your day’s work was done. - Come home—come home—” - </pre> - <p> - The crowd was uproarious. The exhilaration had become a kind of delirium. - Men were losing their heads; there was an element of irresponsibility in - the new outbreak likely to breed some violent act, which every man of them - would lament when sober again. - </p> - <p> - Nettlewood Foyle watched the dust rising from the wheels of the stage, - which had passed the elevator and was nearing the Prairie Home Hotel far - down the street. He would soon leave behind him this noisy ribaldry of - which he was the centre. He tossed his cheroot away. Suddenly he heard a - low voice behind him. - </p> - <p> - “Why don’t you hit out, sergeant?” it said. - </p> - <p> - He started almost violently, and turned round. Then his face flushed, his - eyes blurred with feeling and deep surprise, and his lips parted in a - whispered exclamation and greeting. - </p> - <p> - A girl’s face from the shade of the sitting-room was looking out at him, - half-smiling, but with heightened colour and a suppressed agitation. The - girl was not more than twenty-five, graceful, supple, and strong. Her chin - was dimpled; across her right temple was a slight scar. She had eyes of a - wonderful deep blue; they seemed to swim with light. As Foyle gazed at her - for a moment dumfounded, with a quizzical suggestion and smiling still a - little more, she said: - </p> - <p> - “You used to be a little quicker, Nett.” The voice appeared to attempt - unconcern; but it quivered from a force of feeling underneath. It was so - long since she had seen him. - </p> - <p> - He was about to reply, but, at the instant, a reveller pushed him with a - foot behind the knees so that they were sprung forward. The crowd laughed—all - save Billy Goat, who knew his man. - </p> - <p> - Like lightning, and with cold fury in his eyes, Foyle caught the tall - cattleman by the forearm, and, with a swift, dexterous twist, had the - fellow in his power. - </p> - <p> - “Down—down, to your knees, you skunk,” he said in a low, fierce - voice. - </p> - <p> - The knees of the big man bent,—Foyle had not taken lessons of Ogami, - the Jap, for nothing—they bent, and the cattleman squealed, so - intense was the pain. It was break or bend; and he bent—to the - ground and lay there. Foyle stood over him for a moment, a hard light in - his eyes, and then, as if bethinking himself, he looked at the other - roisterers, and said: - </p> - <p> - “There’s a limit, and he reached it. Your mouths are your own, and you can - blow off to suit your fancy, but if any one thinks I’m a tame coyote to be - poked with a stick—!” He broke off, stooped over, and helped the man - before him to his feet. The arm had been strained, and the big fellow - nursed it. - </p> - <p> - “Hell, but you’re a twister!” the cattleman said with a grimace of pain. - </p> - <p> - Billy Goat was a gentleman, after his kind, and he liked Sergeant Foyle - with a great liking. He turned to the crowd and spoke. - </p> - <p> - “Say, boys, this mine’s worked out. Let’s leave the Happy Land to Foyle. - Boys, what is he—what—is he? What—is—Sergeant - Foyle—boys?” - </p> - <p> - The roar of the song they all knew came in reply, as Billy Goat waved his - arms about like the wild leader of a wild orchestra: - </p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - “Sergeant Foyle, oh, he’s a knocker from the West, - He’s a chase-me-Charley, come-and-kiss-me tiger from the zoo; - He’s a dandy on the pinch, and he’s got a double cinch - On the gent that’s going careless, and he’ll soon cinch you: - And he’ll soon—and he’ll soon—cinch you!” - </pre> - <p> - Foyle watched them go, dancing, stumbling, calling back at him, as they - moved towards the Prairie Home Hotel: - </p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - “And he’ll soon-and he’ll soon-cinch you!” - </pre> - <p> - His under lip came out, his eyes half-closed, as he watched them. “I’ve - done my last cinch. I’ve done my last cinch,” he murmured. - </p> - <p> - Then, suddenly, the look in his face changed, the eyes swam as they had - done a minute before at the sight of the girl in the room behind. Whatever - his trouble was, that face had obscured it in a flash, and the pools of - feeling far down in the depths of a lonely nature had been stirred. - Recognition, memory, tenderness, desire swam in his face, made generous - and kind the hard lines of the strong mouth. In an instant he had swung - himself over the window-sill. The girl had drawn away now into a more - shaded corner of the room, and she regarded him with a mingled anxiety and - eagerness. Was she afraid of something? Did she fear that—she knew - not quite what, but it had to do with a long ago. - </p> - <p> - “It was time you hit out, Nett,” she said, half shyly. “You’re more - patient than you used to be, but you’re surer. My, that was a twist you - gave him, Nett. Aren’t you glad to see me?” she added hastily, and with an - effort to hide her agitation. - </p> - <p> - He reached out and took her hand with a strange shyness, and a - self-consciousness which was alien to his nature. The touch of her hand - thrilled him. Their eyes met. She dropped hers. Then he gathered him self - together. “Glad to see you? Of course, of course, I’m glad. You stunned - me, Jo. Why, do you know where you are? You’re a thousand miles from home. - I can’t get it through my head, not really. What brings you here? It’s ten - years—ten years since I saw you, and you were only fifteen, but a - fifteen that was as good as twenty.” - </p> - <p> - He scanned her face closely. “What’s that scar on your forehead, Jo? You - hadn’t that—then.” - </p> - <p> - “I ran up against something,” she said evasively, her eyes glittering, - “and it left that scar. Does it look so bad?” - </p> - <p> - “No, you’d never notice it, if you weren’t looking close as I am. You see, - I knew your face so well ten years ago.” - </p> - <p> - He shook his head with a forced kind of smile. It became him, however, for - he smiled rarely; and the smile was like a lantern turned on his face; it - gave light and warmth to its quiet strength-or hardness. - </p> - <p> - “You were always quizzing,” she said with an attempt at a laugh—“always - trying to find out things. That’s why you made them reckon with you out - here. You always could see behind things; always would have your own way; - always were meant to be a success.” - </p> - <p> - She was beginning to get control of herself again, was trying hard to keep - things on the surface. “You were meant to succeed—you had to,” she - added. - </p> - <p> - “I’ve been a failure—a dead failure,” he answered slowly. “So they - say. So they said. You heard them, Jo.” - </p> - <p> - He jerked his head towards the open window. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, those drunken fools!” she exclaimed indignantly, and her face - hardened. “How I hate drink! It spoils everything.” - </p> - <p> - There was silence for a moment. They were both thinking of the same thing—of - the same man. He repeated a question. - </p> - <p> - “What brings you out here, Jo?” he asked gently. “Dorland,” she answered, - her face setting into determination and anxiety. - </p> - <p> - His face became pinched. “Dorl!” he said heavily. “What for, Jo? What do - you want with Dorl?” - </p> - <p> - “When Cynthy died she left her five hundred dollars a year to the baby, - and—” - </p> - <p> - “Yes, yes, I know. Well, Jo?” - </p> - <p> - “Well, it was all right for five years—Dorland paid it in; but for - five years he hasn’t paid anything. He’s taken it, stolen it from his own - child by his own honest wife. I’ve come to get it—anyway, to stop - him from doing it any more. His own child—it puts murder in my - heart, Nett! I could kill him.” - </p> - <p> - He nodded grimly. “That’s likely. And you’ve kept, Dorl’s child with your - own money all these years?” - </p> - <p> - “I’ve got four hundred dollars a year, Nett, you know; and I’ve been - dressmaking—they say I’ve got taste,” she added, with a whimsical - smile. - </p> - <p> - Nett nodded his head. “Five years. That’s twenty-five hundred dollars he’s - stolen from his own child. It’s eight years old now, isn’t it?” - </p> - <p> - “Bobby is eight and a half,” she answered. - </p> - <p> - “And his schooling, and his clothing, and everything; and you have to pay - for it all?” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, I don’t mind, Nett, it isn’t that. Bobby is Cynthy’s child; and I - love him—love him; but I want him to have his rights. Dorl must give - up his hold on that money—or—” - </p> - <p> - He nodded gravely. “Or you’ll set the law on him?” - </p> - <p> - “It’s one thing or the other. Better to do it now when Bobby is young and - can’t understand.” - </p> - <p> - “Or read the newspapers,” he commented thoughtfully. - </p> - <p> - “I don’t think I’ve a hard heart,” she continued, “but I’d like to punish - him, if it wasn’t that he’s your brother, Nett; and if it wasn’t for - Bobby. Dorland was dreadfully cruel, even to Cynthy.” - </p> - <p> - “How did you know he was up here?” he asked. “From the lawyer that pays - over the money. Dorland has had it sent out here to Kowatin this two - years. And he sent word to the lawyer a month ago that he wanted it to get - here as usual. The letter left the same day as I did, and it got here - yesterday with me, I suppose. He’ll be after it-perhaps to-day. He - wouldn’t let it wait long, Dorl wouldn’t.” - </p> - <p> - Foyle started. “To-day—to-day—” - </p> - <p> - There was a gleam in his eyes, a setting of the lips, a line sinking into - the forehead between the eyes. - </p> - <p> - “I’ve been watching for him all day, and I’ll watch till he comes. I’m - going to say some things to him that he won’t forget. I’m going to get - Bobby’s money, or have the law do it—unless you think I’m a brute, - Nett.” She looked at him wistfully. - </p> - <p> - “That’s all right. Don’t worry about me, Jo. He’s my brother, but I know - him—I know him through and through. He’s done everything that a man - can do and not be hanged. A thief, a drunkard, and a brute—and he - killed a man out here,” he added hoarsely. “I found it out myself—myself. - It was murder.” - </p> - <p> - Suddenly, as he looked at her, an idea seemed to flash into his mind. He - came very near and looked at her closely. Then he reached over and almost - touched the scar on her forehead. - </p> - <p> - “Did he do that, Jo?” - </p> - <p> - For an instant she was silent and looked down at the floor. Presently she - raised her eyes, her face suffused. Once or twice she tried to speak, but - failed. At last she gained courage and said: - </p> - <p> - “After Cynthy’s death I kept house for him for a year, taking care of - little Bobby. I loved Bobby so—he has Cynthy’s eyes. One day Dorland—oh, - Nett, of course I oughtn’t to have stayed there, I know it now; but I was - only sixteen, and what did I understand! And my mother was dead. One day—oh, - please, Nett, you can guess. He said something to me. I made him leave the - house. Before I could make plans what to do, he came back mad with drink. - I went for Bobby, to get out of the house, but he caught hold of me. I - struck him in the face, and he threw me against the edge of the open door. - It made the scar.” - </p> - <p> - Foyle’s face was white. “Why did you never write and tell me that, Jo? You - know that I—” He stopped suddenly. - </p> - <p> - “You had gone out of our lives down there. I didn’t know where you were - for a long time; and then—then it was all right about Bobby and me, - except that Bobby didn’t get the money that was his. But now—” - </p> - <p> - Foyle’s voice was hoarse and low. “He made that scar, and he—and you - only sixteen—Oh, my God!” Suddenly his face reddened, and he choked - with shame and anger. “And he’s my brother!” was all that he could say. - </p> - <p> - “Do you see him up here ever?” she asked pityingly. - </p> - <p> - “I never saw him till a week ago.” A moment, then he added: “The letter - wasn’t to be sent here in his own name, was it?” - </p> - <p> - She nodded. “Yes, in his own name, Dorland W. Foyle. Didn’t he go by that - name when you saw him?” - </p> - <p> - There was an oppressive silence, in which she saw that something moved him - strangely, and then he answered: “No, he was going by the name of Halbeck—Hiram - Halbeck.” - </p> - <p> - The girl gasped. Then the whole thing burst upon her. “Hiram Halbeck! - Hiram Halbeck, the thief—I read it all in the papers—the thief - that you caught, and that got away. And you’ve left the Mounted Police - because of it—oh, Nett!” Her eyes were full of tears, her face was - drawn and grey. - </p> - <p> - He nodded. “I didn’t know who he was till I arrested him,” he said. “Then, - afterward, I thought of his child, and let him get away; and for my poor - old mother’s sake. She never knew how bad he was even as a boy. But I - remember how he used to steal and drink the brandy from her bedside, when - she had the fever. She never knew the worst of him. But I let him away in - the night, Jo, and I resigned, and they thought that Halbeck had beaten - me, had escaped. Of course I couldn’t stay in the Force, having done that. - But, by the heaven above us, if I had him here now, I’d do the thing—do - it, so help me God!” - </p> - <p> - “Why should you ruin your life for him?” she said, with an outburst of - indignation. All that was in her heart welled up in her eyes at the - thought of what Foyle was. “You must not do it. You shall not do it. He - must pay for his wickedness, not you. It would be a sin. You and what - becomes of you mean so much.” Suddenly with a flash of purpose she added: - “He will come for that letter, Nett. He would run any kind of risk to get - a dollar. He will come here for that letter—perhaps today.” - </p> - <p> - He shook his head moodily, oppressed by the trouble that was on him. “He’s - not likely to venture here, after what’s happened.” - </p> - <p> - “You don’t know him as well as I do, Nett. He is so vain he’d do it, just - to show that he could. He’d’ probably come in the evening. Does any one - know him here? So many people pass through Kowatin every day. Has any one - seen him?” - </p> - <p> - “Only Billy Goatry,” he answered, working his way to a solution of the - dark problem. “Only Billy Goatry knows him. The fellow that led the - singing—that was Goatry.” - </p> - <p> - “There he is now,” he added, as Billy Goat passed the window. - </p> - <p> - She came and laid a hand on his arm. “We’ve got to settle things with - him,” she said. “If Dorl comes, Nett—” - </p> - <p> - There was silence for a moment, then he caught her hand in his and held - it. “If he comes, leave him to me, Jo. You will leave him to me?” he added - anxiously. - </p> - <p> - “Yes,” she answered. “You’ll do what’s right-by Bobby?” - </p> - <p> - “And by Dorl, too,” he replied strangely. There were loud footsteps - without. - </p> - <p> - “It’s Goatry,” said Foyle. “You stay here. I’ll tell him everything. He’s - all right; he’s a true friend. He’ll not interfere.” - </p> - <p> - The handle of the door turned slowly. “You keep watch on the post-office, - Jo,” he added. - </p> - <p> - Goatry came round the opening door with a grin. “Hope I don’t intrude,” he - said, stealing a half-leering look at the girl. As soon as he saw her - face, however, he straightened himself up and took on different manners. - He had not been so intoxicated as he had made, out, and he seemed only - “mellow” as he stood before them, with his corrugated face and queer, - quaint look, the eye with the cast in it blinking faster than the other. - </p> - <p> - “It’s all right, Goatry,” said Foyle. “This lady is, one of my family from - the East.” - </p> - <p> - “Goin’ on by stage?” Goatry said vaguely, as they shook hands. - </p> - <p> - She did not reply, for she was looking down the street, and presently she - started as she gazed. She laid a hand suddenly on Foyle’s arm. - </p> - <p> - “See—he’s come,” she said in a whisper, and as though not realising - Goatry’s presence. “He’s come.” - </p> - <p> - Goatry looked as well as Foyle. “Halbeck—the devil!” he said. - </p> - <p> - Foyle turned to him. “Stand by, Goatry. I want you to keep a shut mouth. - I’ve work to do.” - </p> - <p> - Goatry held out his hand. “I’m with you. If you get him this time, clamp - him, clamp him like a tooth in a harrow.” - </p> - <p> - Halbeck had stopped his horse at the post-office door. Dismounting he - looked quickly round, then drew the reins over the horse’s head, letting - them trail, as is the custom of the West. - </p> - <p> - A few swift words passed between Goatry and Foyle. “I’ll do this myself, - Jo,” he whispered to the girl presently. “Go into another room. I’ll bring - him here.” - </p> - <p> - In another minute Goatry was leading the horse away from the post-office, - while Foyle stood waiting quietly at the door. The departing footsteps of - the horse brought Halbeck swiftly to the doorway, with a letter in his - hand. - </p> - <p> - “Hi, there, you damned sucker!” he called after Goatry, and then saw Foyle - waiting. - </p> - <p> - “What the hell—!” he said fiercely, his hand on something in his hip - pocket. - </p> - <p> - “Keep quiet, Dorl. I want to have a little talk with you. Take your hand - away from that gun—take it away,” he added with a meaning not to be - misunderstood. - </p> - <p> - Halbeck knew that one shout would have the town on him, and he did not - know what card his brother was going to play. He let his arm drop to his - side. “What’s your game? What do you want?” he asked surlily. - </p> - <p> - “Come over to the Happy Land Hotel,” Foyle answered, and in the light of - what was in his mind his words had a grim irony. - </p> - <p> - With a snarl Halbeck stepped out. Goatry, who had handed the horse over to - the hostler, watched them coming. - </p> - <p> - “Why did I never notice the likeness before?” Goatry said to himself. - “But, gosh! what a difference in the men. Foyle’s going to double cinch - him this time, I guess.” - </p> - <p> - He followed them inside the hall of the Happy Land. When they stepped into - the sitting-room, he stood at the door waiting. The hotel was entirely - empty, the roisterers at the Prairie Home having drawn off the idlers and - spectators. The barman was nodding behind the bar, the proprietor was - moving about in the backyard inspecting a horse. There was a cheerful - warmth everywhere, the air was like an elixir, the pungent smell of a - pine-tree at the door gave a kind of medicament to the indrawn breath. And - to Billy Goat, who sometimes sang in the choir of a church not a hundred - miles away—for people agreed to forget his occasional sprees—there - came, he knew not why, the words of a hymn he had sung only the preceding - Sunday: - </p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - “As pants the hart for cooling streams, - When heated in the chase—” - </pre> - <p> - The words kept ringing in his ears as he listened to the conversation - inside the room—the partition was thin, the door thinner, and he - heard much. Foyle had asked him not to intervene, but only to stand by and - await the issue of this final conference. He meant, however, to take a - hand in, if he thought he was needed, and he kept his ear glued to the - door. If he thought Foyle needed him—his fingers were on the handle - of the door. - </p> - <p> - “Now, hurry up! What do you want with me?” asked Halbeck of his brother. - </p> - <p> - “Take your time,” said ex-Sergeant Foyle, as he drew the blind - three-quarters down, so that they could not be seen from the street. - </p> - <p> - “I’m in a hurry, I tell you. I’ve got my plans. I’m going South. I’ve only - just time to catch the Canadian Pacific three days from now, riding hard.” - </p> - <p> - “You’re not going South, Dorl.” - </p> - <p> - “Where am I going, then?” was the sneering reply. “Not farther than the - Happy Land.” - </p> - <p> - “What the devil’s all this? You don’t mean you’re trying to arrest me - again, after letting me go?” - </p> - <p> - “You don’t need to ask. You’re my prisoner. You’re my prisoner,” he said - in a louder voice—“until you free yourself.” - </p> - <p> - “I’ll do that damn quick, then,” said the other, his hand flying to his - hip. - </p> - <p> - “Sit down,” was the sharp rejoinder, and a pistol was in his face before - he could draw his own weapon. “Put your gun on the table,” Foyle said - quietly. Halbeck did so. There was no other way. - </p> - <p> - Foyle drew it over to himself. His brother made a motion to rise. - </p> - <p> - “Sit still, Dorl,” came the warning voice. - </p> - <p> - White with rage, the freebooter sat still, his dissipated face and heavy - angry lips looking like a debauched and villainous caricature of his - brother before him. - </p> - <p> - “Yes, I suppose you’d have potted me, Dorl,” said the ex-sergeant. - </p> - <p> - “You’d have thought no more of doing that than you did of killing Linley, - the ranchman; than you did of trying to ruin Jo Byndon, your wife’s - sister, when she was sixteen years old, when she was caring for your child—giving - her life for the child you brought into the world.” - </p> - <p> - “What in the name of hell—it’s a lie!” - </p> - <p> - “Don’t bluster. I know the truth.” - </p> - <p> - “Who told you-the truth?” - </p> - <p> - “She did—to-day—an hour ago.” - </p> - <p> - “She here—out here?” There was a new cowed note in the voice. - </p> - <p> - “She is in the next room.” - </p> - <p> - “What did she come here for?” - </p> - <p> - “To make you do right by your own child. I wonder what a jury of decent - men would think about a man who robbed his child for five years, and let - that child be fed and clothed and cared for by the girl he tried to - destroy, the girl he taught what sin there was in the world.” - </p> - <p> - “She put you up to this. She was always in love with you, and you know - it.” - </p> - <p> - There was a dangerous look in Foyle’s eyes, and his jaw set hard. “There - would be no shame in a decent woman caring for me, even if it was true. I - haven’t put myself outside the boundary as you have. You’re my brother, - but you’re the worst scoundrel in the country—the worst unhanged. - Put on the table there the letter in your pocket. It holds five hundred - dollars belonging to your child. There’s twenty-five hundred dollars more - to be accounted for.” - </p> - <p> - The other hesitated, then with an oath threw the letter on the table. - “I’ll pay the rest as soon as I can, if you’ll stop this damned - tomfoolery,” he said sullenly, for he saw that he was in a hole. - </p> - <p> - “You’ll pay it, I suppose, out of what you stole from the C.P.R. - contractor’s chest. No, I don’t think that will do.” - </p> - <p> - “You want me to go to prison, then?” - </p> - <p> - “I think not. The truth would come out at the trial—the whole truth—the - murder, and all. There’s your child Bobby. You’ve done him enough wrong - already. Do you want him—but it doesn’t matter whether you do or not—do - you want him to carry through life the fact that his father was a - jail-bird and a murderer, just as Jo Byndon carries the scar you made when - you threw her against the door?” - </p> - <p> - “What do you want with me, then?” The man sank slowly and heavily back - into the chair. - </p> - <p> - “There is a way—have you never thought of it? When you threatened - others as you did me, and life seemed such a little thing in others—can’t - you think?” - </p> - <p> - Bewildered, the man looked around helplessly. In the silence which - followed Foyle’s words his brain was struggling to see a way out. Foyle’s - further words seemed to come from a great distance. - </p> - <p> - “It’s not too late to do the decent thing. You’ll never repent of all - you’ve done; you’ll never do different.” - </p> - <p> - The old reckless, irresponsible spirit revived in the man; he had both - courage and bravado, he was not hopeless yet of finding an escape from the - net. He would not beg, he would struggle. - </p> - <p> - “I’ve lived as I meant to, and I’m not going to snivel or repent now. It’s - all a rotten business, anyhow,” he rejoined. - </p> - <p> - With a sudden resolution the ex-sergeant put his own pistol in his pocket, - then pushed Halbeck’s pistol over towards him on the table. Halbeck’s eyes - lighted eagerly, grew red with excitement, then a change passed over them. - They now settled on the pistol, and stayed. He heard Foyle’s voice. “It’s - with you to do what you ought to do. Of course you can kill me. My - pistol’s in my pocket. But I don’t think you will. You’ve murdered one - man. You won’t load your soul up with another. Besides, if you kill me, - you will never get away from Kowatin alive. But it’s with you—take - your choice. It’s me or you.” - </p> - <p> - Halbeck’s fingers crept out and found the pistol. “Do your duty, Dorl,” - said the ex-sergeant as he turned his back on his brother. - </p> - <p> - The door of the room opened, and Goatry stepped inside softly. He had work - to do, if need be, and his face showed it. Halbeck did not see him. - </p> - <p> - There was a demon in Halbeck’s eyes, as his brother stood, his back - turned, taking his chances. A large mirror hung on the wall opposite - Halbeck. Goatry was watching Halbeck’s face in the glass, and saw the - danger. He measured his distance. - </p> - <p> - All at once Halbeck caught Goatry’s face in the mirror. The dark devilry - faded out of his eyes. His lips moved in a whispered oath. Every way was - blocked. - </p> - <p> - With a sudden wild resolution he raised the pistol to his head. It - cracked, and he fell back heavily in the chair. There was a red trickle at - the temple. - </p> - <p> - He had chosen the best way out. - </p> - <p> - “He had the pluck,” said Goatry, as Foyle swung round with a face of - misery. - </p> - <p> - A moment afterward came a rush of people. Goatry kept them back. - </p> - <p> - “Sergeant Foyle arrested Halbeck, and Halbeck’s shot himself,” Goatry - explained to them. - </p> - <p> - A white-faced girl with a scar on her temple made her way into the room. - </p> - <p> - “Come away-come away, Jo,” said the voice of the man she loved; and he did - not let her see the lifeless figure in the chair. - </p> - <p> - Three days later the plains swallowed them, as they made their way with - Billy Goatry to the headquarters of the Riders of the Plains, where - Sergeant Foyle was asked to reconsider his resignation: which he did. - </p> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0019" id="link2H_4_0019"> - <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - THE WHISPERER - </h2> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - “And thou shalt be brought down and shalt speak out of the ground, - and thy speech shall be low out of the dust, and thy voice shall be - as of one that hath a familiar spirit out of the ground, and thy - speech shall whisper out of the dust.” - </pre> - <p> - The harvest was all in, and, as far as eye could observe nothing remained - of the golden sea of wheat which had covered the wide prairie save the - yellow stubble, the bed of an ocean of wealth which had been gathered. - Here, the yellow level was broken by a dark patch of fallow land, there, - by a covert of trees also tinged with yellow, or deepening to crimson and - mauve—the harbinger of autumn. The sun had not the insistent and - intensive strength of more southerly climes; it was buoyant, confident and - heartening, and it shone in a turquoise vault which covered and endeared - the wide, even world beneath. Now and then a flock of wild ducks whirred - past, making for the marshes or the innumerable lakes that vitalised the - expanse, or buzzards hunched heavily along, frightened from some far - resort by eager sportsmen. - </p> - <p> - That was above; but beneath, on a level with the unlifted eye, were houses - here and there, looking in the vastness like dolls’ habitations. Many of - the houses stood blank and staring in the expanse, but some had trees, and - others little oases of green. Everywhere prosperity, everywhere the - strings of life pulled taut, signs that energy had been straining on the - leash. - </p> - <p> - Yet there was one spot where it seemed that deadness made encampment. It - could not be seen in the sweep of the eye, you must have travelled and - looked vigilantly to find it; but it was there—a lake shimmering in - the eager sun, washing against a reedy shore, a little river running into - the reedy lake at one end and out at, the other, a small, dilapidated - house half hid in a wood that stretched for half a mile or so upon a - rising ground. In front of the house, not far from the lake, a man was - lying asleep upon the ground, a rough felt hat drawn over his eyes. - </p> - <p> - Like the house, the man seemed dilapidated also: a slovenly, ill-dressed, - demoralised figure he looked, even with his face covered. He seemed in a - deep sleep. Wild ducks settled on the lake not far from him with a swish - and flutter; a coyote ran past, veering as it saw the recumbent figure; a - prairie hen rustled by with a shrill cluck, but he seemed oblivious to - all. If asleep, he was evidently dreaming, for now and then he started, or - his body twitched, and a muttering came from beneath the hat. - </p> - <p> - The battered house, the absence of barn or stable or garden, or any token - of thrift or energy, marked the man as an excrescence in this theatre of - hope and fruitful toil. It all belonged to some degenerate land, some - exhausted civilisation, not to this field of vigour where life rang like - silver. - </p> - <p> - So the man lay for hour upon hour. He slept as though he had been upon a - long journey in which the body was worn to helplessness. Or was it that - sleep of the worn-out spirit which, tortured by remembrance and remorse, - at last sinks into the depths where the conscious vexes the unconscious—a - little of fire, a little of ice, and now and then the turn of the screw? - </p> - <p> - The day marched nobly on towards evening, growing out of its blue and - silver into a pervasive golden gleam; the bare, greyish houses on the - prairie were transformed into miniature palaces of light. Presently a girl - came out of the woods behind, looking at the neglected house with a - half-pitying curiosity. She carried in one hand a fishing rod which had - been telescoped till it was no bigger than a cane; in the other she - carried a small fishing basket. Her father’s shooting and fishing camp was - a few miles away by a lake of greater size than this which she approached. - She had tired of the gay company in camp, brought up for sport from beyond - the American border where she also belonged, and she had come to explore - the river running into this reedy lake. She turned from the house and came - nearer to the lake, shaking her head, as though compassionating the poor, - folk who lived there. She was beautiful. Her hair was brown, going to - tawny, but in this soft light which enwrapped her, she was in a sort of - topaz flame. As she came on, suddenly she stopped as though transfixed. - She saw the man—and saw also a tragedy afoot. - </p> - <p> - The man stirred violently in his sleep, cried out, and started up. As he - did so, a snake, disturbed in its travel past him, suddenly raised itself - in anger. Startled out of sleep by some inner torture, the man heard the - sinister rattle he knew so well, and gazed paralysed. - </p> - <p> - The girl had been but a few feet away when she first saw the man and his - angry foe. An instant, then, with the instinct of the woods and the - plains, and the courage that has habitation everywhere, dropping her - basket she sprang forward noiselessly. The short, telescoped fishing rod - she carried swung round her head and completed its next half-circle at the - head of the reptile, even as it was about to strike. The blow was sure, - and with half-severed head the snake fell dead upon the ground beside the - man. - </p> - <p> - He was like one who has been projected from one world to another, dazed, - stricken, fearful. Presently the look of agonised dismay gave way to such - an expression of relief as might come upon the face of a reprieved victim - about to be given to the fire, or to the knife that flays. The place of - dreams from which he had emerged was like hell, and this was some world of - peace that he had not known these many years. Always one had been at his - elbow—“a familiar spirit out of the ground”—whispering in his - ear. He had been down in the abysses of life. - </p> - <p> - He glanced again at the girl, and realised what she had done: she had - saved his life. Whether it had been worth saving was another question; but - he had been near to the brink, had looked in, and the animal in him had - shrunk back from the precipice in a confused agony of fear. He staggered - to his feet. - </p> - <p> - “Where do you come from?” he said, pulling his coat closer to hide the - ragged waistcoat underneath, and adjusting his worn and dirty hat—in - his youth he had been vain and ambitious and good-looking also. - </p> - <p> - He asked his question in no impertinent tone, but in the low voice of one - who “shall whisper out of the dust.” He had not yet recovered from the - first impression of his awakening, that the world in which he now stood - was not a real world. - </p> - <p> - She understood, and half in pity and half in conquered repugnance said: - </p> - <p> - “I come from a camp beyond”—she indicated the direction by a - gesture. “I had been fishing”—she took up the basket—“and - chanced on you—then.” She glanced at the snake significantly. - </p> - <p> - “You killed it in the nick of time,” he said, in a voice that still spoke - of the ground, but with a note of half-shamed gratitude. “I want to thank - you,” he added. “You were brave. It would have turned on you if you had - missed. I know them. I’ve killed five.” He spoke very slowly, huskily. - </p> - <p> - “Well, you are safe—that is the chief thing,” she rejoined, making - as though to depart. But presently she turned back. “Why are you so - dreadfully poor—and everything?” she asked gently. - </p> - <p> - His eye wandered over the lake and back again before he answered her, in a - dull, heavy tone: “I’ve had bad luck, and, when you get down, there are - plenty to kick you farther.” - </p> - <p> - “You weren’t always poor as you are now—I mean long ago, when you - were young.” - </p> - <p> - “I’m not so old,” he rejoined sluggishly—“only thirty-four.” - </p> - <p> - She could not suppress her astonishment. She looked at the hair already - grey, the hard, pinched face, the lustreless eyes. - </p> - <p> - “Yet it must seem long to you,” she said with meaning. Now he laughed—a - laugh sodden and mirthless. He was thinking of his boyhood. Everything, - save one or two spots all fire or all darkness, was dim in his debilitated - mind. - </p> - <p> - “Too far to go back,” he said, with a gleam of the intelligence which had - been strong in him once. - </p> - <p> - She caught the gleam. She had wisdom beyond her years. It was the greater - because her mother was dead, and she had had so much wealth to dispense, - for her father was rich beyond counting, and she controlled his household, - and helped to regulate his charities. She saw that he was not of the - labouring classes, that he had known better days; his speech, if abrupt - and cheerless, was grammatical. - </p> - <p> - “If you cannot go back, you can go forwards,” she said firmly. “Why should - you be the only man in this beautiful land who lives like this, who is - idle when there is so much to do, who sleeps in the daytime when there is - so much time to sleep at night?” - </p> - <p> - A faint flush came on the greyish, colourless face. “I don’t sleep at - night,” he returned moodily. - </p> - <p> - “Why don’t you sleep?” she asked. - </p> - <p> - He did not answer, but stirred the body of the snake with his foot. The - tail moved; he stamped upon the head with almost frenzied violence, out of - keeping with his sluggishness. - </p> - <p> - She turned away, yet looked back once more—she felt tragedy around - her. “It is never too late to mend,” she said, and moved on, but stopped; - for a young man came running from the woods towards her. - </p> - <p> - “I’ve had a hunt—such a hunt for you,” the young man said eagerly, - then stopped short when he saw to whom she had been talking. A look of - disgust came upon his face as he drew her away, his hand on her arm. - </p> - <p> - “In Heaven’s name, why did you talk to that man?” he said. “You ought not - to have trusted yourself near him.” - </p> - <p> - “What has he done?” she asked. “Is he so bad?” - </p> - <p> - “I’ve heard about him. I inquired the other day. He was once in a better - position as a ranchman—ten years ago; but he came into some money - one day, and he changed at once. He never had a good character; even - before he got his money he used to gamble, and was getting a bad name. - Afterwards he began drinking, and he took to gambling harder than ever. - Presently his money all went and he had to work; but his bad habits had - fastened on him, and now he lives from hand to mouth, sometimes working - for a month, sometimes idle for months. There’s something sinister about - him, there’s some mystery; for poverty or drink even—and he doesn’t - drink much now—couldn’t make him what he is. He doesn’t seek - company, and he walks sometimes endless miles talking to himself, going as - hard as he can. How did you come to speak to him, Grace?” - </p> - <p> - She told him all, with a curious abstraction in her voice, for she was - thinking of the man from a standpoint which her companion could not - realise. She was also trying to verify something in her memory. Ten years - ago, so her lover had just said, the poor wretch behind them had been a - different man; and there had shot into her mind the face of a ranchman she - had seen with her father, the railway king, one evening when his “special” - had stopped at a railway station on his tour through Montana—ten - years ago. Why did the face of the ranchman which had fixed itself on her - memory then, because he had come on the evening of her birthday and had - spoiled it for her, having taken her father away from her for an hour—why - did his face come to her now? What had it to do with the face of this - outcast she had just left? - </p> - <p> - “What is his name?” she asked at last. - </p> - <p> - “Roger Lygon,” he answered. - </p> - <p> - “Roger Lygon,” she repeated mechanically. Something in the man chained her - thought—his face that moment when her hand saved him and the awful - fear left him, and a glimmer of light came into his eyes. - </p> - <p> - But her lover beside her broke into song. He was happy with her. - Everything was before him, her beauty, her wealth, herself. He could not - dwell upon dismal things; his voice rang out on the sharp sweet evening - air: - </p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - “‘Oh, where did you get them, the bonny, bonny roses - That blossom in your cheeks, and the morning in your eyes?’ - ‘I got them on the North Trail, the road that never closes, - That widens to the seven gold gates of paradise.’ - ‘O come, let us camp in the North Trail together, - With the night-fires lit and the tent-pegs down.’” - </pre> - <p> - Left alone, the man by the reedy lake stood watching them until they were - out of view. The song came back to him, echoing across the waters: - </p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - “O come, let us camp on the North Trail together, - With the night-fires lit and the tent-pegs down.” - </pre> - <p> - The sunset glow, the girl’s presence, had given him a moment’s illusion, - had absorbed him for a moment, acting on his deadened nature like a - narcotic at once soothing and stimulating. As some wild animal in a - forgotten land, coming upon ruins of a vast civilisation, towers, temples, - and palaces, in the golden glow of an Eastern evening, stands abashed and - vaguely wondering, having neither reason to understand, nor feeling to - enjoy, yet is arrested and abashed, so he stood. He had lived the last - three years so much alone, had been cut off so completely from his kind—had - lived so much alone. Yet to-night, at last, he would not be alone. - </p> - <p> - Some one was coming to-night, some one whom he had not seen for a long - time. Letters had passed, the object of the visit had been defined, and he - had spent the intervening days since the last letter had arrived, now - agitated, now apathetic and sullen, now struggling with some invisible - being that kept whispering in his ear, saying to him, “It was the price of - fire, and blood, and shame. You did it—you—you—you! You - are down, and you will never get up. You can only go lower still—fire, - and blood, and shame!” - </p> - <p> - Criminal as he was he had never become hardened, he had only become - degraded. Crime was not his vocation. He had no gift for it; still the - crime he had committed had never been discovered—the crime that he - did with others. There were himself and Dupont and another. Dupont was - coming to-night—Dupont who had profited by the crime, and had not - spent his profits, but had built upon them to further profit; for Dupont - was avaricious and prudent, and a born criminal. Dupont had never had any - compunctions or remorse, had never lost a night’s sleep because of what - they two had done, instigated thereto by the other, who had paid them so - well for the dark thing. - </p> - <p> - The other was Henderley, the financier. He was worse perhaps than Dupont, - for he was in a different sphere of life, was rich beyond counting, and - had been early nurtured in quiet Christian surroundings. The spirit of - ambition, rivalry, and the methods of a degenerate and cruel finance had - seized him, mastered him; so that, under the cloak of power—as a - toreador hides the blade under the red cloth before his enemy the toro—he - held a sword of capital which did cruel and vicious things, at last - becoming criminal also. Henderley had incited and paid; the others, Dupont - and Lygon, had acted and received. Henderley had had no remorse, none at - any rate that weighed upon him; for he had got used to ruining rivals, and - seeing strong men go down, and those who had fought him come to beg or - borrow of him in the end. He had seen more than one commit suicide, and - those they loved go down and farther down, and he had helped these up a - little, but not enough to put them near his own plane again; and he could - not see—it never occurred to him—that he had done any evil to - them. Dupont thought upon his crimes now and then, and his heart hardened, - for he had no moral feeling; Henderley did not think at all. It was left - to the man of the reedy lake to pay the penalty of apprehension, to suffer - the effects of crime upon a nature not naturally criminal. - </p> - <p> - Again and again, how many hundreds of times, had Roger Lygon seen in his - sleep—had even seen awake so did hallucination possess him—the - new cattle trail he had fired for scores of miles. The fire had destroyed - the grass over millions of acres, two houses had been burned and three - people had lost their lives; all to satisfy the savage desire of one man, - to destroy the chance of a cattle trade over a great section of country - for the railway which was to compete with his own—an act which, in - the end, was futile, failed of its purpose. Dupont and Lygon had been paid - their price, and had disappeared, and been forgotten—they were but - pawns in his game—and there was no proof against Henderley. - Henderley had forgotten. Lygon wished to forget, but Dupont remembered, - and meant now to reap fresh profit by the remembrance. - </p> - <p> - Dupont was coming to-night, and the hatchet of crime was to be dug up - again. So it had been planned. As the shadows fell, Lygon roused himself - from his trance with a shiver. It was not cold, but in him there was a - nervous agitation, making him cold from head to foot; his body seemed as - impoverished as his mind. Looking with heavy-lidded eyes across the - prairie, he saw in the distance the barracks of the Riders of the Plains - and the jail near by, and his shuddering ceased. There was where he - belonged, within four stone walls; yet here he was free to go where he - willed, to live as he willed, with no eye upon him. With no eye upon him? - There was no eye, but there was the Whisperer whom he could never drive - away. Morning and night he heard the words, “You—you—you! - Fire, and blood, and shame!” He had snatched sleep when he could find it, - after long, long hours of tramping over the plains, ostensibly to shoot - wild fowl, but in truth to bring on a great bodily fatigue—and - sleep. His sleep only came then in the first watches of the night. As the - night wore on the Whisperer began again, as the cloud of weariness lifted - a little from him, and the senses were released from the heavy sedative of - unnatural exertion. - </p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - ......................... -</pre> - <p> - The dusk deepened. The moon slowly rose. He cooked his scanty meal, and - took a deep draught from a horn of whiskey from beneath a board in the - flooring. He had not the courage to face Dupont without it, nor yet to - forget what he must forget, if he was to do the work Dupont came to - arrange—he must forget the girl who had saved his life and the - influence of those strange moments in which she had spoken down to him, in - the abyss where he had been lying. - </p> - <p> - He sat in the doorway, a fire gleaming behind him; he drank in the good - air as though his lungs were thirsty for it, and saw the silver glitter of - the moon upon the water. Not a breath of wind stirred, and the shining - path the moon made upon the reedy lake fascinated his eye. Everything was - so still except that whisper louder in his ear than it had ever been - before. - </p> - <p> - Suddenly, upon the silver path upon the lake there shot a silent canoe, - with a figure as silently paddling towards him. He gazed for a moment - dismayed, and then got to his feet with a jerk. - </p> - <p> - “Dupont,” he said mechanically. - </p> - <p> - The canoe swished among the reeds and rushes, scraped on the shore, and a - tall, burly figure sprang from it, and stood still, looking at the house. - </p> - <p> - “Qui reste la—Lygon?” he asked. - </p> - <p> - “Dupont,” was the nervous, hesitating reply. Dupont came forwards quickly. - “Ah, ben, here we are again—so,” he grunted cheerily. - </p> - <p> - Entering the house they sat before the fire, holding their hands to the - warmth from force of habit, though the night was not cold. - </p> - <p> - “Ben, you will do it to-night—then?” Dupont said. “Sacre, it is - time!” - </p> - <p> - “Do what?” rejoined the other heavily. - </p> - <p> - An angry light leapt into Dupont’s eyes. “You not unnerstan’ my - letters-bah! You know it all right, so queeck.” - </p> - <p> - The other remained silent, staring into the fire with wide, searching - eyes. - </p> - <p> - Dupont put a hand on him. “You ketch my idee queeck. We mus’ have more - money from that Henderley—certainlee. It is ten years, and he t’ink - it is all right. He t’ink we come no more becos’ he give five t’ousan’ - dollars to us each. That was to do the t’ing, to fire the country. Now we - want another ten t’ousan’ to us each, to forget we do it for him—hein?” - </p> - <p> - Still there was no reply. Dupont went on, watching the other furtively, - for he did not like this silence. But he would not resent it till he was - sure there was good cause. - </p> - <p> - “It comes to suit us. He is over there at the Old Man Lak’, where you can - get at him easy, not like in the city where he lif’. Over in the States, - he laugh mebbe, becos’ he is at home, an’ can buy off the law. But here—it - is Canadaw, an’ they not care eef he have hunder’ meellion dollar. He know - that—sure. Eef you say you not care a dam to go to jail, so you can - put him there, too, becos’ you have not’ing, an’ so dam seeck of - everyt’ing, he will t’ink ten t’ousan’ dollar same as one cent to Nic - Dupont—ben sur!” - </p> - <p> - Lygon nodded his head, still holding his hands to the blaze. With ten - thousand dollars he could get away into—into another world - somewhere, some world where he could forget; as he forgot for a moment - this afternoon when the girl said to him, “It is never too late to mend.” - </p> - <p> - Now as he thought of her, he pulled his coat together, and arranged the - rough scarf at his neck involuntarily. Ten thousand dollars—but ten - thousand dollars by blackmail, hush-money, the reward of fire, and blood, - and shame! Was it to go on? Was he to commit a new crime? - </p> - <p> - He stirred, as though to shake off the net that he felt twisting round - him, in the hands of the robust and powerful Dupont, on whom crime sat so - lightly, who had flourished while he, Lygon, had gone lower and lower. Ten - years ago he had been the better man, had taken the lead, was the master, - Dupont the obedient confederate, the tool. Now, Dupont, once the rough - river-driver, grown prosperous in a large way for him—who might yet - be mayor of his town in Quebec—he held the rod of rule. Lygon was - conscious that the fifty dollars sent him every New Year for five years by - Dupont had been sent with a purpose, and that he was now Dupont’s tool. - Debilitated, demoralised, how could he, even if he wished, struggle - against this powerful confederate, as powerful in will as in body? Yet if - he had his own way he would not go to Henderley. He had lived with “a - familiar spirit” so long, he feared the issue of this next excursion into - the fens of crime. - </p> - <p> - Dupont was on his feet now. “He will be here only three days more—I - haf find it so. To-night it mus’ be done. As we go I will tell you what to - say. I will wait at the Forks, an’ we will come back togedder. His cheque - will do. Eef he gif at all, the cheque is all right. He will not stop it. - Eef he haf the money, it is better—sacre—yes. Eef he not gif—well, - I will tell you, there is the other railway man he try to hurt, how would - he like—But I will tell you on the river. Main’enant—queeck, - we go.” - </p> - <p> - Without a word Lygon took down another coat and put it on. Doing so he - concealed a weapon quickly as Dupont stooped to pick a coal for his pipe - from the blaze. Lygon had no fixed purpose in taking a weapon with him; it - was only a vague instinct of caution that moved him. - </p> - <p> - In the canoe on the river, in an almost speechless apathy, he heard - Dupont’s voice giving him instructions. - </p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - ....................... -</pre> - <p> - Henderley, the financier, had just finished his game of whist and - dismissed his friends—it was equivalent to dismissal, rough yet - genial as he seemed to be, so did immense wealth and its accompanying - power affect his relations with those about him. In everything he was - “considered.” He was in good humour, for he had won all the evening, and - with a smile he rubbed his hands among the notes—three thousand - dollars it was. It was like a man with a pocket full of money, chuckling - over a coin he has found in the street. Presently he heard a rustle of the - inner tent-curtain and swung round. He faced the man from the reedy lake. - </p> - <p> - Instinctively he glanced round for a weapon, mechanically his hands firmly - grasped the chair in front of him. - </p> - <p> - He had been in danger of his life many times, and he had no fear. He had - been threatened with assassination more than once, and he had got used to - the idea of danger; life to him was only a game. - </p> - <p> - He kept his nerve; he did not call out; he looked his visitor in the eyes. - </p> - <p> - “What are you doing here? Who are you?” he said. - </p> - <p> - “Don’t you know me?” answered Lygon, gazing intently at him. - </p> - <p> - Face to face with the man who had tempted him to crime, Lygon had a new - sense of boldness, a sudden feeling of reprisal, a rushing desire to put - the screw upon him. At sight of this millionaire with the pile of notes - before him there vanished the sickening hesitation of the afternoon, of - the journey with Dupont. The look of the robust, healthy financier was - like acid in a wound; it maddened him. - </p> - <p> - “You will know me better soon,” Lygon added, his head twitching with - excitement. - </p> - <p> - Henderley recognised him now. He gripped the armchair spasmodically, but - presently regained a complete composure. He knew the game that was forward - here; and he also thought that if once he yielded to blackmail there would - never be an end to it. He made no pretence, but came straight to the - point. - </p> - <p> - “You can do nothing; there is no proof,” he said with firm assurance. - </p> - <p> - “There is Dupont,” answered Lygon doggedly. - </p> - <p> - “Who is Dupont?” - </p> - <p> - “The French Canadian who helped me—I divided with him.” - </p> - <p> - “You said the man who helped you died. You wrote that to me. I suppose you - are lying now.” - </p> - <p> - Henderley coolly straightened the notes on the table, smoothing out the - wrinkles, arranging them according to their denominations with an - apparently interested eye; yet he was vigilantly watching the outcast - before him. To yield to blackmail would be fatal; not to yield to it—he - could not see his way. He had long ago forgotten the fire, and blood, and - shame. No Whisperer reminded him of that black page in the history of his - life; he had been immune of conscience. He could not understand this man - before him. It was as bad a case of human degradation as ever he had seen—he - remembered the stalwart, if dissipated, ranchman who had acted on his - instigation. He knew now that he had made a foolish blunder then, that the - scheme had been one of his failures; but he had never looked on it as with - eyes reproving crime. As a hundred thoughts tending towards the solution - of the problem by which he was faced, flashed through his mind, and he - rejected them all, he repeated mechanically the phrase, “I suppose you are - lying now.” - </p> - <p> - “Dupont is here—not a mile away,” was the reply. “He will give - proof. He would go to jail or to the gallows to put you there, if you do - not pay. He is a devil—Dupont.” - </p> - <p> - Still the great man could not see his way out. He must temporise for a - little longer, for rashness might bring scandal or noise; and near by was - his daughter, the apple of his eye. - </p> - <p> - “What do you want? How much did you figure you could get out of me, if I - let you bleed me?” he asked sneeringly and coolly. “Come now, how much?” - </p> - <p> - Lygon, in whom a blind hatred of the man still raged, was about to reply, - when he heard a voice calling, “Daddy, Daddy!” - </p> - <p> - Suddenly the red, half-insane light died down in Lygon’s eyes. He saw the - snake upon the ground by the reedy lake, the girl standing over it—the - girl with the tawny hair. This was her voice. - </p> - <p> - Henderley had made a step towards a curtain opening into another room of - the great tent, but before he could reach it the curtain was pushed back, - and the girl entered with a smile. - </p> - <p> - “May I come in?” she said; then stood still astonished; seeing Lygon. - </p> - <p> - “Oh!” she exclaimed. “Oh—you!” - </p> - <p> - All at once a look came into her face which stirred it as a flying insect - stirs the water of a pool. On the instant she remembered that she had seen - the man before. - </p> - <p> - It was ten years ago in Montana on the night of her birthday. Her father - had been called away to talk with this man, and she had seen him from the - steps of the “special.” It was only the caricature of the once strong, - erect ranchman that she saw, but there was no mistake, she recognised him - now. - </p> - <p> - Lygon, dumfounded, looked from her to her father, and he saw now in - Henderley’s eyes a fear that was not to be misunderstood. - </p> - <p> - Here was where Henderley could be smitten, could be brought to his knees. - It was the vulnerable part of him. Lygon could see that he was stunned. - The great financier was in his power. He looked back again to the girl, - and her face was full of trouble. - </p> - <p> - A sharp suspicion was in her heart that somehow or other her father was - responsible for this man’s degradation and ruin. She looked Lygon in the - eyes. - </p> - <p> - “Did you want to see me?” she asked. - </p> - <p> - She scarcely knew why she said it; but she was sensible of trouble, maybe - of tragedy, somewhere; and she had a vague dread of she knew not what, for - hide it, avoid it, as she had done so often, there was in her heart an - unhappy doubt concerning her father. - </p> - <p> - A great change had come over Lygon. Her presence had altered him. He was - again where she had left him in the afternoon. - </p> - <p> - He heard her say to her father, “This was the man I told you of—at - the reedy lake. Did you come to see me?” she repeated. - </p> - <p> - “I did not know you were here,” he answered. “I came”—he was - conscious of Henderley’s staring eyes fixed upon him helplessly—“I - came to ask your father if he would not buy my shack. There is good - shooting at the lake; the ducks come plenty, sometimes. I want to get - away, to start again somewhere. I’ve been a failure. I want to get away, - right away south. If he would buy it I could start again. I’ve had no - luck.” He had invented it on the moment, but the girl understood better - than Lygon or Henderley could have dreamed. She had seen the change pass - over Lygon. Henderley had a hand on himself again, and the startled look - went out of his eyes. - </p> - <p> - “What do you want for your shack and the lake?” he asked with restored - confidence. The fellow no doubt was grateful that his daughter had saved - his life, he thought. - </p> - <p> - “Five hundred dollars,” answered Lygon quickly. Henderley would have - handed over all that lay on the table before him but that he thought it - better not to do so. “I’ll buy it,” he said. “You seem to have been hit - hard. Here is the money. Bring me the deed to-morrow—to-morrow.” - </p> - <p> - “I’ll not take the money till I give you the deed,” said Lygon. “It will - do to-morrow. It’s doing me a good turn. I’ll get away and start again - somewhere. I’ve done no good up here. Thank you, sir—thank you.” - Before they realised it, the tent-curtain rose and fell, and he was gone - into the night. - </p> - <p> - The trouble was still deep in the girl’s eyes as she kissed her father, - and he, with an overdone cheerfulness, wished her a good night. - </p> - <p> - The man of iron had been changed into a man of straw once at least in his - lifetime. - </p> - <p> - Lygon found Dupont at the Forks. - </p> - <p> - “Eh ben, it is all right—yes?” Dupont asked eagerly as Lygon joined - him. - </p> - <p> - “Yes, it is all right,” answered Lygon. - </p> - <p> - With an exulting laugh and an obscene oath, Dupont pushed out the canoe, - and they got away into the moonlight. No word was spoken for some - distance, but Dupont kept giving grunts of satisfaction. - </p> - <p> - “You got the ten t’ousan’ each—in cash or cheque, eh? The cheque or - the money-hein?” - </p> - <p> - “I’ve got nothing,” answered Lygon. Dupont dropped his paddle with a - curse. - </p> - <p> - “You got not’ing! You said eet was all right,” he growled. - </p> - <p> - “It is all right. I got nothing. I asked for nothing. I have had enough. I - have finished.” - </p> - <p> - With a roar of rage Dupont sprang on him, and caught him by the throat as - the canoe swayed and dipped. He was blind with fury. - </p> - <p> - Lygon tried with one hand for his knife, and got it, but the pressure on - his throat was growing terrible. For minutes the struggle continued, for - Lygon was fighting with the desperation of one who makes his last awful - onset against fate and doom. - </p> - <p> - Dupont also had his knife at work. At last it drank blood, but as he got - it home, he suddenly reeled blindly, lost his balance, and lurched into - the water with a groan. - </p> - <p> - Lygon, weapon in hand, and bleeding freely, waited for him to rise and - make for the canoe again. - </p> - <p> - Ten, twenty, fifty seconds passed. Dupont did not rise. A minute went by, - and still there was no stir, no sign. Dupont would never rise again. In - his wild rage he had burst a blood vessel on the brain. - </p> - <p> - Lygon bound up his reeking wound as best he could. He did—it calmly, - whispering to himself the while. - </p> - <p> - “I must do it. I must get there if I can. I will not be afraid to die - then,” he muttered to himself. Presently he grasped an oar and paddled - feebly. - </p> - <p> - A slight wind had risen, and, as he turned the boat in to face the Forks - again, it helped to carry the canoe to the landing-place. - </p> - <p> - Lygon dragged himself out. He did not try to draw the canoe up, but began - this journey of a mile back to the tent he had left so recently. First, - step by step, leaning against trees, drawing himself forwards, a journey - as long to his determined mind as from youth to age. Would it never end? - It seemed a terrible climbing up the sides of a cliff, and, as he - struggled fainting on, all sorts of sounds were in his ears, but he - realised that the Whisperer was no longer there. The sounds he heard did - not torture, they helped his stumbling feet. They were like the murmur of - waters, like the sounds of the forest and soft, booming bells. But the - bells were only the beatings of his heart-so loud, so swift. - </p> - <p> - He was on his knees now crawling on-on-on. At last there came a light, - suddenly bursting on him from a tent, he was so near. Then he called, and - called again, and fell forwards on his face. But now he heard a voice - above him. It was her voice. He had blindly struggled on to die near her, - near where she was, she was so pitiful and good. - </p> - <p> - He had accomplished his journey, and her voice was speaking above him. - There were other voices, but it was only hers that he heard. - </p> - <p> - “God help him—oh, God help him!” she was saying. He drew a long - quiet breath. “I will sleep now,” he said clearly. - </p> - <p> - He would hear the Whisperer no more. - </p> - <p> - <a name="link2H_4_0020" id="link2H_4_0020"> - <!-- H2 anchor --> </a> - </p> - <div style="height: 4em;"> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </div> - <h2> - AS DEEP AS THE SEA - </h2> - <p> - “What can I do, Dan? I’m broke, too. My last dollar went to pay my last - debt to-day. I’ve nothing but what I stand in. I’ve got prospects, but I - can’t discount prospects at the banks.” The speaker laughed bitterly. - “I’ve reaped and I’m sowing, the same as you, Dan.” - </p> - <p> - The other made a nervous motion of protest. “No; not the same as me, Flood—not - the same. It’s sink or swim with me, and if you can’t help me—oh, - I’d take my gruel without whining, if it wasn’t for Di! It’s that knocks - me over. It’s the shame to her. Oh, what a cursed ass and fool—and - thief, I’ve been!” - </p> - <p> - “Thief-thief?” - </p> - <p> - Flood Rawley dropped the flaming match with which he was about to light a - cheroot, and stood staring, his dark-blue eyes growing wider, his worn, - handsome face becoming drawn, as swift conviction mastered him. He felt - that the black words which had fallen from his friend’s lips—from - the lips of Diana Welldon’s brother—were the truth. He looked at the - plump face, the full amiable eyes, now misty with fright, at the - characterless hand nervously feeling the golden moustache, at the - well-fed, inert body; and he knew that whatever the trouble or the peril, - Dan Welldon could not surmount it alone. - </p> - <p> - “What is it?” Rawley asked rather sharply, his fingers running through his - slightly grizzled, black hair, but not excitedly, for he wanted no scenes; - and if this thing could hurt Di Welldon, and action was necessary, he must - remain cool. What she was to him, Heaven and he only knew; what she had - done for him, perhaps neither understood fully as yet. “What is it—quick?” - he added, and his words were like a sharp grip upon Dan Welldon’s - shoulder. “Racing—cards?” - </p> - <p> - Dan nodded. “Yes, over at Askatoon; five hundred on Jibway, the favourite—he - fell at the last fence; five hundred at poker with Nick Fison; and a - thousand in land speculation at Edmonton, on margin. Everything went - wrong.” - </p> - <p> - “And so you put your hand in the railway company’s money-chest?” - </p> - <p> - “It seemed such a dead certainty—Jibway; and the Edmonton - corner-blocks, too. I’d had luck with Nick before; but—well, there - it is, Flood.” - </p> - <p> - “They know—the railway people—Shaughnessy knows?” - </p> - <p> - “Yes, the president knows. He’s at Calgary now. They telegraphed him, and - he wired to give me till midnight to pay up, or go to jail. They’re - watching me now. I can’t stir. There’s no escape, and there’s no one I can - ask for help but you. That’s why I’ve come, Flood.” - </p> - <p> - “Lord, what a fool! Couldn’t you see what the end would be, if your - plunging didn’t come off? You—you oughtn’t to bet, or speculate, or - play cards, you’re not clever enough. You’ve got blind rashness, and so - you think you’re bold. And Di—oh, you idiot! And on a salary of a - thousand dollars a year!” - </p> - <p> - “I suppose Di would help me; but I couldn’t explain.” The weak face - puckered, a lifeless kind of tear gathered in the ox-like eyes. - </p> - <p> - “Yes, she probably would help you. She’d probably give you all she’s saved - to go to Europe with and study, saved from her pictures sold at twenty per - cent of their value; and she’d mortgage the little income she’s got to - keep her brother out of jail. Of course she would, and of course you ought - to be ashamed of yourself for thinking of it.” Rawley lighted his cigar - and smoked fiercely. - </p> - <p> - “It would be better for her than my going to jail,” stubbornly replied the - other. “But I don’t want to tell her, or to ask her for money. That’s why - I’ve come to you. You needn’t be so hard, Flood; you’ve not been a saint; - and Di knows it.” - </p> - <p> - Rawley took the cheroot from his mouth, threw back his head, and laughed - mirthlessly, ironically. Then suddenly he stopped and looked round the - room till his eyes rested on a portrait-drawing which hung on the wall - opposite the window, through which the sun poured. It was the face of a - girl with beautiful bronzed hair, and full, fine, beautifully modelled - face, with brown eyes deep and brooding, which seemed to have time and - space behind them—not before them. The lips were delicate and full, - and had the look suggesting a smile which the inward thought has stayed. - It was like one of the Titian women—like a Titian that hangs on the - wall of the Gallery at Munich. The head and neck, the whole personality, - had an air of distinction and destiny. The drawing had been done by a - wandering duchess who had seen the girl sketching in the foothills, when - on a visit to that “Wild West” which has such power to refine and inspire - minds not superior to Nature. Its replica was carried to a castle in - Scotland. It had been the gift of Diana Welldon on a certain day not long - ago, when Flood Rawley had made a pledge to her, which was as vital to him - and to his future as two thousand dollars were vital to Dan Welldon now. - </p> - <p> - “You’ve not been a saint, and Di knows it,” repeated the weak brother of a - girl whose fame belonged to the West; whose name was a signal for cheerful - looks; whose buoyant humour and impartial friendliness gained her - innumerable friends; and whose talent, understood by few, gave her a - certain protection, lifting her a little away from the outwardly crude and - provincial life around her. - </p> - <p> - When Rawley spoke, it was with quiet deliberation, and even gentleness. “I - haven’t been a saint, and she knows it, as you say, Dan; but the law is on - my side as yet, and it isn’t on yours. There’s the difference.” - </p> - <p> - “You used to gamble yourself; you were pretty tough, and you oughtn’t to - walk up my back with hobnailed boots.” - </p> - <p> - “Yes, I gambled, Dan, and I drank, and I raised a dust out here. My record - was writ pretty big. But I didn’t lay my hands on the ark of the social - covenant, whose inscription is, Thou shalt not steal; and that’s why I’m - poor but proud, and no one’s watching for me round the corner, same as - you.” - </p> - <p> - Welldon’s half-defiant petulance disappeared. “What’s done can’t be - undone.” Then, with a sudden burst of anguish: “Oh, get me out of this - somehow!” - </p> - <p> - “How? I’ve got no money. By speaking to your sister?” - </p> - <p> - The other was silent. - </p> - <p> - “Shall I do it?” Rawley peered anxiously into the other’s face, and he - knew that there was no real security against the shameful trouble being - laid bare to her. - </p> - <p> - “I want a chance to start straight again.” - </p> - <p> - The voice was fluttered, almost whining; it carried no conviction; but the - words had in them a reminder of words that Rawley himself had said to - Diana Welldon but a few months ago, and a new spirit stirred in him. He - stepped forwards and, gripping Dan’s shoulder with a hand of steel, said - fiercely: - </p> - <p> - “No, Dan. I’d rather take you to her in your coffin. She’s never known - you, never seen what most of us have seen, that all you have—or - nearly all—is your lovely looks, and what they call a kind heart. - There’s only you two in your family, and she’s got to live with you—awhile, - anyhow. She couldn’t stand this business. She mustn’t stand it. She’s had - enough to put up with in me; but at the worst she could pass me by on the - other side, and there would be an end. It would have been said that Flood - Rawley had got his deserts. It’s different with you.” His voice changed, - softened. “Dan, I made a pledge to her that I’d never play cards again for - money while I lived, and it wasn’t a thing to take on without some - cogitation. But I cogitated, and took it on, and started life over again—me! - Began practising law again—barrister, solicitor, notary public—at - forty. And at last I’ve got my chance in a big case against the Canadian - Pacific. It’ll make me or break me, Dan.... There, I wanted you to see - where I stand with Di; and now I want you to promise me that you’ll not - leave these rooms till I see you again. I’ll get you clear; I’ll save you, - Dan.” - </p> - <p> - “Flood! Oh, my God, Flood!” The voice was broken. - </p> - <p> - “You’ve got to stay here, and you’re to remember not to get the funk, even - if I don’t come before midnight. I’ll be here then, if I’m alive. If you - don’t keep your word—but, there, you will.” Both hands gripped the - graceful shoulders of the miscreant like a vice. - </p> - <p> - “So help me, Flood,” was the frightened, whispered reply, “I’ll make it up - to you somehow, some day. I’ll pay you back.” - </p> - <p> - Rawley caught up his cap from the table. “Steady—steady. Don’t go at - a fence till you’re sure of your seat, Dan,” he said. Then with a long - look at the portrait on the wall, and an exclamation which the other did - not hear, he left the room with a set, determined face. - </p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - ...................... -</pre> - <p> - “Who told you? What brought you, Flood?” the girl asked, her chin in her - long, white hands, her head turned from the easel to him, a book in her - lap, the sun breaking through the leaves upon her hat, touching the Titian - hair with splendour. - </p> - <p> - “Fate brought me, and didn’t tell me,” he answered, with a whimsical quirk - of the mouth, and his trouble lurking behind the sea-deep eyes. - </p> - <p> - “Wouldn’t you have come if you knew I was here?” she urged archly. - </p> - <p> - “Not for two thousand dollars,” he answered, the look of trouble deepening - in his eyes, but his lips were smiling. He had a quaint sense of humour, - and at his last gasp would have noted the ridiculous thing. And surely it - was a droll malignity of Fate to bring him here to her whom, in this - moment of all moments in his life, he wished far away. Fate meant to try - him to the uttermost. This hurdle of trial was high indeed. - </p> - <p> - “Two thousand dollars—nothing less?” she inquired gaily. “You are - too specific for a real lover.” - </p> - <p> - “Fate fixed the amount,” he added drily. “Fate—you talk so much of - Fate,” she replied gravely, and her eyes looked into the distance. “You - make me think of it too, and I don’t want to do so. I don’t want to feel - helpless, to be the child of Accident and Destiny.” - </p> - <p> - “Oh, you get the same thing in the ‘fore-ordination’ that old Minister - M’Gregor preaches every Sunday. ‘Be elect or be damned,’ he says to us - all. Names aren’t important; but, anyhow, it was Fate that led me here.” - </p> - <p> - “Are you sure it wasn’t me?” she asked softly. “Are you sure I wasn’t - calling you, and you had to come?” - </p> - <p> - “Well, it was en route, anyhow; and you are always calling, if I must tell - you,” he laughed. Suddenly he became grave. “I hear you call me in the - night sometimes, and I start up and say ‘Yes, Di!’ out of my sleep. It’s a - queer hallucination. I’ve got you on the brain, certainly.” - </p> - <p> - “It seems to vex you—certainly,” she said, opening the book that lay - in her lap, “and your eyes trouble me to-day. They’ve got a look that used - to be in them, Flood, before—before you promised; and another look I - don’t understand and don’t like. I suppose it’s always so. The real - business of life is trying to understand each other.” - </p> - <p> - “You have wonderful thoughts for one that’s had so little chance,” he - said. “That’s because you’re a genius, I suppose. Teaching can’t give that - sort of thing—the insight.” - </p> - <p> - “What is the matter, Flood?” she asked suddenly again, her breast heaving, - her delicate, rounded fingers interlacing. “I heard a man say once that - you were ‘as deep as the sea.’ He did not mean it kindly, but I do. You - are in trouble, and I want to share it if I can. Where were you going when - you came across me here?” - </p> - <p> - “To see old Busby, the quack-doctor up there,” he answered, nodding - towards a shrubbed and wooded hillock behind them. - </p> - <p> - “Old Busby!” she rejoined in amazement. “What do you want with him—not - medicine of that old quack, that dreadful man?” - </p> - <p> - “He cures people sometimes. A good many out here owe him more than they’ll - ever pay him.” - </p> - <p> - “Is he as rich an old miser as they say?” - </p> - <p> - “He doesn’t look rich, does he?” was the enigmatical answer. - </p> - <p> - “Does any one know his real history? He didn’t come from nowhere. He must - have had friends once. Some one must once have cared for him, though he - seems such a monster now.” - </p> - <p> - “Yet he cures people sometimes,” he rejoined abstractedly. “Probably - there’s some good underneath. I’m going to try and see.” - </p> - <p> - “What is it. What is your business with him? Won’t you tell me? Is it so - secret?” - </p> - <p> - “I want him to help me in a case I’ve got in hand. A client of mine is in - trouble—you mustn’t ask about it; and he can help, I think—I - think so.” He got to his feet. “I must be going, Di,” he added. Suddenly a - flush swept over his face, and he reached out and took both her hands. - “Oh, you are a million times too good for me!” he said. “But if all goes - well, I’ll do my best to make you forget it.” - </p> - <p> - “Wait—wait one moment,” she answered. “Before you go, I want you to - hear what I’ve been reading over and over to myself just now. It is from a - book I got from Quebec, called ‘When Time Shall Pass’. It is a story of - two like you and me. The man is writing to the woman, and it has things - that you have said to me—in a different way.” - </p> - <p> - “No, I don’t talk like a book, but I know a star in a dark night when I - see it,” he answered, with a catch in his throat. - </p> - <p> - “Hush,” she said, catching his hand in hers, as she read, while all around - them the sounds of summer—the distant clack of a reaper, the crack - of a whip, the locusts droning, the whir of a young partridge, the squeak - of a chipmunk—were tuned to the harmony of the moment and her voice: - </p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - “‘Night and the sombre silence, oh, my love, and one star shining! - First, warm, velvety sleep, and then this quick, quiet waking to - your voice which seems to call me. Is it—is it you that calls? - Do you sometimes, even in your dreams, speak to me? Far beneath - unconsciousness is there the summons of your spirit to me?... - I like to think so. I like to think that this thing which has come - to us is deeper, greater than we are. Sometimes day and night there - flash before my eyes—my mind’s eyes—pictures of you and me in - places unfamiliar, landscapes never before seen, activities - uncomprehended and unknown, bright, alluring glimpses of some second - being, some possible, maybe never-to-be-realised future, alas! Yet - these swift-moving shutters of the soul, or imagination, or reality - —who shall say which?—give me a joy never before felt in life. If - I am not a better man for this love of mine for you, I am more than - I was, and shall be more than I am. Much of my life in the past was - mean and small, so much that I have said and done has been unworthy - —my love for you is too sharp a light for my gross imperfections of - the past! Come what will, be what must, I stake my life, my heart, - my soul on you—that beautiful, beloved face; those deep eyes in - which my being is drowned; those lucid, perfect hands that have - bound me to the mast of your destiny. I cannot go back, I must go - forwards: now I must keep on loving you or be shipwrecked. I did - not know that this was in me, this tide of love, this current of - devotion. Destiny plays me beyond my ken, beyond my dreams. - O Cithaeron! Turn from me now—or never, O my love! Loose me - from the mast, and let the storm and wave wash me out into the sea - of your forgetfulness now—or never!... But keep me, keep me, - if your love is great enough, if I bring you any light or joy; for I - am yours to my uttermost note of life.’” - </pre> - <p> - “He knew—he knew!” Rawley said, catching her wrists in his hands and - drawing her to him. “If I could write, that’s what I should have said to - you, beautiful and beloved. How mean and small and ugly my life was till - you made me over. I was a bad lot.” - </p> - <p> - “So much hung on one little promise,” she said, and drew closer to him. - “You were never bad,” she added; then, with an arm sweeping the universe, - “Oh, isn’t it all good, and isn’t it all worth living?” - </p> - <p> - His face lost its glow. Over in the town her brother faced a ruined life, - and the girl beside him, a dark humiliation and a shame which would poison - her life hereafter, unless—his look turned to the little house where - the quack-doctor lived. He loosed her hands. - </p> - <p> - “Now for Caliban,” he said. - </p> - <p> - “I shall be Ariel and follow you-in my heart,” she said. “Be sure and make - him tell you the story of his life,” she added with a laugh, as his lips - swept the hair behind her ears. - </p> - <p> - As he moved swiftly away, watching his long strides, she said proudly, “As - deep as the sea.” - </p> - <p> - After a moment she added: “And he was once a gambler, until, until—” - she glanced at the open book, then with sweet mockery looked at her hands—“until - ‘those lucid, perfect hands bound me to the mast of your destiny.’ O vain - Diana! But they are rather beautiful,” she added softly, “and I am rather - happy.” There was something like a gay little chuckle in her throat. - </p> - <p> - “O vain Diana!” she repeated. - </p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - ....................... -</pre> - <p> - Rawley entered the door of the but on the hill without ceremony. There was - no need for courtesy, and the work he had come to do could be easier done - without it. - </p> - <p> - Old Busby was crouched over a table, his mouth lapping milk from a full - bowl on the table. He scarcely raised his head when Rawley entered—through - the open door he had seen his visitor coming. He sipped on, his straggling - beard dripping. There was silence for a time. - </p> - <p> - “What do you want?” he growled at last. - </p> - <p> - “Finish your swill, and then we can talk,” said Rawley carelessly. He took - a chair near the door, lighted a cheroot and smoked, watching the old man, - as he tipped the great bowl towards his face, as though it were some wild - animal feeding. The clothes were patched and worn, the coat-front was - spattered with stains of all kinds, the hair and beard were unkempt and - long, giving him what would have been the look of a mangy lion, but that - the face had the expression of some beast less honourable. The eyes, - however, were malignantly intelligent, the hands, ill-cared for, were - long, well-shaped and capable, but of a hateful yellow colour like the - face. And through all was a sense of power, dark and almost mediaeval. - Secret, evilly wise and inhuman, he looked a being apart, whom men might - seek for help in dark purposes. - </p> - <p> - “What do you want—medicine?” he muttered at last, wiping his beard - and mouth with the palm of his hand, and the palm on his knees. - </p> - <p> - Rawley looked at the ominous-looking bottles on the shelves above the old - man’s head; at the forceps, knives, and other surgical instruments on the - walls—they at least were bright and clean—and, taking the - cheroot slowly from his mouth, he said: - </p> - <p> - “Shin-plasters are what I want. A friend of mine has caught his leg in a - trap.” - </p> - <p> - The old man gave an evil chuckle at the joke, for a “shin-plaster” was a - money-note worth a quarter of a dollar. - </p> - <p> - “I’ve got some,” he growled in reply, “but they cost twenty-five cents - each. You can have them for your friend at the price.” - </p> - <p> - “I want eight thousand of them from you. He’s hurt pretty bad,” was the - dogged, dry answer. - </p> - <p> - The shaggy eyebrows of the quack drew together, and the eyes peered out - sharply through half-closed lids. “There’s plenty of wanting and not much - getting in this world,” he rejoined, with a leer of contempt, and spat on - the floor, while yet the furtive watchfulness of the eyes indicated a mind - ill at ease. - </p> - <p> - Smoke came in placid puffs from the cheroot—Rawley was smoking very - hard, but with a judicial meditation, as it seemed. - </p> - <p> - “Yes, but if you want a thing so bad that, to get it, you’ll face the - devil or the Beast of Revelations, it’s likely to come to you.” - </p> - <p> - “You call me a beast?” The reddish-brown face grew black like that of a - Bedouin in his rage. - </p> - <p> - “I said the Beast of Revelations—don’t you know the Scriptures?” - </p> - <p> - “I know that a fool is to be answered according to his folly,” was the - hoarse reply, and the great head wagged to and fro in its smarting rage. - </p> - <p> - “Well, I’m doing my best; and perhaps when the folly is all out, we’ll - come to the revelations of the Beast.” There was a silence, in which the - gross impostor shifted heavily in his seat, while a hand twitched across - the mouth, and then caught at the breast of the threadbare black coat - abstractedly. - </p> - <p> - Rawley leaned forward, one elbow on a knee, the cheroot in his fingers. He - spoke almost confidentially, as to some ignorant and misguided savage—as - he had talked to Indian chiefs in his time, when searching for the truth - regarding some crime: - </p> - <p> - “I’ve had a lot of revelations in my time. A lawyer and a doctor always - do. And though there are folks who say I’m no lawyer, as there are those - who say with greater truth that you’re no doctor, speaking technically, - we’ve both had ‘revelations.’ You’ve seen a lot that’s seamy, and so have - I. You’re pretty seamy yourself. In fact, you’re as bad a man as ever - saved lives—and lost them. You’ve had a long tether, and you’ve - swung on it—swung wide. But you’ve had a lot of luck that you - haven’t swung high, too.” - </p> - <p> - He paused and flicked away the ash from his cheroot, while the figure - before him swayed animal-like from side to side, muttering. - </p> - <p> - “You’ve got brains, a great lot of brains of a kind—however you came - by them,” Rawley continued; “and you’ve kept a lot of people in the West - from passing in their cheques before their time. You’ve rooked ‘em, - chiselled ‘em out of a lot of cash, too. There was old Lamson—fifteen - hundred for the goitre on his neck; and Mrs. Gilligan for the cancer—two - thousand, wasn’t it? Tincture of Lebanon leaves you called the medicine, - didn’t you? You must have made fifty thousand or so in the last ten - years.” - </p> - <p> - “What I’ve made I’ll keep,” was the guttural answer, and the talon-like - fingers clawed the table. - </p> - <p> - “You’ve made people pay high for curing them, saving them sometimes; but - you haven’t paid me high for saving you in the courts; and there’s one - case that you haven’t paid me for at all. That was when the patient died—and - you didn’t.” - </p> - <p> - The face of the old man became mottled with a sudden fear, but he jerked - it forwards once or twice with an effort at self-control. Presently he - steadied to the ordeal of suspense, while he kept saying to himself, “What - does he know—what—which?” - </p> - <p> - “Malpractice resulting in death—that was poor Jimmy Tearle; and - something else resulting in death—that was the switchman’s wife. And - the law is hard in the West where a woman’s in the case—quick and - hard. Yes, you’ve swung wide on your tether; look out that you don’t swing - high, old man.” - </p> - <p> - “You can prove nothing; it’s bluff;” came the reply in a tone of malice - and of fear. - </p> - <p> - “You forget. I was your lawyer in Jimmy Tearle’s case, and a letter’s been - found written by the switchman’s wife to her husband. It reached me the - night he was killed by the avalanche. It was handed over to me by the - post-office, as the lawyer acting for the relatives. I’ve read it. I’ve - got it. It gives you away.” - </p> - <p> - “I wasn’t alone.” Fear had now disappeared, and the old man was fighting. - </p> - <p> - “No, you weren’t alone; and if the switchman and the switchman’s wife - weren’t dead and out of it all; and if the other man that didn’t matter - any more than you wasn’t alive and hadn’t a family that does matter, I - wouldn’t be asking you peaceably for two thousand dollars as my fee for - getting you off two cases that might have sent you to prison for twenty - years, or, maybe, hung you to the nearest tree.” - </p> - <p> - The heavy body pulled itself together, the hands clinched. “Blackmail-you - think I’ll stand it?” - </p> - <p> - “Yes, I think you will. I want two thousand dollars to help a friend in a - hole, and I mean to have it, if you think your neck’s worth it.” - </p> - <p> - Teeth, wonderfully white, showed through the shaggy beard. “If I had to go - to prison—or swing, as you say, do you think I’d go with my mouth - shut? I’d not pay up alone. The West would crack—holy Heaven, I know - enough to make it sick. Go on and see! I’ve got the West in my hand.” He - opened and shut his fingers with a grimace of cruelty which shook Rawley - in spite of himself. - </p> - <p> - Rawley had trusted to the inspiration of the moment; he had had no clearly - defined plan; he had believed that he could frighten the old man, and by - force of will bend him to his purposes. It had all been more difficult - than he had expected. He kept cool, imperturbable, and determined, - however. He knew that what the old quack said was true—the West - might shake with scandal concerning a few who, no doubt, in remorse and - secret fear, had more than paid the penalty of their offences. But he - thought of Di Welldon and of her criminal brother, and every nerve, every - faculty was screwed to its utmost limit of endurance and capacity. - </p> - <p> - Suddenly the old man gave a new turn to the event. He got up and, - rummaging in an old box, drew out a dice-box. Rattling the dice, he threw - them out on the table before him, a strange, excited look crossing his - face. - </p> - <p> - “Play for it,” he said in a harsh, croaking voice. “Play for the two - thousand. Win it if you can. You want it bad. I want to keep it bad. It’s - nice to have; it makes a man feel warm—money does. I’d sleep in - ten-dollar bills, I’d have my clothes made of them, if I could; I’d have - my house papered with them; I’d eat ‘em. Oh, I know, I know about you—and - her—Diana Welldon! You’ve sworn off gambling, and you’ve kept your - pledge for near a year. Well, it’s twenty years since I gambled—twenty - years. I gambled with these then.” He shook the dice in the box. “I - gambled everything I had away—more than two thousand dollars, more - than two thousand dollars.” He laughed a raw, mirthless laugh. “Well, - you’re the greatest gambler in the West. So was I-in the East. It - pulverised me at last, when I’d nothing left—and drink, drink, - drink. I gave up both one night and came out West. - </p> - <p> - “I started doctoring here. I’ve got money, plenty of money—medicine, - mines, land got it for me. I’ve been lucky. Now you come to bluff me—me! - You don’t know old Busby.” He spat on the floor. “I’m not to be bluffed. I - know too much. Before they could lynch me I’d talk. But to play you, the - greatest gambler in the West, for two thousand dollars—yes, I’d like - the sting of it again. Twos, fours, double-sixes—the gentleman’s - game!” He rattled the dice and threw them with a flourish out on the - table, his evil face lighting up. “Come! You can’t have something for - nothing,” he growled. - </p> - <p> - As he spoke, a change came over Rawley’s face. It lost its cool - imperturbability, it grew paler, the veins on the fine forehead stood out, - a new, flaring light came into the eyes. The old gambler’s spirit was - alive. But even as it rose, sweeping him into that area of fiery - abstraction where every nerve is strung to a fine tension, and the - surrounding world disappears, he saw the face of Diana Welldon, he - remembered her words to him not an hour before, and the issue of the - conflict, other considerations apart, was without doubt. But there was her - brother and his certain fate, if the two thousand dollars were not paid in - by midnight. He was desperate. It was in reality for Diana’s sake. He - approached the table, and his old calm returned. - </p> - <p> - “I have no money to play with,” he said quietly. With a gasp of - satisfaction, the old man fumbled in the inside of his coat and drew out - layers of ten, fifty, and hundred-dollar bills. It was lined with them. He - passed a pile over to Rawley—two thousand dollars. He placed a - similar pile before himself. - </p> - <p> - As Rawley laid his hand on the bills, the thought rushed through his mind, - “You have it—keep it!” but he put it away from him. With a gentleman - he might have done it, with this man before him, it was impossible. He - must take his chances; and it was the only chance in which he had hope - now, unless he appealed for humanity’s sake, for the girl’s sake, and told - the real truth. It might avail. Well, that would be the last resort. - </p> - <p> - “For small stakes?” said the grimy quack in a gloating voice. - </p> - <p> - Rawley nodded and then added, “We stop at eleven o’clock, unless I’ve lost - or won all before that.” - </p> - <p> - “And stake what’s left on the last throw?” - </p> - <p> - “Yes.” - </p> - <p> - There was silence for a moment, in which Rawley seemed to grow older, and - a set look came to his mouth—a broken pledge, no matter what the - cause, brings heavy penalties to the honest mind. He shut his eyes for an - instant, and, when he opened them, he saw that his fellow-gambler was - watching him with an enigmatical and furtive smile. Did this Caliban have - some understanding of what was at stake in his heart and soul? - </p> - <p> - “Play!” Rawley said sharply, and was himself again. For hour after hour - there was scarce a sound, save the rattle of the dice and an occasional - exclamation from the old man as he threw a double-six. As dusk fell, the - door had been shut, and a lighted lantern was hung over their heads. - </p> - <p> - Fortune had fluctuated. Once the old man’s pile had diminished to two - notes, then the luck had changed and his pile grew larger; then fell - again; but, as the hands of the clock on the wall above the blue medicine - bottles reached a quarter to eleven, it increased steadily throw after - throw. - </p> - <p> - Now the player’s fever was in Rawley’s eyes. His face was deadly pale, but - his hand threw steadily, calmly, almost negligently, as it might seem. All - at once, at eight minutes to eleven, the luck turned in his favour, and - his pile mounted again. Time after time he dropped double-sixes. It was - almost uncanny. He seemed to see the dice in the box, and his hand threw - them out with the precision of a machine. Long afterwards he had this - vivid illusion that he could see the dice in the box. As the clock was - about to strike eleven he had before him three thousand eight hundred - dollars. It was his throw. - </p> - <p> - “Two hundred,” he said in a whisper, and threw. He won. - </p> - <p> - With a gasp of relief, he got to his feet, the money in his hand. He - stepped backward from the table, then staggered, and a faintness passed - over him. He had sat so long without moving that his legs bent under him. - There was a pail of water with a dipper in it on a bench. He caught up a - dipperful of water, drank it empty, and let it fall in the pail again with - a clatter. - </p> - <p> - “Dan,” he said abstractedly, “Dan, you’re all safe now.” - </p> - <p> - Then he seemed to wake, as from a dream, and looked at the man at the - table. Busby was leaning on it with both hands, and staring at Rawley like - some animal jaded and beaten from pursuit. Rawley walked back to the table - and laid down two thousand dollars. - </p> - <p> - “I only wanted two thousand,” he said, and put the other two thousand in - his pocket. - </p> - <p> - The evil eyes gloated, the long fingers clutched the pile, and swept it - into a great inside pocket. Then the shaggy head bent forwards. - </p> - <p> - “You said it was for Dan,” he said—“Dan Welldon?” - </p> - <p> - Rawley hesitated. “What is that to you?” he replied at last. - </p> - <p> - With a sudden impulse the old impostor lurched round, opened a box, drew - out a roll, and threw it on the table. - </p> - <p> - “It’s got to be known sometime,” he said, “and you’ll be my lawyer when - I’m put into the ground—you’re clever. They call me a quack. - Malpractice—bah! There’s my diploma—James Clifton Welldon. - Right enough, isn’t it?” - </p> - <p> - Rawley was petrified. He knew the forgotten story of James Clifton - Welldon, the specialist, turned gambler, who had almost ruined his own - brother—the father of Dan and Diana—at cards and dice, and had - then ruined himself and disappeared. Here, where his brother had died, he - had come years ago, and practised medicine as a quack. - </p> - <p> - “Oh, there’s plenty of proof, if it’s wanted!” he said. “I’ve got it - here.” He tapped the box behind him. “Why did I do it? Because it’s my - way. And you’re going to marry my niece, and ‘ll have it all some day. But - not till I’ve finished with it—not unless you win it from me at dice - or cards.... But no”—something human came into the old, degenerate - face—“no more gambling for the man that’s to marry Diana. There’s a - wonder and a beauty!” He chuckled to himself. “She’ll be rich when I’ve - done with it. You’re a lucky man—ay, you’re lucky.” - </p> - <p> - Rawley was about to tell the old man what the two thousand dollars was - for, but a fresh wave of repugnance passed over him, and, hastily drinking - another dipperful of water, he opened the door. He looked back. The old - man was crouching forward, lapping milk from the great bowl, his beard - dripping. In disgust he swung round again. The fresh, clear air caught his - face. - </p> - <p> - With a gasp of relief he stepped out into the night, closing the door - behind him. - </p> - <p> - <br /> <br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <br /> <br /> - </p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - ETEXT EDITOR’S BOOKMARKS: - - Babbling covers a lot of secrets - Being a man of very few ideas, he cherished those he had - Beneath it all there was a little touch of ridicule - Don’t go at a fence till you’re sure of your seat - Even bad company’s better than no company at all - Future of those who will not see, because to see is to suffer - I like when I like, and I like a lot when I like - I don’t think. I’m old enough to know - It ain’t for us to say what we’re goin’ to be, not always - Knew when to shut his eyes, and when to keep them open - Nothing so popular for the moment as the fall of a favourite - Self-will, self-pride, and self-righteousness were big in him - That he will find the room empty where I am not - The temerity and nonchalance of despair - The real business of life is trying to understand each other - Things in life git stronger than we are - Tyranny of the little man, given a power - We don’t live in months and years, but just in minutes - What’ll be the differ a hundred years from now - You’ve got blind rashness, and so you think you’re bold -</pre> - <p> - <br /> <br /> - </p> - <hr /> - <p> - <br /> <br /> - </p> -<pre xml:space="preserve"> - - - -End of Project Gutenberg’s Northern Lights, Complete, by Gilbert Parker - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NORTHERN LIGHTS, COMPLETE *** - -***** This file should be named 6191-h.htm or 6191-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - https://www.gutenberg.org/6/1/9/6191/ - -Produced by David Widger - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Thus, we do not necessarily -keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. - - -Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: - - https://www.gutenberg.org - -This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, -including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary -Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to -subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. - -</pre> - <p> - <br /><br /><br /><br /> - </p> - </body> -</html> diff --git a/old/old-2025-02-21/6191.txt b/old/old-2025-02-21/6191.txt deleted file mode 100644 index bcbf5bd..0000000 --- a/old/old-2025-02-21/6191.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,11976 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of Northern Lights, Complete, by Gilbert Parker - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - - -Title: Northern Lights, Complete - -Author: Gilbert Parker - -Last Updated: March 12, 2009 -Release Date: October 17, 2006 [EBook #6191] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NORTHERN LIGHTS, COMPLETE *** - - - -Produced by David Widger - - - - - -NORTHERN LIGHTS, Complete - -By Gilbert Parker - - - - CONTENTS - - Volume 1. - A LODGE IN THE WILDERNESS - ONCE AT RED MAN'S RIVER - THE STROKE OF THE HOUR - BUCKMASTER'S BOY - - Volume 2. - TO-MORROW - QU'APPELLE - THE STAKE AND THE PLUMB-LINE - - Volume 3. - WHEN THE SWALLOWS HOMEWARD FLY - GEORGE'S WIFE - MARCILE - - Volume 4. - A MAN, A FAMINE, AND A HEATHEN BOY - THE HEALING SPRINGS AND THE PIONEERS - THE LITTLE WIDOW OF JANSEN - WATCHING THE RISE OF ORION - - Volume 5. - THE ERROR OF THE DAY - THE WHISPERER - AS DEEP AS THE SEA - - - - -INTRODUCTION - -This book, Northern Lights, belongs to an epoch which is a generation -later than that in which Pierre and His People moved. The conditions -under which Pierre and Shon McGann lived practically ended with the -advent of the railway. From that time forwards, with the rise of towns -and cities accompanied by an amazing growth of emigration, the whole -life lost much of that character of isolation and pathetic loneliness -which marked the days of Pierre. When, in 1905, I visited the Far West -again after many years, and saw the strange new life with its modern -episode, energy, and push, and realised that even the characteristics -which marked the period just before the advent, and just after the -advent, of the railway were disappearing, I determined to write a series -of stories which would catch the fleeting characteristics and hold -something of the old life, so adventurous, vigorous, and individual, -before it passed entirely and was forgotten. Therefore, from 1905 to -1909, I kept drawing upon all those experiences of others, from the -true tales that had been told me, upon the reminiscences of Hudson's -Bay trappers and hunters, for those incidents natural to the West which -imagination could make true. Something of the old atmosphere had gone, -and there was a stir and a murmur in all the West which broke that grim -yet fascinating loneliness of the time of Pierre. - -Thus it is that Northern Lights is written in a wholly different style -from that of Pierre and His People, though here and there, as for -instance in A Lodge in the Wilderness, Once at Red Man's River, The -Stroke of the Hour, Qu'appelle, and Marcile, the old note sounds, and -something of the poignant mystery, solitude, and big primitive incident -of the earlier stories appears. I believe I did well--at any rate for -myself and my purposes--in writing this book, and thus making the human -narrative of the Far West and North continuous from the time of the -sixties onwards. So have I assured myself of the rightness of my -intention, that I shall publish a novel presently which will carry on -this human narrative of the West into still another stage-that of the -present, when railways are intersecting each other, when mills and -factories are being added to the great grain elevators in the West, and -when hundreds and thousands of people every year are moving across the -plains where, within my own living time, the buffalo ranged in their -millions, and the red men, uncontrolled, set up their tepees. - - - - -NOTE - -The tales in this book belong to two different epochs in the life of the -Far West. The first five are reminiscent of "border days and deeds"--of -days before the great railway was built which changed a waste into a -fertile field of civilisation. The remaining stories cover the period -passed since the Royal North-West Mounted Police and the Pullman car -first startled the early pioneer, and sent him into the land of the -farther North, or drew him into the quiet circle of civic routine and -humdrum occupation. - -G. P. - - - - - -A LODGE IN THE WILDERNESS - -"Hai--Yai, so bright a day, so clear!" said Mitiahwe as she entered the -big lodge and laid upon a wide, low couch, covered with soft skins, the -fur of a grizzly which had fallen to her man's rifle. "Hai-yai, I -wish it would last for ever--so sweet!" she added, smoothing the fur -lingeringly, and showing her teeth in a smile. - -"There will come a great storm, Mitiahwe. See, the birds go south so -soon," responded a deep voice from a corner by the doorway. - -The young Indian wife turned quickly, and, in a defiant fantastic -mood--or was it the inward cry against an impending fate, the tragic -future of those who will not see, because to see is to suffer?--she -made some quaint, odd motions of the body which belonged to a mysterious -dance of her tribe, and, with flashing eyes, challenged the comely old -woman seated on a pile of deer-skins. - -"It is morning, and the day will last for ever," she said nonchalantly, -but her eyes suddenly took on a faraway look, half apprehensive, half -wondering. The birds were indeed going south very soon, yet had there -ever been so exquisite an autumn as this, had her man ever had so -wonderful a trade--her man with the brown hair, blue eyes, and fair, -strong face? - -"The birds go south, but the hunters and buffalo still go north," -Mitiahwe urged searchingly, looking hard at her mother--Oanita, the -Swift Wing. - -"My dream said that the winter will be dark and lonely, that the ice -will be thick, the snow deep, and that many hearts will be sick because -of the black days and the hunger that sickens the heart," answered Swift -Wing. - -Mitiahwe looked into Swift Wing's dark eyes, and an anger came upon her. -"The hearts of cowards will freeze," she rejoined, "and to those that -will not see the sun the world will be dark," she added. Then suddenly -she remembered to whom she was speaking, and a flood of feeling ran -through her; for Swift Wing had cherished her like a fledgeling in the -nest till her young white man came from "down East." Her heart had leapt -up at sight of him, and she had turned to him from all the young men of -her tribe, waiting in a kind of mist till he, at last, had spoken to -her mother, and then one evening, her shawl over her head, she had come -along to his lodge. - -A thousand times as the four years passed by she had thought how good -it was that she had become his wife--the young white man's wife, rather -than the wife of Breaking Rock, son of White Buffalo, the chief, who -had four hundred horses, and a face that would have made winter and -sour days for her. Now and then Breaking Rock came and stood before the -lodge, a distance off, and stayed there hour after hour, and once or -twice he came when her man was with her; but nothing could be done, -for earth and air and space were common to them all, and there was no -offence in Breaking Rock gazing at the lodge where Mitiahwe lived. Yet -it seemed as though Breaking Rock was waiting--waiting and hoping. -That was the impression made upon all who saw him, and even old White -Buffalo, the chief, shook his head gloomily when he saw Breaking Rock, -his son, staring at the big lodge which was so full of happiness, and -so full also of many luxuries never before seen at a trading post on -the Koonce River. The father of Mitiahwe had been chief, but because his -three sons had been killed in battle the chieftainship had come to White -Buffalo, who was of the same blood and family. There were those who said -that Mitiahwe should have been chieftainess; but neither she nor her -mother would ever listen to this, and so White Buffalo, and the tribe -loved Mitiahwe because of her modesty and goodness. She was even more to -White Buffalo than Breaking Rock, and he had been glad that Dingan the -white man--Long Hand he was called--had taken Mitiahwe for his woman. -Yet behind this gladness of White Buffalo, and that of Swift Wing, and -behind the silent watchfulness of Breaking Rock, there was a thought -which must ever come when a white man mates with an Indian maid, without -priest or preacher, or writing, or book, or bond. - -Yet four years had gone; and all the tribe, and all who came and went, -half-breeds, traders, and other tribes, remarked how happy was the white -man with his Indian wife. They never saw anything but light in the eyes -of Mitiahwe, nor did the old women of the tribe who scanned her face as -she came and went, and watched and waited too for what never came--not -even after four years. - -Mitiahwe had been so happy that she had not really missed what never -came; though the desire to have something in her arms which was part of -them both had flushed up in her veins at times, and made her restless -till her man had come home again. Then she had forgotten the unseen for -the seen, and was happy that they two were alone together--that was the -joy of it all, so much alone together; for Swift Wing did not live with -them, and, like Breaking Rock, she watched her daughter's life, standing -afar off, since it was the unwritten law of the tribe that the wife's -mother must not cross the path or enter the home of her daughter's -husband. But at last Dingan had broken through this custom, and insisted -that Swift Wing should be with her daughter when he was away from home, -as now on this wonderful autumn morning, when Mitiahwe had been singing -to the Sun, to which she prayed for her man and for everlasting days -with him. - -She had spoken angrily but now, because her soul sharply resented the -challenge to her happiness which her mother had been making. It was -her own eyes that refused to see the cloud, which the sage and bereaved -woman had seen and conveyed in images and figures of speech natural to -the Indian mind. - -"Hai-yai," she said now, with a strange touching sigh breathing in the -words, "you are right, my mother, and a dream is a dream; also, if it be -dreamt three times, then is it to be followed, and it is true. You have -lived long, and your dreams are of the Sun and the Spirit." She shook a -little as she laid her hand on a buckskin coat of her man hanging by the -lodge-door; then she steadied herself again, and gazed earnestly into -her mother's eyes. "Have all your dreams come true, my mother?" she -asked with a hungering heart. "There was the dream that came out of -the dark five times, when your father went against the Crees, and -was wounded, and crawled away into the hills, and all our warriors -fled--they were but a handful, and the Crees like a young forest in -number! I went with my dream, and found him after many days, and it was -after that you were born, my youngest and my last. There was also"--her -eyes almost closed, and the needle and thread she held lay still in her -lap--"when two of your brothers were killed in the drive of the buffalo. -Did I not see it all in my dream, and follow after them to take them -to my heart? And when your sister was carried off, was it not my dream -which saw the trail, so that we brought her back again to die in peace, -her eyes seeing the Lodge whither she was going, open to her, and the -Sun, the Father, giving her light and promise--for she had wounded -herself to die that the thief who stole her should leave her to herself. -Behold, my daughter, these dreams have I had, and others; and I have -lived long and have seen the bright day break into storm, and the herds -flee into the far hills where none could follow, and hunger come, and--" - -"Hai-yo, see, the birds flying south," said the girl with a gesture -towards the cloudless sky. "Never since I lived have they gone south so -soon." Again she shuddered slightly, then she spoke slowly: "I also have -dreamed, and I will follow my dream. I dreamed"--she knelt down beside -her mother, and rested her hands in her mother's lap--"I dreamed that -there was a wall of hills dark and heavy and far away, and that whenever -my eyes looked at them they burned with tears; and yet I looked and -looked, till my heart was like lead in my breast; and I turned from them -to the rivers and the plains that I loved. But a voice kept calling to -me, 'Come, come! Beyond the hills is a happy land. The trail is hard, -and your feet will bleed, but beyond is the happy land.' And I would -not go for the voice that spoke, and at last there came an old man in my -dream and spoke to me kindly, and said, 'Come with me, and I will show -thee the way over the hills to the Lodge where thou shalt find what thou -hast lost.' And I said to him, 'I have lost nothing;' and I would not -go. Twice I dreamed this dream, and twice the old man came, and three -times I dreamed it; and then I spoke angrily to him, as but now I did -to thee; and behold he changed before my eyes, and I saw that he was -now become--" she stopped short, and buried her face in her hands for a -moment, then recovered herself--"Breaking Rock it was, I saw before me, -and I cried out and fled. Then I waked with a cry, but my man was beside -me, and his arm was round my neck; and this dream, is it not a foolish -dream, my mother?" - -The old woman sat silent, clasping the hands of her daughter firmly, -and looking out of the wide doorway towards the trees that fringed the -river; and presently, as she looked, her face changed and grew pinched -all at once, and Mitiahwe, looking at her, turned a startled face -towards the river also. - -"Breaking Rock!" she said in alarm, and got to her feet quickly. - -Breaking Rock stood for a moment looking towards the lodge, then came -slowly forward to them. Never in all the four years had he approached -this lodge of Mitiahwe, who, the daughter of a chief, should have -married himself, the son of a chief! Slowly but with long slouching -stride Breaking Rock came nearer. The two women watched him without -speaking. Instinctively they knew that he brought news, that something -had happened; yet Mitiahwe felt at her belt for what no Indian -girl would be without; and this one was a gift from her man, on the -anniversary of the day she first came to his lodge. - -Breaking Rock was at the door now, his beady eyes fixed on Mitiahwe's, -his figure jerked to its full height, which made him, even then, two -inches less than Long Hand. He spoke in a loud voice: - -"The last boat this year goes down the river tomorrow. Long Hand, your -man, is going to his people. He will not come back. He has had enough of -the Blackfoot woman. You will see him no more." He waved a hand to the -sky. "The birds are going south. A hard winter is coming quick. You will -be alone. Breaking Rock is rich. He has five hundred horses. Your man is -going to his own people. Let him go. He is no man. It is four years, and -still there are but two in your lodge. How!" - -He swung on his heel with a chuckle in his throat, for he thought he had -said a good thing, and that in truth he was worth twenty white men. His -quick ear caught a movement behind him, however, and he saw the girl -spring from the lodge door, something flashing from her belt. But now -the mother's arms were round her, with cries of protest, and Breaking -Rock, with another laugh, slipped away swiftly toward the river. - -"That is good," he muttered. "She will kill him perhaps, when she goes -to him. She will go, but he will not stay. I have heard." - -As he disappeared among the trees Mitiahwe disengaged herself from her -mother's arms, went slowly back into the lodge, and sat down on the -great couch where, for so many moons, she had lain with her man beside -her. - -Her mother watched her closely, though she moved about doing little -things. She was trying to think what she would have done if such a thing -had happened to her, if her man had been going to leave her. She assumed -that Dingan would leave Mitiahwe, for he would hear the voices of his -people calling far away, even as the red man who went East into the -great cities heard the prairies and the mountains and the rivers and -his own people calling, and came back, and put off the clothes of -civilisation, and donned his buckskins again, and sat in the Medicine -Man's tent, and heard the spirits speak to him through the mist and -smoke of the sacred fire. When Swift Wing first gave her daughter to the -white man she foresaw the danger now at hand, but this was the tribute -of the lower race to the higher, and--who could tell! White men had left -their Indian wives, but had come back again, and for ever renounced -the life of their own nations, and become great chiefs, teaching -useful things to their adopted people, bringing up their children as -tribesmen--bringing up their children! There it was, the thing which -called them back, the bright-eyed children with the colour of the brown -prairie in their faces, and their brains so sharp and strong. But here -was no child to call Dingan back, only the eloquent, brave, sweet face -of Mitiahwe.... If he went! Would he go? Was he going? And now that -Mitiahwe had been told that he would go, what would she do? In her belt -was--but, no, that would be worse than all, and she would lose Mitiahwe, -her last child, as she had lost so many others. What would she herself -do if she were in Mitiahwe's place? Ah, she would make him stay -somehow--by truth or by falsehood; by the whispered story in the long -night, by her head upon his knee before the lodge-fire, and her eyes -fixed on his, luring him, as the Dream lures the dreamer into the far -trail, to find the Sun's hunting-ground where the plains are filled -with the deer and the buffalo and the wild horse; by the smell of the -cooking-pot and the favourite spiced drink in the morning; by the child -that ran to him with his bow and arrows and the cry of the hunter--but -there was no child; she had forgotten. She was always recalling her own -happy early life with her man, and the clean-faced papooses that crowded -round his knee--one wife and many children, and the old Harvester of the -Years reaping them so fast, till the children stood up as tall as -their father and chief. That was long ago, and she had had her -share--twenty-five years of happiness; but Mitiahwe had had only four. -She looked at Mitiahwe, standing still for a moment like one rapt, then -suddenly she gave a little cry. Something had come into her mind, some -solution of the problem, and she ran and stooped over the girl and put -both hands on her head. - -"Mitiahwe, heart's blood of mine," she said, "the birds go south, but -they return. What matter if they go so soon, if they return soon. If the -Sun wills that the winter be dark, and he sends the Coldmaker to close -the rivers and drive the wild ones far from the arrow and the gun, -yet he may be sorry, and send a second summer--has it not been so, and -Coldmaker has hurried away--away! The birds go south, but they will -return, Mitiahwe." - -"I heard a cry in the night while my man slept," Mitiahwe answered, -looking straight before her, "and it was like the cry of a bird-calling, -calling, calling." - -"But he did not hear--he was asleep beside Mitiahwe. If he did not wake, -surely it was good luck. Thy breath upon his face kept him sleeping. -Surely it was good luck to Mitiahwe that he did not hear." - -She was smiling a little now, for she had thought of a thing which -would, perhaps, keep the man here in this lodge in the wilderness; but -the time to speak of it was not yet. She must wait and see. - -Suddenly Mitiahwe got to her feet with a spring, and a light in her -eyes. "Hai-yai!" she said with plaintive smiling, ran to a corner of the -lodge, and from a leather bag drew forth a horse-shoe and looked at it, -murmuring to herself. - -The old woman gazed at her wonderingly. "What is it, Mitiahwe?" she -asked. - -"It is good-luck. So my man has said. It is the way of his people. It is -put over the door, and if a dream come it is a good dream; and if a bad -thing come, it will not enter; and if the heart prays for a thing hid -from all the world, then it brings good-luck. Hai-yai! I will put it -over the door, and then--" All at once her hand dropped to her side, as -though some terrible thought had come to her, and, sinking to the -floor, she rocked her body backward and forward for a time, sobbing. -But presently she got to her feet again, and, going to the door of the -lodge, fastened the horseshoe above it with a great needle and a string -of buckskin. - -"Oh great Sun," she prayed, "have pity on me and save me! I cannot live -alone. I am only a Blackfoot wife; I am not blood of his blood. Give, O -great one, blood of his blood, bone of his bone, soul of his soul, that -he will say, This is mine, body of my body, and he will hear the cry and -will stay. O great Sun, pity me!" The old woman's heart beat faster as -she listened. The same thought was in the mind of both. If there were -but a child, bone of his bone, then perhaps he would not go; or, if he -went, then surely he would return, when he heard his papoose calling in -the lodge in the wilderness. - -As Mitiahwe turned to her, a strange burning light in her eyes, Swift -Wing said: "It is good. The white man's Medicine for a white man's wife. -But if there were the red man's Medicine too--" - -"What is the red man's Medicine?" asked the young wife, as she smoothed -her hair, put a string of bright beads around her neck, and wound a red -sash round her waist. - -The old woman shook her head, a curious half-mystic light in her eyes, -her body drawn up to its full height, as though waiting for something. -"It is an old Medicine. It is of winters ago as many as the hairs of the -head. I have forgotten almost, but it was a great Medicine when there -were no white men in the land. And so it was that to every woman's -breast there hung a papoose, and every woman had her man, and the red -men were like leaves in the forest--but it was a winter of winters ago, -and the Medicine Men have forgotten; and thou hast no child! When Long -Hand comes, what will Mitiahwe say to him?" - -Mitiahwe's eyes were determined, her face was set, she flushed deeply, -then the colour fled. "What my mother would say, I will say. Shall the -white man's Medicine fail? If I wish it, then it will be so: and I will -say so." - -"But if the white man's Medicine fail?"--Swift Wing made a gesture -toward the door where the horse-shoe hung. "It is Medicine for a white -man, will it be Medicine for an Indian?" - -"Am I not a white man's wife?" - -"But if there were the Sun Medicine also, the Medicine of the days long -ago?" - -"Tell me. If you remember--Kai! but you do remember--I see it in your -face. Tell me, and I will make that Medicine also, my mother." - -"To-morrow, if I remember it--I will think, and if I remember it, -to-morrow I will tell you, my heart's blood. Maybe my dream will come to -me and tell me. Then, even after all these years, a papoose--" - -"But the boat will go at dawn to-morrow, and if he go also--" - -"Mitiahwe is young, her body is warm, her eyes are bright, the songs she -sings, her tongue--if these keep him not, and the Voice calls him still -to go, then still Mitiahwe shall whisper, and tell him--" - -"Hai-yo-hush," said the girl, and trembled a little, and put both hands -on her mother's mouth. - -For a moment she stood so, then with an exclamation suddenly turned and -ran through the doorway, and sped toward the river, and into the path -which would take her to the post, where her man traded with the Indians -and had made much money during the past six years, so that he could have -had a thousand horses and ten lodges like that she had just left. The -distance between the lodge and the post was no more than a mile, but -Mitiahwe made a detour, and approached it from behind, where she could -not be seen. Darkness was gathering now, and she could see the glimmer -of the light of lamps through the windows, and as the doors opened and -shut. No one had seen her approach, and she stole through a door which -was open at the rear of the warehousing room, and went quickly to -another door leading into the shop. There was a crack through which she -could see, and she could hear all that was said. As she came she had -seen Indians gliding through the woods with their purchases, and now -the shop was clearing fast, in response to the urging of Dingan and his -partner, a Scotch half-breed. It was evident that Dingan was at once -abstracted and excited. - -Presently only two visitors were left, a French halfbreed call Lablache, -a swaggering, vicious fellow, and the captain of the steamer, Ste. Anne, -which was to make its last trip south in the morning--even now it would -have to break its way through the young ice. Dingan's partner dropped -a bar across the door of the shop, and the four men gathered about the -fire. For a time no one spoke. At last the captain of the Ste. Anne -said: "It's a great chance, Dingan. You'll be in civilisation again, and -in a rising town of white people--Groise 'll be a city in five years, -and you can grow up and grow rich with the place. The Company asked me -to lay it all before you, and Lablache here will buy out your share of -the business, at whatever your partner and you prove its worth. You're -young; you've got everything before you. You've made a name out here for -being the best trader west of the Great Lakes, and now's your time. It's -none of my affair, of course, but I like to carry through what I'm set -to do, and the Company said, 'You bring Dingan back with you. The place -is waiting for him, and it can't wait longer than the last boat down.' -You're ready to step in when he steps out, ain't you, Lablache?" - -Lablache shook back his long hair, and rolled about in his pride. "I -give him cash for his share to-night someone is behin' me, share, yes! -It is worth so much, I pay and step in--I take the place over. I take -half the business here, and I work with Dingan's partner. I take your -horses, Dingan, I take you lodge, I take all in your lodge--everyt'ing." - -His eyes glistened, and a red spot came to each cheek as he leaned -forward. At his last word Dingan, who had been standing abstractedly -listening, as it were, swung round on him with a muttered oath, and the -skin of his face appeared to tighten. Watching through the crack of -the door, Mitiahwe saw the look she knew well, though it had never been -turned on her, and her heart beat faster. It was a look that came into -Dingan's face whenever Breaking Rock crossed his path, or when one or -two other names were mentioned in his presence, for they were names of -men who had spoken of Mitiahwe lightly, and had attempted to be jocular -about her. - -As Mitiahwe looked at him, now unknown to himself, she was conscious -of what that last word of Lablache's meant. Everyt'ing meant herself. -Lablache--who had neither the good qualities of the white man nor the -Indian, but who had the brains of the one and the subtilty of the other, -and whose only virtue was that he was a successful trader, though he -looked like a mere woodsman, with rings in his ears, gaily decorated -buckskin coat and moccasins, and a furtive smile always on his -lips! Everyt'ing!--Her blood ran cold at the thought of dropping the -lodge-curtain upon this man and herself alone. For no other man than -Dingan had her blood run faster, and he had made her life blossom. She -had seen in many a half-breed's and in many an Indian's face the look -which was now in that of Lablache, and her fingers gripped softly the -thing in her belt that had flashed out on Breaking Rock such a short -while ago. As she looked, it seemed for a moment as though Dingan would -open the door and throw Lablache out, for in quick reflection his eyes -ran from the man to the wooden bar across the door. - -"You'll talk of the shop, and the shop only, Lablache," Dingan said -grimly. "I'm not huckstering my home, and I'd choose the buyer if I was -selling. My lodge ain't to be bought, nor anything in it--not even -the broom to keep it clean of any half-breeds that'd enter it without -leave." - -There was malice in the words, but there was greater malice in the tone, -and Lablache, who was bent on getting the business, swallowed his ugly -wrath, and determined that, if he got the business, he would get the -lodge also in due time; for Dingan, if he went, would not take the -lodge-or the woman with him; and Dingan was not fool enough to stay when -he could go to Groise to a sure fortune. - -The captain of the Ste. Anne again spoke. "There's another thing the -Company said, Dingan. You needn't go to Groise, not at once. You can -take a month and visit your folks down East, and lay in a stock of -home-feelings before you settle down at Groise for good. They was -fair when I put it to them that you'd mebbe want to do that. 'You tell -Dingan,' they said, 'that he can have the month glad and grateful, and a -free ticket on the railway back and forth. He can have it at once,' they -said." - -Watching, Mitiahwe could see her man's face brighten, and take on a look -of longing at this suggestion; and it seemed to her that the bird she -heard in the night was calling in his ears now. Her eyes went blind a -moment. - -"The game is with you, Dingan. All the cards are in your hands; you'll -never get such another chance again; and you're only thirty," said the -captain. - -"I wish they'd ask me," said Dingan's partner with a sigh, as he looked -at Lablache. "I want my chance bad, though we've done well here--good -gosh, yes, all through Dingan." - -"The winters, they go queeck in Groise," said Lablache. "It is life all -the time, trade all the time, plenty to do and see--and a bon fortune to -make, bagosh!" - -"Your old home was in Nove Scotia, wasn't it, Dingan?" asked the captain -in a low voice. "I kem from Connecticut, and I was East to my village -las' year. It was good seein' all my old friends again; but I kem back -content, I kem back full of home-feelin's and content. You'll like the -trip, Dingan. It'll do you good." Dingan drew himself up with a start. -"All right. I guess I'll do it. Let's figure up again," he said to his -partner with a reckless air. - -With a smothered cry Mitiahwe turned and fled into the darkness, and -back to the lodge. The lodge was empty. She threw herself upon the great -couch in an agony of despair. - -A half-hour went by. Then she rose, and began to prepare supper. Her -face was aflame, her manner was determined, and once or twice her hand -went to her belt, as though to assure herself of something. - -Never had the lodge looked so bright and cheerful; never had she -prepared so appetising a supper; never had the great couch seemed so -soft and rich with furs, so homelike and so inviting after a long day's -work. Never had Mitiahwe seemed so good to look at, so graceful and -alert and refined--suffering does its work even in the wild woods, with -"wild people." Never had the lodge such an air of welcome and peace -and home as to-night; and so Dingan thought as he drew aside the wide -curtains of deerskin and entered. - -Mitiahwe was bending over the fire and appeared not to hear him. -"Mitiahwe," he said gently. - -She was singing to herself to an Indian air the words of a song Dingan -had taught her: - - "Open the door: cold is the night, and my feet are heavy, - Heap up the fire, scatter upon it the cones and the scented leaves; - Spread the soft robe on the couch for the chief that returns, - Bring forth the cup of remembrance--" - -It was like a low recitative, and it had a plaintive cadence, as of a -dove that mourned. - -"Mitiahwe," he said in a louder voice, but with a break in it too; for -it all rushed upon him, all that she had been to him--all that had made -the great West glow with life, made the air sweeter, the grass greener, -the trees more companionable and human: who it was that had given the -waste places a voice. Yet--yet, there were his own people in the East, -there was another life waiting for him, there was the life of ambition -and wealth, and, and home--and children. - -His eyes were misty as she turned to him with a little cry of surprise, -how much natural and how much assumed--for she had heard him enter--it -would have been hard to say. She was a woman, and therefore the daughter -of pretence even when most real. He caught her by both arms as she shyly -but eagerly came to him. "Good girl, good little girl," he said. He -looked round him. "Well, I've never seen our lodge look nicer than it -does to-night; and the fire, and the pot on the fire, and the smell of -the pine-cones, and the cedar-boughs, and the skins, and--" - -"And everything," she said, with a queer little laugh, as she moved -away again to turn the steaks on the fire. Everything! He started at the -word. It was so strange that she should use it by accident, when but a -little while ago he had been ready to choke the wind out of a man's body -for using it concerning herself. - -It stunned him for a moment, for the West, and the life apart from the -world of cities, had given him superstition, like that of the Indians, -whose life he had made his own. - -Herself--to leave her here, who had been so much to him? As true as the -sun she worshipped, her eyes had never lingered on another man since she -came to his lodge; and, to her mind, she was as truly sacredly married -to him as though a thousand priests had spoken, or a thousand Medicine -Men had made their incantations. She was his woman and he was her man. -As he chatted to her, telling her of much that he had done that day, -and wondering how he could tell her of all he had done, he kept looking -round the lodge, his eye resting on this or that; and everything had its -own personal history, had become part of their lodge-life, because it -had a use as between him and her, and not a conventional domestic place. -Every skin, every utensil, every pitcher and bowl and pot and curtain, -had been with them at one time or another, when it became of importance -and renowned in the story of their days and deeds. - -How could he break it to her--that he was going to visit his own people, -and that she must be alone with her mother all winter, to await his -return in the spring? His return? As he watched her sitting beside him, -helping him to his favourite dish, the close, companionable trust and -gentleness of her, her exquisite cleanness and grace in his eyes, he -asked himself if, after all, it was not true that he would return in -the spring. The years had passed without his seriously thinking of this -inevitable day. He had put it off and off, content to live each hour as -it came and take no real thought for the future; and yet, behind all was -the warning fact that he must go one day, and that Mitiahwe could not go -with him. Her mother must have known that when she let Mitiahwe come to -him. Of course; and, after all, she would find another mate, a better -mate, one of her own people. - -But her hand was in his now, and it was small and very warm, and -suddenly he shook with anger at the thought of one like Breaking Rock -taking her to his wigwam; or Lablache--this roused him to an inward -fury; and Mitiahwe saw and guessed the struggle that was going on in -him, and she leaned her head against his shoulder, and once she raised -his hand to her lips, and said, "My chief!" - -Then his face cleared again, and she got him his pipe and filled it, and -held a coal to light it; and, as the smoke curled up, and he leaned -back contentedly for the moment, she went to the door, drew open the -curtains, and, stepping outside, raised her eyes to the horseshoe. Then -she said softly to the sky: "O Sun, great Father, have pity on me, for -I love him, and would keep him. And give me bone of his bone, and one -to nurse at my breast that is of him. O Sun, pity me this night, and be -near me when I speak to him, and hear what I say!" - -"What are you doing out there, Mitiahwe?" Dingan cried; and when she -entered again he beckoned her to him. "What was it you were saying? Who -were you speaking to?" he asked. "I heard your voice." - -"I was thanking the Sun for his goodness to me. I was speaking for the -thing that is in my heart, that is life of my life," she added vaguely. - -"Well, I have something to say to you, little girl," he said, with an -effort. - -She remained erect before him waiting for the blow--outwardly calm, -inwardly crying out in pain. "Do you think you could stand a little -parting?" he asked, reaching out and touching her shoulder. - -"I have been alone before--for five days," she answered quietly. - -"But it must be longer this time." - -"How long?" she asked, with eyes fixed on his. "If it is more than a -week I will go too." - -"It is longer than a month," he said. "Then I will go." - -"I am going to see my people," he faltered. - -"By the Ste. Anne?" - -He nodded. "It is the last chance this year; but I will come back--in -the spring." - -As he said it he saw her shrink, and his heart smote him. Four years -such as few men ever spent, and all the luck had been with him, and the -West had got into his bones! The quiet, starry nights, the wonderful -days, the hunt, the long journeys, the life free of care, and the warm -lodge; and, here, the great couch--ah, the cheek pressed to his, the -lips that whispered at his ear, the smooth arm round his neck. It -all rushed upon him now. His people? His people in the East, who had -thwarted his youth, vexed and cramped him, saw only evil in his widening -desires, and threw him over when he came out West--the scallywag, -they called him, who had never wronged a man or-or a woman! -Never--wronged-a-woman? The question sprang to his lips now. Suddenly -he saw it all in a new light. White or brown or red, this heart and soul -and body before him were all his, sacred to him; he was in very truth -her "Chief." - -Untutored as she was, she read him, felt what was going on in him. She -saw the tears spring to his eyes. Then, coming close to him she said -softly, slowly: "I must go with you if you go, because you must be with -me when--oh, hai-yai, my chief, shall we go from here? Here in this -lodge wilt thou be with thine own people--thine own, thou and I--and -thine to come." The great passion in her heart made the lie seem very -truth. - -With a cry he got to his feet, and stood staring at her for a moment, -scarcely comprehending; then suddenly he clasped her in his arms. - -"Mitiahwe--Mitiahwe, oh, my little girl!" he cried. "You and me--and our -own--our own people!" Kissing her, he drew her down beside him on the -couch. "Tell me again--it is so at last?" he said, and she whispered in -his ear once more. - -In the middle of the night he said to her, "Some day, perhaps, we will -go East--some day, perhaps." - -"But now?" she asked softly. - -"Not now--not if I know it," he answered. "I've got my heart nailed to -the door of this lodge." - -As he slept she got quietly out, and, going to the door of the lodge, -reached up a hand and touched the horse-shoe. - -"Be good Medicine to me," she said. Then she prayed. "O Sun, pity me -that it may be as I have said to him. O pity me, great Father!" - -In the days to come Swift Wing said that it was her Medicine; when her -hand was burned to the wrist in the dark ritual she had performed -with the Medicine Man the night that Mitiahwe fought for her man--but -Mitiahwe said it was her Medicine, the horse-shoe, which brought one of -Dingan's own people to the lodge, a little girl with Mitiahwe's eyes and -form and her father's face. Truth has many mysteries, and the faith of -the woman was great; and so it was that, to the long end, Mitiahwe kept -her man. But truly she was altogether a woman, and had good fortune. - - - - -ONCE AT RED MAN'S RIVER - -"It's got to be settled to-night, Nance. This game is up here, up for -ever. The redcoat police from Ottawa are coming, and they'll soon be -roostin' in this post; the Injuns are goin', the buffaloes are most -gone, and the fur trade's dead in these parts. D'ye see?" - -The woman did not answer the big, broad-shouldered man bending over her, -but remained looking into the fire with wide, abstracted eyes and a face -somewhat set. - -"You and your brother Bantry's got to go. This store ain't worth a -cent now. The Hudson's Bay Company'll come along with the redcoats, and -they'll set up a nice little Sunday-school business here for what they -call 'agricultural settlers.' There'll be a railway, and the Yankees'll -send up their marshals to work with the redcoats on the border, and--" - -"And the days of smuggling will be over," put in the girl in a low -voice. "No more bull-wackers and muleskinners 'whooping it up'; no -more Blackfeet and Piegans drinking alcohol and water, and cutting each -others' throats. A nice quiet time coming on the border, Abe, eh?" - -The man looked at her queerly. She was not prone to sarcasm, she had not -been given to sentimentalism in the past; she had taken the border-life -as it was, had looked it straight between the eyes. She had lived up to -it, or down to it, without any fuss, as good as any man in any phase of -the life, and the only white woman in this whole West country. It was -not in the words, but in the tone, that Abe Hawley found something -unusual and defamatory. - -"Why, gol darn it, Nance, what's got into you? You bin a man out West, -as good a pioneer as ever was on the border. But now you don't sound -friendly to what's been the game out here, and to all of us that've been -risking our lives to get a livin'." - -"What did I say?" asked the girl, unmoved. - -"It ain't what you said, it's the sound o' your voice." - -"You don't know my voice, Abe. It ain't always the same. You ain't -always about; you don't always hear it." - -He caught her arm suddenly. "No, but I want to hear it always. I want -to be always where you are, Nance. That's what's got to be settled -to-day--to-night." - -"Oh, it's got to be settled to-night!" said the girl meditatively, -kicking nervously at a log on the fire. "It takes two to settle a thing -like that, and there's only one says it's got to be settled. Maybe it -takes more than two--or three--to settle a thing like that." Now she -laughed mirthlessly. - -The man started, and his face flushed with anger; then he put a hand on -himself, drew a step back, and watched her. - -"One can settle a thing, if there's a dozen in it. You see, Nance, -you and Bantry's got to close out. He's fixing it up to-night over at -Dingan's Drive, and you can't go it alone when you quit this place. Now, -it's this way: you can go West with Bantry, or you can go North with -me. Away North there's buffalo and deer, and game aplenty, up along the -Saskatchewan, and farther up on the Peace River. It's going to be all -right up there for half a lifetime, and we can have it in our own way -yet. There'll be no smuggling, but there'll be trading, and land to get; -and, mebbe, there'd be no need of smuggling, for we can make it, I know -how--good white whiskey--and we'll still have this free life for our -own. I can't make up my mind to settle down to a clean collar and going -to church on Sundays, and all that. And the West's in your bones too. -You look like the West--" - -The girl's face brightened with pleasure, and she gazed at him steadily. - -"You got its beauty and its freshness, and you got its heat and cold--" - -She saw the tobacco-juice stain at the corners of his mouth, she became -conscious of the slight odour of spirits in the air, and the light in -her face lowered in intensity. - -"You got the ways of the deer in your walk, the song o' the birds in -your voice; and you're going North with me, Nance, for I bin talkin' -to you stiddy four years. It's a long time to wait on the chance, for -there's always women to be got, same as others have done--men like -Dingan with Injun girls, and men like Tobey with half-breeds. But I -ain't bin lookin' that way. I bin lookin' only towards you." He laughed -eagerly, and lifted a tin cup of whiskey standing on a table near. "I'm -lookin' towards you now, Nance. Your health and mine together. It's got -to be settled now. You got to go to the 'Cific Coast with Bantry, or -North with me." - -The girl jerked a shoulder and frowned a little. He seemed so sure of -himself. - -"Or South with Nick Pringle, or East with someone else," she said -quizzically. "There's always four quarters to the compass, even when Abe -Hawley thinks he owns the world and has a mortgage on eternity. I'm not -going West with Bantry, but there's three other points that's open." - -With an oath the man caught her by the shoulders, and swung her round to -face him. He was swelling with anger. "You--Nick Pringle, that trading -cheat, that gambler! After four years, I--" - -"Let go my shoulders," she said quietly. "I'm not your property. Go and -get some Piegan girl to bully. Keep your hands off. I'm not a bronco -for you to bit and bridle. You've got no rights. You--" Suddenly she -relented, seeing the look in his face, and realising that, after all, -it was a tribute to herself that she could keep him for four years -and rouse him to such fury--"but yes, Abe," she added, "you have some -rights. We've been good friends all these years, and you've been all -right out here. You said some nice things about me just now, and I -liked it, even if it was as if you learned it out of a book. I've got -no po'try in me; I'm plain homespun. I'm a sapling, I'm not any -prairie-flower, but I like when I like, and I like a lot when I like. -I'm a bit of hickory, I'm not a prairie-flower--" - -"Who said you was a prairie-flower? Did I? Who's talking about -prairie-flowers--" - -He stopped suddenly, turned round at the sound of a footstep behind him, -and saw, standing in a doorway leading to another room, a man who -was digging his knuckles into his eyes and stifling a yawn. He was a -refined-looking stripling of not more than twenty-four, not tall, but -well made, and with an air of breeding, intensified rather than hidden -by his rough clothes. - -"Je-rick-ety! How long have I slept?" he said, blinking at the two -beside the fire. "How long?" he added, with a flutter of anxiety in his -tone. - -"I said I'd wake you," said the girl, coming forwards. "You needn't have -worried." - -"I don't worry," answered the young man. "I dreamed myself awake, I -suppose. I got dreaming of redcoats and U. S. marshals, and an ambush -in the Barfleur Coulee, and--" He saw a secret, warning gesture from the -girl, and laughed, then turned to Abe and looked him in the face. "Oh, I -know him! Abe Hawley's all O. K.--I've seen him over at Dingan's Drive. -Honour among rogues. We're all in it. How goes it--all right?" he added -carelessly to Hawley, and took a step forwards, as though to shake -hands. Seeing the forbidding look by which he was met, however, he -turned to the girl again, as Hawley muttered something they could not -hear. - -"What time is it?" he asked. - -"It's nine o'clock," answered the girl, her eyes watching his every -movement, her face alive. - -"Then the moon's up almost?" - -"It'll be up in an hour." - -"Jerickety! Then I've got to get ready." He turned to the other room -again and entered. - -"College pup!" said Hawley under his breath savagely. "Why didn't you -tell me he was here?" - -"Was it any of your business, Abe?" she rejoined quietly. - -"Hiding him away here--" - -"Hiding? Who's been hiding him? He's doing what you've done. He's -smuggling--the last lot for the traders over by Dingan's Drive. He'll -get it there by morning. He has as much right here as you. What's got -into you, Abe?" - -"What does he know about the business? Why, he's a college man from the -East. I've heard o' him. Ain't got no more sense for this life than a -dicky-bird. White-faced college pup! What's he doing out here? If you're -a friend o' his, you'd better look after him. He's green." - -"He's going East again," she said, "and if I don't go West with Bantry, -or South over to Montana with Nick Pringle, or North--" - -"Nancy--" His eyes burned, his lips quivered. - -She looked at him and wondered at the power she had over this bully of -the border, who had his own way with most people, and was one of the -most daring fighters, hunters, and smugglers in the country. He was -cool, hard, and well-in-hand in his daily life, and yet, where she was -concerned, "went all to pieces," as someone else had said about himself -to her. - -She was not without the wiles and tact of her sex. "You go now, and come -back, Abe," she said in a soft voice. "Come back in an hour. Come back -then, and I'll tell you which way I'm going from here." - -He was all right again. "It's with you, Nancy," he said eagerly. "I bin -waiting four years." - -As he closed the door behind him the "college pup" entered the room -again. "Oh, Abe's gone!" he said excitedly. "I hoped you'd get rid of -the old rip-roarer. I wanted to be alone with you for a while. I -don't really need to start yet. With the full moon I can do it before -daylight." Then, with quick warmth, "Ah, Nancy, Nancy, you're a -flower--the flower of all the prairies," he added, catching her hand and -laughing into her eyes. - -She flushed, and for a moment seemed almost bewildered. His boldness, -joined to an air of insinuation and understanding, had influenced her -greatly from the first moment they had met two months ago, as he was -going South on his smuggling enterprise. The easy way in which he had -talked to her, the extraordinary sense he seemed to have of what was -going on in her mind, the confidential meaning in voice and tone and -words had, somehow, opened up a side of her nature hitherto unexplored. -She had talked with him freely then, for it was only when he left her -that he said what he instinctively knew she would remember till they -met again. His quick comments, his indirect but acute questions, -his exciting and alluring reminiscences of the East, his subtle yet -seemingly frank compliments, had only stimulated a new capacity in her, -evoked comparisons of this delicate-looking, fine-faced gentleman with -the men of the West by whom she was surrounded. But later he appeared to -stumble into expressions of admiration for her, as though he was carried -off his feet and had been stunned by her charm. He had done it all -like a master. He had not said that she was beautiful--she knew she was -not--but that she was wonderful, and fascinating, and with "something -about her" he had never seen in all his life, like her own prairies, -thrilling, inspiring, and adorable. His first look at her had seemed -full of amazement. She had noticed that, and thought it meant only that -he was surprised to find a white girl out here among smugglers, hunters, -squaw-men, and Indians. But he said that the first look at her had made -him feel things-feel life and women different from ever before; and he -had never seen anyone like her, nor a face with so much in it. It was -all very brilliantly done. - -"You make me want to live," he had said, and she, with no knowledge of -the nuances of language, had taken it literally, and had asked him if -it had been his wish to die; and he had responded to her mistaken -interpretation of his meaning, saying that he had had such sorrow he had -not wanted to live. As he said it his face looked, in truth, overcome -by some deep inward care; so that there came a sort of feeling she had -never had so far for any man--that he ought to have someone to look -after him. This was the first real stirring of the maternal and -protective spirit in her towards men, though it had shown itself amply -enough regarding animals and birds. He had said he had not wanted to -live, and yet he had come out West in order to try and live, to cure the -trouble that had started in his lungs. The Eastern doctors had told him -that the rough outdoor life would cure him, or nothing would, and he had -vanished from the college walls and the pleasant purlieus of learning -and fashion into the wilds. He had not lied directly to her when he said -that he had had deep trouble; but he had given the impression that he -was suffering from wrongs which had broken his spirit and ruined -his health. Wrongs there certainly had been in his life, by whomever -committed. - -Two months ago he had left this girl with her mind full of memories of -what he had said to her, and there was something in the sound of the -slight cough following his farewell words which had haunted her ever -since. Her tremendous health and energy, the fire of life burning so -brightly in her, reached out towards this man living on so narrow a -margin of force, with no reserve for any extra strain, with just enough -for each day's use and no more. Four hours before he had come again with -his team of four mules and an Indian youth, having covered forty miles -since his last stage. She was at the door and saw him coming while he -was yet along distance off. Some instinct had told her to watch that -afternoon, for she knew of his intended return and of his dangerous -enterprise. The Indians had trailed south and east, the traders had -disappeared with them, her brother Bantry had gone up and over to -Dingan's Drive, and, save for a few loiterers and last hangers-on, she -was alone with what must soon be a deserted post; its walls, its great -enclosed yard, and its gun-platforms (for it had been fortified) left -for law and order to enter upon, in the persons of the red-coated -watchmen of the law. - -Out of the South, from over the border, bringing the last great smuggled -load of whiskey which was to be handed over at Dingan's Drive, and then -floated on Red Man's River to settlements up North, came the "college -pup," Kelly Lambton, worn out, dazed with fatigue, but smiling too, for -a woman's face was ever a tonic to his blood since he was big enough to -move in life for himself. It needed courage--or recklessness--to run the -border now; for, as Abe Hawley had said, the American marshals were on -the pounce, the red-coated mounted police were coming west from Ottawa, -and word had winged its way along the prairie that these redcoats were -only a few score miles away, and might be at Fort Fair Desire at any -moment. The trail to Dingan's Drive lay past it. Through Barfleur -Coulee, athwart a great open stretch of country, along a wooded belt, -and then, suddenly, over a ridge, Dingan's Drive and Red Man's River -would be reached. - -The Government had a mind to make an example, if necessary, by killing -some smugglers in conflict, and the United States marshals had been -goaded by vanity and anger at one or two escapes "to have something for -their money," as they said. That, in their language, meant, "to let the -red run," and Kelly Lambton had none too much blood to lose. - -He looked very pale and beaten as he held Nance Machell's hands now, and -called her a prairie-flower, as he had done when he left her two months -before. On his arrival but now he had said little, for he saw that she -was glad to see him, and he was dead for sleep, after thirty-six hours -of ceaseless travel and watching and danger. Now, with the most perilous -part of his journey still before him, and worn physically as he was, -his blood was running faster as he looked into the girl's face, and -something in her abundant force and bounding life drew him to her. Such -vitality in a man like Abe Hawley would have angered him almost, as it -did a little time ago, when Abe was there; but possessed by the girl, it -roused in him a hunger to draw from the well of her perfect health, from -the unused vigour of her being, something for himself. The touch of her -hands warmed him, in the fulness of her life, in the strong eloquence -of face and form, he forgot she was not beautiful. The lightness passed -from his words, and his face became eager. - -"Flower, yes, the flower of the life of the West--that's what I mean," -he said. "You are like an army marching. When I look at you, my blood -runs faster. I want to march too. When I hold your hand I feel that -life's worth living--I want to do things." - -She drew her hand away rather awkwardly. She had not now that command -of herself which had ever been easy with the men of the West, except, -perhaps, with Abe Hawley when-- - -But with an attempt, only half-meant, to turn the topic, she said: "You -must be starting if you want to get through to-night. If the redcoats -catch you this side of Barfleur Coulee, or in the Coulee itself, -you'll stand no chance. I heard they was only thirty miles north this -afternoon. Maybe they'll come straight on here to-night, instead of -camping. If they have news of your coming, they might. You can't tell." - -"You're right." He caught her hand again. "I've got to be going now. But -Nance--Nance--Nancy, I want to stay here, here with you; or to take you -with me." - -She drew back. "What do you mean?" she asked. "Take me with -you--me--where?" - -"East--away down East." - -Her brain throbbed, her pulses beat so hard. She scarcely knew what to -say, did not know what she said. "Why do you do this kind of thing? Why -do you smuggle?" she asked. "You wasn't brought up to this." - -"To get this load of stuff through is life and death to me," he -answered. "I've made six thousand dollars out here. That's enough to -start me again in the East, where I lost everything. But I've got to -have six hundred dollars clear for the travel--railways and things; and -I'm having this last run to get it. Then I've finished with the West, I -guess. My health's better; the lung is closed up, I've only got a little -cough now and again; and I'm off East. I don't want to go alone." -He suddenly caught her in his arms. "I want you--you, to go with me, -Nancy--Nance!" - -Her brain swam. To leave the West behind, to go East to a new life -full of pleasant things, as this man's wife! Her great heart rose, and -suddenly the mother in her as well as the woman in her was captured by -his wooing. She had never known what it was to be wooed like this. - -She was about to answer, when there came a sharp knock at the door -leading from the backyard, and Lambton's Indian lad entered. "The -soldier--he come--many. I go over the ridge; I see. They come quick -here," he said. - -Nance gave a startled cry, and Lambton turned to the other room for his -pistols, overcoat, and cap, when there was the sound of horses' hoofs, -the door suddenly opened, and an officer stepped inside. - -"You're wanted for smuggling, Lambton," he said brusquely. "Don't stir!" -In his hand was a revolver. - -"Oh, bosh! Prove it," answered the young man, pale and startled, but -cool in speech and action. "We'll prove it all right. The stuff is -hereabouts." The girl said something to the officer in the Chinook -language. She saw he did not understand. Then she spoke quickly to -Lambton in the same tongue. - -"Keep him here a bit," she said. "His men haven't come yet. Your outfit -is well hid. I'll see if I can get away with it before they find it. -They'll follow, and bring you with them, that's sure. So if I have luck -and get through, we'll meet at Dingan's Drive." - -Lambton's face brightened. He quickly gave her a few directions in -Chinook, and told her what to do at Dingan's if she got there first. -Then she was gone. The officer did not understand what Nance had said, -but he realised that, whatever she intended to do, she had an advantage -over him. With an unnecessary courage he had ridden on alone to make his -capture, and, as it proved, without prudence. He had got his man, but he -had not got the smuggled whiskey and alcohol he had come to seize. There -was no time to be lost. The girl had gone before he realised it. What -had she said to the prisoner? He was foolish enough to ask Lambton, and -Lambton replied coolly: "She said she'd get you some supper, but she -guessed it would have to be cold--What's your name? Are you a colonel, -or a captain, or only a principal private?" - -"I am Captain MacFee, Lambton. And you'll now bring me where your outfit -is. March!" - -The pistol was still in his hand, and he had a determined look in -his eye. Lambton saw it. He was aware of how much power lay in the -threatening face before him, and how eager that power was to make itself -felt, and provide "Examples"; but he took his chances. - -"I'll march all right," he answered, "but I'll march to where you tell -me. You can't have it both ways. You can take me, because you've found -me, and you can take my outfit too when you've found it; but I'm not -doing your work, not if I know it." - -There was a blaze of anger in the eyes of the officer, and it looked -for an instant as though something of the lawlessness of the border -was going to mark the first step of the Law in the Wilderness, but -he bethought himself in time, and said quietly, yet in a voice which -Lambton knew he must heed: - -"Put on your things-quick." - -When this was accomplished, and MacFee had secured the smuggler's -pistols, he said again, "March, Lambton." - -Lambton marched through the moonlit night towards the troop of men who -had come to set up the flag of order in the plains and hills, and as he -went his keen ear heard his own mules galloping away down towards -the Barfleur Coulee. His heart thumped in his breast. This girl, this -prairie-flower, was doing this for him, was risking her life, was -breaking the law for him. If she got through, and handed over the -whiskey to those who were waiting for it, and it got bundled into the -boats going North before the redcoats reached Dingan's Drive, it would -be as fine a performance as the West had ever seen; and he would be six -hundred dollars to the good. He listened to the mules galloping, till -the sounds had died into the distance, but he saw now that his captor -had heard too, and that the pursuit would be desperate. - -A half-hour later it began, with MacFee at the head, and a dozen -troopers pounding behind, weary, hungry, bad-tempered, ready to exact -payment for their hardships and discouragement. - -They had not gone a dozen miles when a shouting horseman rode furiously -on them from behind. They turned with carbines cocked, but it was Abe -Hawley who cursed them, flung his fingers in their faces, and rode on -harder and harder. Abe had got the news from one of Nancy's half-breeds, -and, with the devil raging in his heart, had entered on the chase. -His spirit was up against them all; against the Law represented by the -troopers camped at Fort Fair Desire, against the troopers and their -captain speeding after Nancy Machell--his Nonce, who was risking her -life and freedom for the hated, pale-faced smuggler riding between the -troopers; and his spirit was up against Nance herself. - -Nance had said to him, "Come back in an hour," and he had come back to -find her gone. She had broken her word. She had deceived him. She had -thrown the four years of his waiting to the winds, and a savage lust -was in his heart, which would not be appeased till he had done some evil -thing to someone. - -The girl and the Indian lad were pounding through the night with ears -strained to listen for hoof-beats coming after, with eyes searching -forward into the trail for swollen creeks and direful obstructions. -Through Barfleur Coulee it was a terrible march, for there was no road, -and again and again they were nearly overturned, while wolves hovered -in their path, ready to reap a midnight harvest. But once in the open -again, with the full moonlight on their trail, the girl's spirits rose. -If she could do this thing for the man who had looked into her eyes as -no one had ever done, what a finish to her days in the West! For they -were finished, finished for ever, and she was going--she was going East; -not West with Bantry, nor South with Nick Pringle, nor North with Abe -Hawley, ah, Abe Hawley, he had been a good friend, he had a great heart, -he was the best man of all the western men she had known; but another -man had come from the East, a man who had roused something in her never -felt before, a man who had said she was wonderful; and he needed someone -to take good care of him, to make him love life again. Abe would have -been all right if Lambton had never come, and she had meant to marry Abe -in the end; but it was different now, and Abe must get over it. Yet she -had told Abe to come back in an hour. He was sure to do it; and, when -he had done it, and found her gone on this errand, what would he do? She -knew what he would do. He would hurt someone. He would follow too. But -at Dingan's Drive, if she reached it before the troopers and before Abe, -and did the thing she had set out to do; and, because no whiskey could -be found, Lambton must go free; and they all stood there together, what -would be the end? Abe would be terrible; but she was going East, not -North, and when the time came she would face it and put things right -somehow. - -The night seemed endless to her fixed and anxious eyes and mind, yet -dawn came, and there had fallen no sound of hoof-beats on her ear. The -ridge above Dingan's Drive was reached and covered, but yet there was -no sign of her pursuers. At Red Man's River she delivered her load of -contraband to the traders waiting for it, and saw it loaded into the -boats and disappear beyond the wooded bend above Dingan's. - -Then she collapsed into the arms of her brother Bantry, and was carried, -fainting, into Dingan's Lodge. A half-hour later MacFee and his troopers -and Lambton came. MacFee grimly searched the post and the shore, but -he saw by the looks of all that he had been foiled. He had no proof of -anything, and Lambton must go free. - -"You've fooled us," he said to Nance sourly, yet with a kind of -admiration too. "Through you they got away with it. But I wouldn't try -it again, if I were you." - -"Once is enough," answered the girl laconically, as Lambton, set free, -caught both her hands in his and whispered in her ear. - -MacFee turned to the others. "You'd better drop this kind of thing," -he said. "I mean business." They saw the troopers by the horses, and -nodded. - -"Well, we was about quit of it anyhow," said Bantry. "We've had all we -want out here." - -A loud laugh went up, and it was still ringing when there burst into the -group, out of the trail, Abe Hawley, on foot. - -He looked round the group savagely till his eyes rested on Nance and -Lambton. "I'm last in," he said in a hoarse voice. "My horse broke its -leg cutting across to get here before her--" He waved a hand towards -Nance. "It's best stickin' to old trails, not tryin' new ones." His eyes -were full of hate as he looked at Lambton. "I'm keeping to old -trails. I'm for goin' North, far up, where these two-dollar-a-day and -hash-and-clothes people ain't come yet." He made a contemptuous gesture -toward MacFee and his troopers. "I'm goin' North--" He took a step -forward and fixed his bloodshot eyes on Nance. "I say I'm goin' North. -You comin' with me, Nance?" He took off his cap to her. - -He was haggard, his buckskins were torn, his hair was dishevelled, and -he limped a little; but he was a massive and striking figure, and MacFee -watched him closely, for there was that in his eyes which meant trouble. -"You said, 'Come back in an hour,' Nance, and I come back, as I said I -would," he went on. "You didn't stand to your word. I've come to git it. -I'm goin' North, Nance, and I bin waitin' for four years for you to go -with me. Are you comin'?" - -His voice was quiet, but it had a choking kind of sound, and it struck -strangely in the ears of all. MacFee came nearer. - -"Are you comin' with me, Nance, dear?" - -She reached a hand towards Lambton, and he took it, but she did not -speak. Something in Abe's eyes overwhelmed her--something she had -never seen before, and it seemed to stifle speech in her. Lambton spoke -instead. - -"She's going East with me," he said. "That's settled." - -MacFee started. Then he caught Abe's arm. "Wait!" he said peremptorily. -"Wait one minute." There was something in his voice which held Abe back -for the instant. - -"You say she is going East with you," MacFee said sharply to Lambton. -"What for?" He fastened Lambton with his eyes, and Lambton quailed. -"Have you told her you've got a wife--down East? I've got your history, -Lambton. Have you told her that you've got a wife you married when you -were at college--and as good a girl as ever lived?" - -It had come with terrible suddenness even to Lambton, and he was too -dazed to make any reply. With a cry of shame and anger Nancy started -back. Growling with rage and hate, Abe Hawley sprang toward Lambton, but -the master of the troopers stepped between. - -No one could tell who moved first, or who first made the suggestion, -for the minds of all were the same, and the general purpose was -instantaneous; but in the fraction of a minute Lambton, under menace, -was on his hands and knees crawling to the riverside. Watchful, but not -interfering, the master of the troopers saw him set adrift in a canoe -without a paddle, while he was pelted with mud from the shore. - -The next morning at sunrise Abe Hawley and the girl he had waited for so -long started on the North trail together, MacFee, master of the troopers -and justice of the peace, handing over the marriage lines. - - - - -THE STROBE OF THE HOUR - -"They won't come to-night--sure." - -The girl looked again towards the west, where, here and there, bare -poles, or branches of trees, or slips of underbrush marked a road made -across the plains through the snow. The sun was going down golden red, -folding up the sky a wide soft curtain of pink and mauve and deep purple -merging into the fathomless blue, where already the stars were beginning -to quiver. The house stood on the edge of a little forest, which had -boldly asserted itself in the wide flatness. At this point in the west -the prairie merged into an undulating territory, where hill and wood -rolled away from the banks of the Saskatchewan, making another England -in beauty. The forest was a sort of advance-post of that land of beauty. - -Yet there was beauty too on this prairie, though there was nothing to -the east but snow and the forest so far as eye could see. Nobility and -peace and power brooded over the white world. - -As the girl looked, it seemed as though the bosom of the land rose and -fell. She had felt this vibrating life beat beneath the frozen surface. -Now, as she gazed, she smiled sadly to herself, with drooping eyelids -looking out from beneath strong brows. - -"I know you--I know you," she said aloud. "You've got to take your toll. -And when you're lying asleep like that, or pretending to, you reach -up-and kill. And yet you can be kind-ah, but you can be kind and -beautiful! But you must have your toll one way or t'other." She sighed -and paused; then, after a moment, looking along the trail--"I don't -expect they'll come to-night, and mebbe not to-morrow, if--if they stay -for THAT." - -Her eyes closed, she shivered a little. Her lips drew tight, and her -face seemed suddenly to get thinner. "But dad wouldn't--no, he couldn't, -not considerin'--" Again she shut her eyes in pain. - -Her face was now turned from the western road by which she had expected -her travellers, and towards the east, where already the snow was taking -on a faint bluish tint, a reflection of the sky deepening nightwards -in that half-circle of the horizon. Distant and a little bleak and -cheerless the half-circle was looking now. - -"No one--not for two weeks," she said, in comment on the eastern trail, -which was so little frequented in winter, and this year had been less -travelled than ever. "It would be nice to have a neighbour," she added, -as she faced the west and the sinking sun again. "I get so lonely--just -minutes I get lonely. But it's them minutes that seem to count more than -all the rest when they come. I expect that's it--we don't live in months -and years, but just in minutes. It doesn't take long for an earthquake -to do its work--it's seconds then.... P'r'aps dad won't even come -to-morrow," she added, as she laid her hand on the latch. "It never -seemed so long before, not even when he's been away a week." She laughed -bitterly. "Even bad company's better than no company at all. Sure. And -Mickey has been here always when dad's been away past times. Mickey was -a fool, but he was company; and mebbe he'd have been better company if -he'd been more of a scamp and less a fool. I dunno, but I really think -he would. Bad company doesn't put you off so." - -There was a scratching at the inside of the door. "My, if I didn't -forget Shako," she said, "and he dying for a run!" - -She opened the door quickly, and out jumped a Russian dog of almost full -breed, with big, soft eyes like those of his mistress, and with the air -of the north in every motion--like his mistress also. - -"Come, Shako, a run--a run!" - -An instant after she was flying off on a path towards the woods, her -short skirts flying and showing limbs as graceful and shapely as those -of any woman of that world of social grace which she had never seen; for -she was a prairie girl through and through, born on the plains and -fed on its scanty fare--scanty as to variety, at least. Backwards and -forwards they ran, the girl shouting like a child of ten,--she was -twenty-three, her eyes flashing, her fine white teeth showing, her hands -thrown up in sheer excess of animal life, her hair blowing about her -face-brown, strong hair, wavy and plentiful. - -Fine creature as she was, her finest features were her eyes and her -hands. The eyes might have been found in the most savage places; the -hands, however, only could have come through breeding. She had got them -honestly; for her mother was descended from an old family of the French -province. That was why she had the name of Loisette--and had a touch of -distinction. It was the strain of the patrician in the full blood of the -peasant; but it gave her something which made her what she was--what she -had been since a child, noticeable and besought, sometimes beloved. It -was too strong a nature to compel love often, but it never failed to -compel admiration. Not greatly a creature of words, she had become moody -of late; and even now, alive with light and feeling and animal life, she -suddenly stopped her romp and run, and called the dog to her. - -"Heel, Shako!" she said, and made for the door of the little house, -which looked so snug and home-like. She paused before she came to the -door, to watch the smoke curling up from the chimney straight as a -column, for there was not a breath of air stirring. The sun was almost -gone and the strong bluish light was settling on everything, giving even -the green spruce trees a curious burnished tone. - -Swish! Thud! She faced the woods quickly. It was only a sound that she -had heard how many hundreds of times! It was the snow slipping from -some broad branch of the fir trees to the ground. Yet she started -now. Something was on her mind, agitating her senses, affecting her -self-control. - -"I'll be jumping out of my boots when the fire snaps, or the frost -cracks the ice, next," she said aloud contemptuously. "I dunno what's -the matter with me. I feel as if someone was hiding somewhere ready to -pop out on me. I haven't never felt like that before." - -She had formed the habit of talking to herself, for it had seemed at -first, as she was left alone when her father went trapping or upon -journeys for the Government, that by and by she would start at the -sound of her own voice, if she didn't think aloud. So she was given to -soliloquy, defying the old belief that people who talked to themselves -were going mad. She laughed at that. She said that birds sang to -themselves and didn't go mad, and crickets chirruped, and frogs croaked, -and owls hooted, and she would talk and not go crazy either. So she -talked to herself and to Shako when she was alone. - -How quiet it was inside when her light supper was eaten, bread and beans -and pea-soup--she had got this from her French mother. Now she sat, her -elbows on her knees, her chin on her hands, looking into the fire. Shako -was at her feet upon the great musk-ox rug, which her father had got on -one of his hunting trips in the Athabasca country years ago. It belonged -as she belonged. It breathed of the life of the north-land, for the -timbers of the hut were hewn cedar; the rough chimney, the seats, and -the shelves on which a few books made a fair show beside the bright tins -and the scanty crockery, were of pine; and the horned heads of deer and -wapiti made pegs for coats and caps, and rests for guns and rifles. It -was a place of comfort; it had an air of well-to-do thrift, even as the -girl's dress, though plain, was made of good sound stuff, grey, with a -touch of dark red to match the auburn of her hair. - -A book lay open in her lap, but she had scarcely tried to read it. -She had put it down after a few moments fixed upon it. It had sent her -thoughts off into a world where her life had played a part too big for -books, too deep for the plummet of any save those who had lived through -the storm of life's trials; and life when it is bitter to the young is -bitter with an agony the old never know. At last she spoke to herself. - -"She knows now. Now she knows what it is, how it feels--your heart like -red-hot coals, and something in your head that's like a turnscrew, and -you want to die and can't, for you've got to live and suffer." - -Again she was quiet, and only the dog's heavy breathing, the snap of the -fire, or the crack of a timber in the deadly frost broke the silence. -Inside it was warm and bright and home-like; outside it was twenty -degrees below zero, and like some vast tomb where life itself was -congealed, and only the white stars, low, twinkling, and quizzical, -lived-a life of sharp corrosion, not of fire. - -Suddenly she raised her head and listened. The dog did the same. None -but those whose lives are lived in lonely places can be so acute, so -sensitive to sound. It was a feeling delicate and intense, the whole -nature getting the vibration. You could have heard nothing had you been -there; none but one who was of the wide spaces could have done so. But -the dog and the woman felt, and both strained towards the window. Again -they heard, and started to their feet. It was far, far away, and still -you could not have heard; but now they heard clearly--a cry in the -night, a cry of pain and despair. The girl ran to the window and pulled -aside the bearskin curtain which had completely shut out the light. Then -she stirred the fire, threw a log upon it, snuffed the candles, hastily -put on her moccasins, fur coat, wool cap, and gloves, and went to the -door quickly, the dog at her heels. Opening it, she stepped out into the -night. - -"Qui va la? Who is it? Where?" she called, and strained towards the -west. She thought it might be her father or Mickey the hired man, or -both. - -The answer came from the east, out of the homeless, neighbourless, empty -east--a cry, louder now. There were only stars, and the night was dark, -though not deep dark. She sped along the prairie road as fast as she -could, once or twice stopping to call aloud. In answer to her calls the -voice sounded nearer and nearer. Now suddenly she left the trail and -bore away northward. At last the voice was very near. Presently a figure -appeared ahead, staggering towards her. - -"Qui va la? Who is it?" she asked. - -"Ba'tiste Caron," was the reply in English, in a faint voice. She was -beside him in an instant. - -"What has happened? Why are you off the trail?" she said, and supported -him. - -"My Injun stoled my dogs and run off," he replied. "I run after. Then, -when I am to come to the trail"--he paused to find the English word, and -could not--"encore to this trail I no can. So. Ah, bon Dieu, it has so -awful!" He swayed and would have fallen, but she caught him, bore him -up. She was so strong, and he was as slight as a girl, though tall. - -"When was that?" she asked. - -"Two nights ago," he answered, and swayed. "Wait," she said, and pulled -a flask from her pocket. "Drink this-quick." - -He raised it to his lips, but her hand was still on it, and she only let -him take a little. Then she drew it away, though she had almost to use -force, he was so eager for it. Now she took a biscuit from her pocket. - -"Eat; then some more brandy after," she urged. "Come on; it's not far. -See, there's the light," she added cheerily, raising her head towards -the hut. - -"I saw it just when I have fall down--it safe me. I sit down to -die--like that! But it safe me, that light--so. Ah, bon Dieu, it was so -far, and I want eat so!" Already he had swallowed the biscuit. - -"When did you eat last?" she asked, as she urged him on. - -"Two nights--except for one leetla piece of bread--O--O--I fin' it in my -pocket. Grace! I have travel so far. Jesu, I think it ees ten thousan' -miles I go. But I mus' go on, I mus' go--O--certainement." - -The light came nearer and nearer. His footsteps quickened, though he -staggered now and then, and went like a horse that has run its race, but -is driven upon its course again, going heavily with mouth open and head -thrown forwards and down. - -"But I mus' to get there, an' you-you will to help me, eh?" - -Again he swayed, but her strong arm held him up. As they ran on, in a -kind of dog-trot, her hand firm upon his arm--he seemed not to notice -it--she became conscious, though it was half dark, of what sort of man -she had saved. He was about her own age, perhaps a year or two older, -with little, if any, hair upon his face, save a slight moustache. His -eyes, deep sunken as they were, she made out were black, and the face, -though drawn and famished, had a handsome look. Presently she gave him -another sip of brandy, and he quickened his steps, speaking to himself -the while. - -"I haf to do it--if I lif. It is to go, go, go, till I get." - -Now they came to the hut where the firelight flickered on the -window-pane; the door was flung open, and, as he stumbled on the -threshold, she helped him into the warm room. She almost pushed him over -to the fire. - -Divested of his outer coat, muffler, cap, and leggings, he sat on a -bench before the fire, his eyes wandering from the girl to the flames, -and his hands clasping and unclasping between his knees. His eyes -dilating with hunger, he watched her preparations for his supper; and -when at last--and she had been but a moment--it was placed before him, -his head swam, and he turned faint with the stress of his longing. He -would have swallowed a basin of pea-soup at a draught, but she stopped -him, holding the basin till she thought he might venture again. Then -came cold beans, and some meat which she toasted at the fire and laid -upon his plate. They had not spoken since first entering the house, when -tears had shone in his eyes, and he had said: - -"You have safe--ah, you have safe me, and so I will do it yet by help -bon Dieu--yes." - -The meat was done at last, and he sat with a great dish of tea beside -him, and his pipe alight. - -"What time, if please?" he asked. "I t'ink nine hour, but no sure." - -"It is near nine," she said. She hastily tidied up the table after his -meal, and then came and sat in her chair over against the wall of the -rude fireplace. "Nine--dat is good. The moon rise at 'leven; den I go. I -go on," he said, "if you show me de queeck way." - -"You go on--how can you go on?" she asked, almost sharply. - -"Will you not to show me?" he asked. "Show you what?" she asked -abruptly. - -"The queeck way to Askatoon," he said, as though surprised that she -should ask. "They say me if I get here you will tell me queeck way to -Askatoon. Time, he go so fas', an' I have loose a day an' a night, an' -I mus' get Askatoon if I lif--I mus' get dere in time. It is all safe to -de stroke of de hour, mais, after, it is--bon Dieu--it is hell then. Who -shall forgif me--no!" - -"The stroke of the hour--the stroke of the hour!" It beat into her -brain. Were they both thinking of the same thing now? - -"You will show me queeck way. I mus' be Askatoon in two days, or it is -all over," he almost moaned. "Is no man here--I forget dat name, my head -go round like a wheel; but I know dis place, an' de good God He help -me fin' my way to where I call out, bien sur. Dat man's name I have -forget." - -"My father's name is John Alroyd," she answered absently, for there were -hammering at her brain the words, "The stroke of the hour." - -"Ah, now I get--yes. An' your name, it is Loisette Alroy'--ah, I have it -in my mind now--Loisette. I not forget dat name, I not forget you--no." - -"Why do you want to go the 'quick' way to Askatoon?" she asked. - -He puffed a moment at his pipe before he answered her. Presently he -said, holding out his pipe, "You not like smoke, mebbe?" - -She shook her head in negation, making an impatient gesture. - -"I forget ask you," he said. "Dat journee make me forget. When Injun -Jo, he leave me with the dogs, an' I wake up all alone, an' not know my -way--not like Jo, I think I die, it is so bad, so terrible in my head. -Not'ing but snow, not'ing. But dere is de sun; it shine. It say to me, -'Wake up, Ba'tiste; it will be all right bime-bye.' But all time I t'ink -I go mad, for I mus' get Askatoon before--dat." - -She started. Had she not used the same word in thinking of Askatoon. -"That," she had said. - -"Why do you want to go the 'quick' way to Askatoon?" she asked again, -her face pale, her foot beating the floor impatiently. - -"To save him before dat!" he answered, as though she knew of what he was -speaking and thinking. "What is that?" she asked. She knew now, surely, -but she must ask it nevertheless. - -"Dat hanging--of Haman," he answered. He nodded to himself. Then he took -to gazing into the fire. His lips moved as though talking to himself, -and the hand that held the pipe lay forgotten on his knee. "What have -you to do with Haman?" she asked slowly, her eyes burning. - -"I want safe him--I mus' give him free." He tapped his breast. "It is -hereto mak' him free." He still tapped his breast. - -For a moment she stood frozen still, her face thin and drawn and white; -then suddenly the blood rushed back into her face, and a red storm raged -in her eyes. - -She thought of the sister, younger than herself, whom Rube Haman had -married and driven to her grave within a year--the sweet Lucy, with -the name of her father's mother. Lucy had been all English in face and -tongue, a flower of the west, driven to darkness by this horse-dealing -brute, who, before he was arrested and tried for murder, was about to -marry Kate Wimper. Kate Wimper had stolen him from Lucy before Lucy's -first and only child was born, the child that could not survive the -warm mother-life withdrawn, and so had gone down the valley whither the -broken-hearted mother had fled. It was Kate Wimper, who, before that, -had waylaid the one man for whom she herself had ever cared, and drawn -him from her side by such attractions as she herself would keep for an -honest wife, if such she ever chanced to be. An honest wife she would -have been had Kate Wimper not crossed the straight path of her life. The -man she had loved was gone to his end also, reckless and hopeless, after -he had thrown away his chance of a lifetime with Loisette Alroyd. There -had been left behind this girl, to whom tragedy had come too young, -who drank humiliation with a heart as proud as ever straightly set its -course through crooked ways. - -It had hurt her, twisted her nature a little, given a fountain of -bitterness to her soul, which welled up and flooded her life sometimes. -It had given her face no sourness, but it put a shadow into her eyes. - -She had been glad when Haman was condemned for murder, for she believed -he had committed it, and ten times hanging could not compensate for that -dear life gone from their sight--Lucy, the pride of her father's heart. -She was glad when Haman was condemned, because of the woman who had -stolen him from Lucy, because of that other man, her lover, gone out of -her own life. The new hardness in her rejoiced that now the woman, -if she had any heart at all, must have it bowed down by this supreme -humiliation and wrung by the ugly tragedy of the hempen rope. - -And now this man before her, this man with a boy's face, with the dark -luminous eyes, whom she had saved from the frozen plains, he had that in -his breast which would free Haman, so he had said. A fury had its birth -in her at that moment. Something seemed to seize her brain and master -it, something so big that it held all her faculties in perfect control, -and she felt herself in an atmosphere where all life moved round her -mechanically, she herself the only sentient thing, so much greater -than all she saw, or all that she realised by her subconscious self. -Everything in the world seemed small. How calm it was even with the fury -within! - -"Tell me," she said quietly--"tell me how you are able to save Haman?" - -"He not kill Wakely. It is my brudder Fadette dat kill and get away. -Haman he is drunk, and everyt'ing seem to say Haman he did it, an' -everyone know Haman is not friend to Wakely. So the juree say he must be -hanging. But my brudder he go to die with hawful bad cold queeck, an' he -send for the priest an' for me, an' tell all. I go to Governor with the -priest, an' Governor gif me dat writing here." He tapped his breast, -then took out a wallet and showed the paper to her. "It is life of -dat Haman, voici! And so I safe him for my brudder. Dat was a bad boy, -Fadette. He was bad all time since he was a baby, an' I t'ink him pretty -lucky to die on his bed, an' get absolve, and go to purgatore. If he not -have luck like dat he go to hell, an' stay there." - -He sighed, and put the wallet back in his breast carefully, his eyes -half-shut with weariness, his handsome face drawn and thin, his limbs -lax with fatigue. - -"If I get Askatoon before de time for dat, I be happy in my heart, for -dat brudder off mine he get out of purgatore bime-bye, I t'ink." - -His eyes were almost shut, but he drew himself together with a great -effort, and added desperately, "No sleep. If I sleep it is all smash. -Man say me I can get Askatoon by dat time from here, if I go queeck way -across lak'--it is all froze now, dat lak'--an' down dat Foxtail Hills. -Is it so, ma'm'selle?" - -"By the 'quick' way if you can make it in time," she said; "but it is no -way for the stranger to go. There are always bad spots on the ice--it is -not safe. You could not find your way." - -"I mus' get dere in time," he said desperately. "You can't do -it--alone," she said. "Do you want to risk all and lose?" - -He frowned in self-suppression. "Long way, I no can get dere in time?" -he asked. - -She thought a moment. "No; it can't be done by the long way. But there -is another way--a third trail, the trail the Gover'ment men made a year -ago when they came to survey. It is a good trail. It is blazed in the -woods and staked on the plains. You cannot miss. But--but there is so -little time." She looked at the clock on the wall. "You cannot leave -here much before sunrise, and--" - -"I will leef when de moon rise, at eleven," he interjected. - -"You have had no sleep for two nights, and no food. You can't last it -out," she said calmly. - -The deliberate look on his face deepened to stubbornness. - -"It is my vow to my brudder--he is in purgatore. An' I mus' do it," he -rejoined, with an emphasis there was no mistaking. "You can show me dat -way?" - -She went to a drawer and took out a piece of paper. Then, with a point -of blackened stick, as he watched her and listened, she swiftly drew his -route for him. - -"Yes, I get it in my head," he said. "I go dat way, but I wish--I wish -it was dat queeck way. I have no fear, not'ing. I go w'en dat moon -rise--I go, bien sur." - -"You must sleep, then, while I get some food for you." She pointed to a -couch in a corner. "I will wake you when the moon rises." - -For the first time he seemed to realise her, for a moment to leave the -thing which consumed him, and put his mind upon her. - -"You not happy--you not like me here?" he asked simply; then added -quickly, "I am not bad man like me brudder--no." - -Her eyes rested on him for a moment as though realising him, while some -thought was working in her mind behind. - -"No, you are not a bad man," she said. "Men and women are equal on the -plains. You have no fear--I have no fear." - -He glanced at the rifles on the walls, then back at her. "My mudder, she -was good woman. I am glad she did not lif to know what Fadette do." His -eyes drank her in for a minute, then he said: "I go sleep now, t'ank -you--till moontime." - -In a moment his deep breathing filled the room, the only sound save for -the fire within and the frost outside. - -Time went on. The night deepened. - - ......................... - -Loisette sat beside the fire, but her body was half-turned from it -towards the man on the sofa. She was not agitated outwardly, but within -there was that fire which burns up life and hope and all the things that -come between us and great issues. It had burned up everything in her -except one thought, one powerful motive. She had been deeply wronged, -and justice had been about to give "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a -tooth." But the man lying there had come to sweep away the scaffolding -of justice--he had come for that. - -Perhaps he might arrive at Askatoon before the stroke of the hour, but -still he would be too late, for in her pocket now was the Governor's -reprieve. The man had slept soundly. His wallet was still in his breast; -but the reprieve was with her. - -If he left without discovering his loss, and got well on his way, and -discovered it then, it would be too late. If he returned--she only saw -one step before her, she would wait for that, and deal with it when it -came. She was thinking of Lucy, of her own lover ruined and gone. She -was calm in her madness. - -At the first light of the moon she roused him. She had put food into his -fur-coat pocket, and after he had drunk a bowl of hot pea-soup, while -she told him his course again, she opened the door, and he passed out -into the night. He started forward without a word, but came back again -and caught her hand. - -"Pardon," he said; "I go forget everyt'ing except dat. But I t'ink what -you do for me, it is better than all my life. Bien sur, I will come -again, when I get my mind to myself. Ah, but you are beautibul," he -said, "an' you not happy. Well, I come again--yes, a Dieu." - -He was gone into the night, with the moon silvering the sky, and the -steely frost eating into the sentient life of this northern world. -Inside the house, with the bearskin blind dropped at the window again, -and the fire blazing high, Loisette sat with the Governor's reprieve in -her hand. Looking at it, she wondered why it had been given to Ba'tiste -Caron, and not to a police-officer. Ah yes, it was plain--Ba'tiste was -a woodsman and plainsman, and could go far more safely than a constable, -and faster. Ba'tiste had reason for going fast, and he would travel -night and day--he was travelling night and day indeed. And now Ba'tiste -might get there, but the reprieve would not. He would not be able to -stop the hanging of Haman--the hanging of Rube Haman. - -A change came over her. Her eyes blazed, her breast heaved now. She had -been so quiet, so cold and still. But life seemed moving in her once -again. The woman, Kate Wimper, who had helped to send two people to -their graves, would now drink the dregs of shame, if she was capable of -shame--would be robbed of her happiness, if so be she loved Rube Haman. - -She stood up, as though to put the paper in the fire, but paused -suddenly at one thought--Rube Haman was innocent of murder. - -Even so, he was not innocent of Lucy's misery and death, of the death of -the little one who only opened its eyes to the light for an instant, and -then went into the dark again. But truly she was justified! When Haman -was gone things would go on just the same--and she had been so bitter, -her heart had been pierced as with a knife these past three years. Again -she held out her hand to the fire, but suddenly she gave a little cry -and put her hand to her head. There was Ba'tiste! - -What was Ba'tiste to her? Nothing-nothing at all. She had saved his -life--even if she wronged Ba'tiste, her debt would be paid. No, she -would not think of Ba'tiste. Yet she did not put the paper in the fire, -but in the pocket of her dress. Then she went to her room, leaving the -door open. The bed was opposite the fire, and, as she lay there--she did -not take off her clothes, she knew not why-she could see the flames. She -closed her eyes, but could not sleep, and more than once when she opened -them she thought she saw Ba'tiste sitting there as he had sat hours -before. Why did Ba'tiste haunt her so? What was it he had said in his -broken English as he went away?--that he would come back; that she was -"beautibul." - -All at once as she lay still, her head throbbing, her feet and hands icy -cold, she sat up listening. "Ah-again!" she cried. She sprang from her -bed, rushed to the door, and strained her eyes into the silver night. -She called into the icy void, "Qui va la? Who goes?" - -She leaned forwards, her hand at her ear, but no sound came in reply. -Once more she called, but nothing answered. The night was all light and -frost and silence. - -She had only heard, in her own brain, the iteration of Ba'tiste's -calling. Would he reach Askatoon in time, she wondered, as she shut the -door? Why had she not gone with him and attempted the shorter way the -quick way, he had called it? All at once the truth came back upon her, -stirring her now. It would do no good for Ba'tiste to arrive in time. -He might plead to them all and tell the truth about the reprieve, but it -would not avail--Rube Haman would hang. That did not matter--even though -he was innocent; but Ba'tiste's brother would be so long in -purgatory. And even that would not matter; but she would hurt -Ba'tiste--Ba'tiste--Ba'tiste. And Ba'tiste he would know that she--and -he had called her "beautibul," that she had-- - -With a cry she suddenly clothed herself for travel. She put some food -and drink in a leather bag and slung them over her shoulder. Then she -dropped on a knee and wrote a note to her father, tears falling from -her eyes. She heaped wood on the fire and moved towards the door. All -at once she turned to the crucifix on the wall which had belonged to her -mother, and, though she had followed her father's Protestant religion, -she kissed the feet of the sacred figure. - -"Oh, Christ, have mercy on me, and bring me safe to my journey's end-in -time," she said breathlessly; then she went softly to the door, leaving -the dog behind. - -It opened, closed, and the night swallowed her. Like a ghost she sped -the quick way to Askatoon. She was six hours behind Ba'tiste, and, going -hard all the time, it was doubtful if she could get there before the -fatal hour. - -On the trail Ba'tiste had taken there were two huts where he could rest, -and he had carried his blanket slung on his shoulder. The way she went -gave no shelter save the trees and caves which had been used to cache -buffalo meat and hides in old days. But beyond this there was danger in -travelling by night, for the springs beneath the ice of the three lakes -she must, cross made it weak and rotten even in the fiercest weather, -and what would no doubt have been death to Ba'tiste would be peril at -least to her. Why had she not gone with him? - -"He had in his face what was in Lucy's," she said to herself, as she -sped on. "She was fine like him, ready to break her heart for those she -cared for. My, if she had seen him first instead of--" - -She stopped short, for the ice gave way to her foot, and she only sprang -back in time to save herself. But she trotted on, mile after mile, -the dog-trot of the Indian, head bent forwards, toeing in, breathing -steadily but sharply. - -The morning came, noon, then a fall of snow and a keen wind, and despair -in her heart; but she had passed the danger-spots, and now, if the storm -did not overwhelm her, she might get to Askatoon in time. In the midst -of the storm she came to one of the caves of which she had known. Here -was wood for a fire, and here she ate, and in weariness unspeakable fell -asleep. When she waked it was near sun-down, the storm had ceased, and, -as on the night before, the sky was stained with colour and drowned in -splendour. - -"I will do it--I will do it, Ba'tiste!" she called, and laughed aloud -into the sunset. She had battled with herself all the way, and she had -conquered. Right was right, and Rube Haman must not be hung for what he -did not do. Her heart hardened whenever she thought of the woman, but -softened again when she thought of Ba'tiste, who had to suffer for the -deed of a brother in "purgatore." Once again the night and its silence -and loneliness followed her, the only living thing near the trail till -long after midnight. After that, as she knew, there were houses here and -there where she might have rested, but she pushed on unceasing. - -At daybreak she fell in with a settler going to Askatoon with his dogs. -Seeing how exhausted she was, he made her ride a few miles upon his -sledge; then she sped on ahead again till she came to the borders of -Askatoon. - -People were already in the streets, and all were tending one way. She -stopped and asked the time. It was within a quarter of an hour of the -time when Haman was to pay another's penalty. She spurred herself on, -and came to the jail blind with fatigue. As she neared the jail she saw -her father and Mickey. In amazement her father hailed her, but she would -not stop. She was admitted to the prison on explaining that she had a -reprieve. Entering a room filled with excited people, she heard a cry. - -It came from Ba'tiste. He had arrived but ten minutes before, and, in -the Sheriff's presence had discovered his loss. He had appealed in vain. - -But now, as he saw the girl, he gave a shout of joy which pierced the -hearts of all. - -"Ah, you haf it! Say you haf it, or it is no use--he mus' hang. -Spik-spik! Ah, my brudder--it is to do him right! Ah, Loisette--bon -Dieu, merci!" - -For answer she placed the reprieve in the hands of the Sheriff. Then she -swayed and fell fainting at the feet of Ba'tiste. - -She had come at the stroke of the hour. - -When she left for her home again the Sheriff kissed her. - -And that was not the only time he kissed her. He did it again six months -later, at the beginning of the harvest, when she and Ba'tiste Caron -started off on the long trail of life together. None but Ba'tiste knew -the truth about the loss of the reprieve, and to him she was "beautibul" -just the same, and greatly to be desired. - - - - -BUCKMASTER'S BOY - -"I bin waitin' for him, an' I'll git him of it takes all winter. I'll -git him--plumb." - -The speaker smoothed the barrel of his rifle with mittened hand, which -had, however, a trigger-finger free. With black eyebrows twitching over -sunken grey eyes, he looked doggedly down the frosty valley from the -ledge of high rock where he sat. The face was rough and weather-beaten, -with the deep tan got in the open life of a land of much sun and little -cloud, and he had a beard which, untrimmed and growing wild, made him -look ten years older than he was. - -"I bin waitin' a durn while," the mountain-man added, and got to -his feet slowly, drawing himself out to six and a half feet of burly -manhood. The shoulders were, however, a little stooped, and the head was -thrust forwards with an eager, watchful look--a habit become a physical -characteristic. - -Presently he caught sight of a hawk sailing southward along the peaks -of the white icebound mountains above, on which the sun shone with such -sharp insistence, making sky and mountain of a piece in deep purity and -serene stillness. - -"That hawk's seen him, mebbe," he said, after a moment. "I bet it went -up higher when it got him in its eye. Ef it'd only speak and tell me -where he is--ef he's a day, or two days, or ten days north." - -Suddenly his eyes blazed and his mouth opened in superstitious -amazement, for the hawk stopped almost directly overhead at a great -height, and swept round in a circle many times, waveringly, uncertainly. -At last it resumed its flight southward, sliding down the mountains like -a winged star. - -The mountaineer watched it with a dazed expression for a moment longer, -then both hands clutched the rifle and half swung it to position -involuntarily. - -"It's seen him, and it stopped to say so. It's seen him, I tell you, an' -I'll git him. Ef it's an hour, or a day, or a week, it's all the same. -I'm here watchin', waitin' dead on to him, the poison skunk!" - -The person to whom he had been speaking now rose from the pile of cedar -boughs where he had been sitting, stretched his arms up, then shook -himself into place, as does a dog after sleep. He stood for a minute -looking at the mountaineer with a reflective, yet a furtively sardonic, -look. He was not above five feet nine inches in height, and he was slim -and neat; and though his buckskin coat and breeches were worn and even -frayed in spots, he had an air of some distinction and of concentrated -force. It was a face that men turned to look at twice and shook their -heads in doubt afterwards--a handsome, worn, secretive face, in as -perfect control as the strings of an instrument under the bow of a great -artist. It was the face of a man without purpose in life beyond the -moment--watchful, careful, remorselessly determined, an adventurer's -asset, the dial-plate of a hidden machinery. - -Now he took the handsome meerschaum pipe from his mouth, from which he -had been puffing smoke slowly, and said in a cold, yet quiet voice, "How -long you been waitin', Buck?" - -"A month. He's overdue near that. He always comes down to winter at Fort -o' Comfort, with his string of half-breeds, an' Injuns, an' the dogs." - -"No chance to get him at the Fort?" - -"It ain't so certain. They'd guess what I was doin' there. It's surer -here. He's got to come down the trail, an' when I spot him by the -Juniper clump"--he jerked an arm towards a spot almost a mile farther up -the valley--"I kin scoot up the underbrush a bit and git him--plumb. -I could do it from here, sure, but I don't want no mistake. Once only, -jest one shot, that's all I want, Sinnet." - -He bit off a small piece of tobacco from a black plug Sinnet offered -him, and chewed it with nervous fierceness, his eyebrows working, as -he looked at the other eagerly. Deadly as his purpose was, and grim and -unvarying as his vigil had been, the loneliness had told on him, and he -had grown hungry for a human face and human companionship. Why Sinnet -had come he had not thought to inquire. Why Sinnet should be going north -instead of south had not occurred to him. He only realised that Sinnet -was not the man he was waiting for with murder in his heart; and all -that mattered to him in life was the coming of his victim down the -trail. He had welcomed Sinnet with a sullen eagerness, and had told him -in short, detached sentences the dark story of a wrong and a waiting -revenge, which brought a slight flush to Sinnet's pale face and awakened -a curious light in his eyes. - -"Is that your shack--that where you shake down?" Sinnet said, pointing -towards a lean-to in the fir trees to the right. - -"That's it. I sleep there. It's straight on to the Juniper clump, the -front door is." He laughed viciously, grimly. "Outside or inside, I'm on -to the Juniper clump. Walk into the parlour?" he added, and drew open a -rough-made door, so covered with green cedar boughs that it seemed of a -piece with the surrounding underbrush and trees. Indeed, the little but -was so constructed that it could not be distinguished from the woods -even a short distance away. - -"Can't have a fire, I suppose?" Sinnet asked. - -"Not daytimes. Smoke 'd give me away if he suspicioned me," answered the -mountaineer. "I don't take no chances. Never can tell." - -"Water?" asked Sinnet, as though interested in the surroundings, while -all the time he was eyeing the mountaineer furtively--as it were, prying -to the inner man, or measuring the strength of the outer man. He lighted -a fresh pipe and seated himself on a rough bench beside the table in the -middle of the room, and leaned on his elbows, watching. - -The mountaineer laughed. It was not a pleasant laugh to hear. "Listen," -he said. "You bin a long time out West. You bin in the mountains a good -while. Listen." - -There was silence. Sinnet listened intently. He heard the faint drip, -drip, drip of water, and looked steadily at the back wall of the room. - -"There--rock?" he said, and jerked his head towards the sound. - -"You got good ears," answered the other, and drew aside a blanket which -hung on the back wall of the room. A wooden trough was disclosed hanging -under a ledge of rock, and water dripped into it softly, slowly. - -"Almost providential, that rock," remarked Sinnet. "You've got your well -at your back door. Food--but you can't go far, and keep your eye on -the Bend too," he nodded towards the door, beyond which lay the -frost-touched valley in the early morning light of autumn. - -"Plenty of black squirrels and pigeons come here on account of the -springs like this one, and I get 'em with a bow and arrow. I didn't call -myself Robin Hood and Daniel Boone not for nothin' when I was knee-high -to a grasshopper." He drew from a rough cupboard some cold game, and -put it on the table, with some scones and a pannikin of water. Then he -brought out a small jug of whiskey and placed it beside his visitor. -They began to eat. - -"How d'ye cook without fire?" asked Sinnet. "Fire's all right at nights. -He'd never camp 'twixt here an' Juniper Bend at night. The next camp's -six miles north from here. He'd only come down the valley daytimes. I -studied it 'all out, and it's a dead sure thing. From daylight till dusk -I'm on to him. I got the trail in my eye." - -He showed his teeth like a wild dog, as his look swept the valley. There -was something almost revolting in his concentrated ferocity. - -Sinnet's eyes half closed as he watched the mountaineer, and the long, -scraggy hands and whipcord neck seemed to interest him greatly. He -looked at his own slim brown hands with a half smile, and it was almost -as cruel as the laugh of the other. Yet it had, too, a knowledge and an -understanding which gave it humanity. - -"You're sure he did it?" Sinnet asked presently, after drinking a very -small portion of liquor, and tossing some water from the pannikin after -it. "You're sure Greevy killed your boy, Buck?" - -"My name's Buckmaster, ain't it--Jim Buckmaster? Don't I know my own -name? It's as sure as that. My boy said it was Greevy when he was dying. -He told Bill Ricketts so, and Bill told me afore he went East. Bill -didn't want to tell, but he said it was fair I should know, for my boy -never did nobody any harm--an' Greevy's livin' on. But I'll git him. -Right's right." - -"Wouldn't it be better for the law to hang him, if you've got the proof, -Buck? A year or so in jail, an' a long time to think over what's going -round his neck on the scaffold--wouldn't that suit you, if you've got -the proof?" - -A rigid, savage look came into Buckmaster's face. - -"I ain't lettin' no judge and jury do my business. I'm for certain sure, -not for p'r'aps! An' I want to do it myself. Clint was only twenty. Like -boys we was together. I was eighteen when I married, an' he come -when she went--jest a year--jest a year. An' ever since then we lived -together, him an' me, an' shot together, an' trapped together, an' went -gold-washin' together on the Cariboo, an' eat out of the same dish, an' -slept under the same blanket, and jawed together nights--ever since he -was five, when old Mother Lablache had got him into pants, an' he was -fit to take the trail." - -The old man stopped a minute, his whipcord neck swelling, his lips -twitching. He brought a fist down on the table with a bang. "The -biggest little rip he was, as full of fun as a squirrel, an' never a -smile-o-jest his eyes dancin', an' more sense than a judge. He laid hold -o' me, that cub did--it was like his mother and himself together; an' -the years flowin' in an' peterin' out, an' him gettin' older, an' always -jest the same. Always on rock-bottom, always bright as a dollar, an' we -livin' at Black Nose Lake, layin' up cash agin' the time we was to go -South, an' set up a house along the railway, an' him to git married. I -was for his gittin' married same as me, when we had enough cash. I use -to think of that when he was ten, and when he was eighteen I spoke to -him about it; but he wouldn't listen--jest laughed at me. You remember -how Clint used to laugh sort of low and teasin' like--you remember that -laugh o' Clint's, don't you?" - -Sinnet's face was towards the valley and Juniper Bend, but he slowly -turned his head and looked at Buckmaster strangely out of his half-shut -eyes. He took the pipe from his mouth slowly. - -"I can hear it now," he answered slowly. "I hear it often, Buck." - -The old man gripped his arm so suddenly that Sinnet was startled,--in so -far as anything could startle anyone who had lived a life of chance and -danger and accident, and his face grew a shade paler; but he did not -move, and Buckmaster's hand tightened convulsively. - -"You liked him, an' he liked you; he first learnt poker off you, Sinnet. -He thought you was a tough, but he didn't mind that no more than I did. -It ain't for us to say what we're goin' to be, not always. Things in -life git stronger than we are. You was a tough, but who's goin' to judge -you! I ain't; for Clint took to you, Sinnet, an' he never went wrong -in his thinkin'. God! he was wife an' child to me--an' he's -dead--dead--dead." - -The man's grief was a painful thing to see. His hands gripped the table, -while his body shook with sobs, though his eyes gave forth no tears. -It was an inward convulsion, which gave his face the look of unrelieved -tragedy and suffering--Laocoon struggling with the serpents of sorrow -and hatred which were strangling him. - -"Dead an' gone," he repeated, as he swayed to and fro, and the table -quivered in his grasp. Presently, however, as though arrested by a -thought, he peered out of the doorway towards Juniper Bend. "That hawk -seen him--it seen him. He's comin', I know it, an' I'll git him--plumb." -He had the mystery and imagination of the mountain-dweller. - -The rifle lay against the wall behind him, and he turned and touched -it almost caressingly. "I ain't let go like this since he was killed, -Sinnet. It don't do. I got to keep myself stiddy to do the trick when -the minute comes. At first I usen't to sleep at nights, thinkin' of -Clint, an' missin' him, an' I got shaky and no good. So I put a cinch -on myself, an' got to sleepin' again--from the full dusk to dawn, for -Greevy wouldn't take the trail at night. I've kept stiddy." He held out -his hand as though to show that it was firm and steady, but it trembled -with the emotion which had conquered him. He saw it, and shook his head -angrily. - -"It was seein' you, Sinnet. It burst me. I ain't seen no one to speak to -in a month, an' with you sittin' there, it was like Clint an' me cuttin' -and comin' again off the loaf an' the knuckle-bone of ven'son." - -Sinnet ran a long finger slowly across his lips, and seemed meditating -what he should say to the mountaineer. At length he spoke, looking into -Buckmaster's face. "What was the story Ricketts told you? What did your -boy tell Ricketts? I've heard, too, about it, and that's why I asked -you if you had proofs that Greevy killed Clint. Of course, Clint should -know, and if he told Ricketts, that's pretty straight; but I'd like -to know if what I heard tallies with what Ricketts heard from Clint. -P'r'aps it'd ease your mind a bit to tell it. I'll watch the Bend--don't -you trouble about that. You can't do these two things at one time. I'll -watch for Greevy; you give me Clint's story to Ricketts. I guess you -know I'm feelin' for you, an' if I was in your place I'd shoot the man -that killed Clint, if it took ten years. I'd have his heart's blood--all -of it. Whether Greevy was in the right or in the wrong, I'd have -him--plumb." - -Buckmaster was moved. He gave a fierce exclamation and made a gesture of -cruelty. "Clint right or wrong? There ain't no question of that. My boy -wasn't the kind to be in the wrong. What did he ever do but what was -right? If Clint was in the wrong I'd kill Greevy jest the same, for -Greevy robbed him of all the years that was before him--only a sapling -he was, an' all his growin' to do, all his branches to widen an' his -roots to spread. But that don't enter in it, his bein' in the wrong. -It was a quarrel, and Clint never did Greevy any harm. It was a quarrel -over cards, an' Greevy was drunk, an' followed Clint out into the -prairie in the night and shot him like a coyote. Clint hadn't no chance, -an' he jest lay there on the ground till morning, when Ricketts and -Steve Joicey found him. An' Clint told Ricketts who it was." - -"Why didn't Ricketts tell it right out at once?" asked Sinnet. - -"Greevy was his own cousin--it was in the family, an' he kept thinkin' -of Greevy's gal, Em'ly. Her--what'll it matter to her! She'll get -married, an she'll forgit. I know her, a gal that's got no deep feelin' -like Clint had for me. But because of her Ricketts didn't speak for a -year. Then he couldn't stand it any longer, an' he told me--seein' how I -suffered, an' everybody hidin' their suspicions from me, an' me up here -out o' the way, an' no account. That was the feelin' among 'em--what was -the good of making things worse! They wasn't thinkin' of the boy or of -Jim Buckmaster, his father. They was thinkin' of Greevy's gal--to save -her trouble." - -Sinnet's face was turned towards Juniper Bend, and the eyes were -fixed, as it were, on a still more distant object--a dark, brooding, -inscrutable look. - -"Was that all Ricketts told you, Buck?" The voice was very quiet, but it -had a suggestive note. - -"That's all Clint told Bill before he died. That was enough." - -There was a moment's pause, and then, puffing out long clouds of smoke, -and in a tone of curious detachment, as though he were telling of -something that he saw now in the far distance, or as a spectator of a -battle from a far vantage-point might report to a blind man standing -near, Sinnet said: - -"P'r'aps Ricketts didn't know the whole story; p'r'aps Clint didn't know -it all to tell him; p'r'aps Clint didn't remember it all. P'r'aps he -didn't remember anything except that he and Greevy quarrelled, and that -Greevy and he shot at each other in the prairie. He'd only be thinking -of the thing that mattered most to him--that his life was over, an' that -a man had put a bullet in him, an'--" - -Buckmaster tried to interrupt him, but he waved a hand impatiently, and -continued: "As I say, maybe he didn't remember everything; he had -been drinkin' a bit himself, Clint had. He wasn't used to liquor, and -couldn't stand much. Greevy was drunk, too, and gone off his head with -rage. He always gets drunk when he first comes South to spend the winter -with his girl Em'ly." He paused a moment, then went on a little more -quickly. "Greevy was proud of her--couldn't even bear her being crossed -in any way; and she has a quick temper, and if she quarrelled with -anybody Greevy quarrelled too." - -"I don't want to know anything about her," broke in Buckmaster roughly. -"She isn't in this thing. I'm goin' to git Greevy. I bin waitin' for -him, an' I'll git him." - -"You're going to kill the man that killed your boy, if you can, Buck; -but I'm telling my story in my own way. You told Ricketts's story; I'll -tell what I've heard. And before you kill Greevy you ought to know all -there is that anybody else knows--or suspicions about it." - -"I know enough. Greevy done it, an' I'm here." With no apparent -coherence and relevancy Sinnet continued, but his voice was not so -even as before. "Em'ly was a girl that wasn't twice alike. She was -changeable. First it was one, then it was another, and she didn't seem -to be able to fix her mind. But that didn't prevent her leadin' men on. -She wasn't changeable, though, about her father. She was to him what -your boy was to you. There she was like you, ready to give everything up -for her father." - -"I tell y' I don't want to hear about her," said Buckmaster, getting to -his feet and setting his jaws. "You needn't talk to me about her. -She'll git over it. I'll never git over what Greevy done to me or to -Clint--jest twenty, jest twenty! I got my work to do." - -He took his gun from the wall, slung it into the hollow of his arm, and -turned to look up the valley through the open doorway. - -The morning was sparkling with life--the life and vigour which a touch -of frost gives to the autumn world in a country where the blood tingles -to the dry, sweet sting of the air. Beautiful, and spacious, and -buoyant, and lonely, the valley and the mountains seemed waiting, like a -new-born world, to be peopled by man. It was as though all had been made -ready for him--the birds whistling and singing in the trees, the whisk -of the squirrels leaping from bough to bough, the peremptory sound of -the woodpecker's beak against the bole of a tree, the rustle of the -leaves as a wood-hen ran past--a waiting, virgin world. - -Its beauty and its wonderful dignity had no appeal to Buckmaster. His -eyes and mind were fixed on a deed which would stain the virgin wild -with the ancient crime that sent the first marauder on human life into -the wilderness. - -As Buckmaster's figure darkened the doorway Sinnet seemed to waken as -from a dream, and he got swiftly to his feet. - -"Wait--you wait, Buck. You've got to hear all. You haven't heard my -story yet. Wait, I tell you." His voice was so sharp and insistent, so -changed, that Buckmaster turned from the doorway and came back into the -room. - -"What's the use of my hearin'? You want me not to kill Greevy, because -of that gal. What's she to me?" - -"Nothing to you, Buck, but Clint was everything to her." - -The mountaineer stood like one petrified. - -"What's that--what's that you say? It's a damn lie!" - -"It wasn't cards--the quarrel, not the real quarrel. Greevy found Clint -kissing her. Greevy wanted her to marry Gatineau, the lumber-king. That -was the quarrel." - -A snarl was on the face of Buckmaster. "Then she'll not be sorry when -I git him. It took Clint from her as well as from me." He turned to -the door again. "But, wait, Buck, wait one minute and hear--" He was -interrupted by a low, exultant growl, and he saw Buckmaster's rifle -clutched as a hunter, stooping, clutches his gun to fire on his prey. - -"Quick, the spy-glass!" he flung back at Sinnet. "It's him--but I'll -make sure." - -Sinnet caught the telescope from the nails where it hung, and looked out -towards Juniper Bend. "It's Greevy--and his girl, and the half-breeds," -he said, with a note in his voice that almost seemed agitation, and yet -few had ever seen Sinnet agitated. "Em'ly must have gone up the trail in -the night." - -"It's my turn now," the mountaineer said hoarsely, and, stooping, slid -away quickly into the undergrowth. Sinnet followed, keeping near him, -neither speaking. For a half mile they hastened on, and now and then -Buckmaster drew aside the bushes, and looked up the valley, to keep -Greevy and his bois brulees in his eye. Just so had he and his son and -Sinnet stalked the wapiti and the red deer along these mountains; but -this was a man that Buckmaster was stalking now, with none of the joy -of the sport which had been his since a lad; only the malice of the -avenger. The lust of a mountain feud was on him; he was pursuing the -price of blood. - -At last Buckmaster stopped at a ledge of rock just above the trail. -Greevy would pass below, within three hundred yards of his rifle. He -turned to Sinnet with cold and savage eyes. "You go back," he said. -"It's my business. I don't want you to see. You don't want to see, then -you won't know, and you won't need to lie. You said that the man that -killed Clint ought to die. He's going to die, but it's none o' your -business. I want to be alone. In a minute he'll be where I kin git -him--plumb. You go, Sinnet-right off. It's my business." - -There was a strange, desperate look in Sinnet's face; it was as hard as -stone, but his eyes had a light of battle in them. - -"It's my business right enough, Buck," he said, "and you're not going to -kill Greevy. That girl of his has lost her lover, your boy. It's broke -her heart almost, and there's no use making her an orphan too. She can't -stand it. She's had enough. You leave her father alone--you hear me, let -up!" He stepped between Buckmaster and the ledge of rock from which the -mountaineer was to take aim. - -There was a terrible look in Buckmaster's face. He raised his -single-barrelled rifle, as though he would shoot Sinnet; but, at the -moment, he remembered that a shot would warn Greevy, and that he might -not have time to reload. He laid his rifle against a tree swiftly. - -"Git away from here," he said, with a strange rattle in his throat. "Git -away quick; he'll be down past here in a minute." - -Sinnet pulled himself together as he saw Buckmaster snatch at a great -clasp-knife in his belt. He jumped and caught Buckmaster's wrist in a -grip like a vice. - -"Greevy didn't kill him, Buck," he said. But the mountaineer was gone -mad, and did not grasp the meaning of the words. He twined his left arm -round the neck of Sinnet, and the struggle began, he fighting to free -Sinnet's hand from his wrist, to break Sinnet's neck. He did not realise -what he was doing. He only knew that this man stood between him and the -murderer of his boy, and all the ancient forces of barbarism were alive -in him. Little by little they drew to the edge of the rock, from which -there was a sheer drop of two hundred feet. Sinnet fought like a panther -for safety, but no sane man's strength could withstand the demoniacal -energy that bent and crushed him. Sinnet felt his strength giving. Then -he said in a hoarse whisper, "Greevy didn't kill him. I killed him, -and--" - -At that moment he was borne to the ground with a hand on his throat, and -an instant after the knife went home. - -Buckmaster got to his feet and looked at his victim for an instant, -dazed and wild; then he sprang for his gun. As he did so the words that -Sinnet had said as they struggled rang in his ears, "Greevy didn't kill -him; I killed him!" - -He gave a low cry and turned back towards Sinnet, who lay in a pool of -blood. - -Sinnet was speaking. He went and stooped over him. "Em'ly threw me over -for Clint," the voice said huskily, "and I followed to have it out with -Clint. So did Greevy, but Greevy was drunk. I saw them meet. I was hid. -I saw that Clint would kill Greevy, and I fired. I was off my head--I'd -never cared for any woman before, and Greevy was her father. Clint was -off his head too. He had called me names that day--a cardsharp, and a -liar, and a thief, and a skunk, he called me, and I hated him just then. -Greevy fired twice wide. He didn't know but what he killed Clint, but he -didn't. I did. So I tried to stop you, Buck--" - -Life was going fast, and speech failed him; but he opened his eyes again -and whispered, "I didn't want to die, Buck. I am only thirty-five, and -it's too soon; but it had to be. Don't look that way, Buck. You got the -man that killed him--plumb. But Em'ly didn't play fair with me--made a -fool of me, the only time in my life I ever cared for a woman. You leave -Greevy alone, Buck, and tell Em'ly for me I wouldn't let you kill her -father." - -"You--Sinnet--you, you done it! Why, he'd have fought for you. You--done -it--to him--to Clint!" Now that the blood-feud had been satisfied, a -great change came over the mountaineer. He had done his work, and the -thirst for vengeance was gone. Greevy he had hated, but this man had -been with him in many a winter's hunt. His brain could hardly grasp the -tragedy--it had all been too sudden. - -Suddenly he stooped down. "Sinnet," he said, "ef there was a woman in -it, that makes all the difference. Sinnet, of--" - -But Sinnet was gone upon a long trail that led into an illimitable -wilderness. With a moan the old man ran to the ledge of rock. Greevy and -his girl were below. - -"When there's a woman in it--!" he said, in a voice of helplessness -and misery, and watched Em'ly till she disappeared from view. Then he -turned, and, lifting up in his arms the man he had killed, carried him -into the deeper woods. - - - - -TO-MORROW - -"My, nothing's the matter with the world to-day! It's so good it almost -hurts." - -She raised her head from the white petticoat she was ironing, and gazed -out of the doorway and down the valley with a warm light in her eyes -and a glowing face. The snow-tipped mountains far above and away, the -fir-covered, cedar-ranged foothills, and, lower down, the wonderful -maple and ash woods, with their hundred autumn tints, all merging to one -soft, red tone, the roar of the stream tumbling down the ravine from -the heights, the air that braced the nerves--it all seemed to be part of -her, the passion of life corresponding to the passion of living in her. - -After watching the scene dreamily for a moment, she turned and laid the -iron she had been using upon the hot stove near. Taking up another, she -touched it with a moistened finger to test the heat, and, leaning above -the table again, passed it over the linen for a few moments, smiling -at something that was in her mind. Presently she held the petticoat up, -turned it round, then hung it in front of her, eyeing it with critical -pleasure. - -"To-morrow!" she said, nodding at it. "You won't be seen, I suppose, but -I'll know you're nice enough for a queen--and that's enough to know." - -She blushed a little, as though someone had heard her words and was -looking at her, then she carefully laid the petticoat over the back of -a chair. "No queen's got one whiter, if I do say it," she continued, -tossing her head. - -In that, at any rate, she was right, for the water of the mountain -springs was pure, the air was clear, and the sun was clarifying; and -little ornamented or frilled as it was, the petticoat was exquisitely -soft and delicate. It would have appealed to more eyes than a woman's. - -"To-morrow!" She nodded at it again and turned again to the bright world -outside. With arms raised and hands resting against the timbers of the -doorway, she stood dreaming. A flock of pigeons passed with a whir not -far away, and skirted the woods making down the valley. She watched -their flight abstractedly, yet with a subconscious sense of pleasure. -Life--they were Life, eager, buoyant, belonging to this wild region, -where still the heart could feel so much at home, where the great world -was missed so little. - -Suddenly, as she gazed, a shot rang out down the valley, and two of the -pigeons came tumbling to the ground, a stray feather floating after. -With a startled exclamation she took a step forward. Her brain became -confused and disturbed. She had looked out on Eden, and it had been -ravaged before her eyes. She had been thinking of to-morrow, and this -vast prospect of beauty and serenity had been part of the pageant -in which it moved. Not the valley alone had been marauded, but that -"To-morrow," and all it meant to her. - -Instantly the valley had become clouded over for her, its glory and its -grace despoiled. She turned back to the room where the white petticoat -lay upon the chair, but stopped with a little cry of alarm. - -A man was standing in the centre of the room. He had entered stealthily -by the back door, and had waited for her to turn round. He was haggard -and travel stained, and there was a feverish light in his eyes. His -fingers trembled as they adjusted his belt, which seemed too large for -him. Mechanically he buckled it tighter. - -"You're Jenny Long, ain't you?" he asked. "I beg pardon for sneakin' in -like this, but they're after me, some ranchers and a constable--one o' -the Riders of the Plains. I've been tryin' to make this house all day. -You're Jenny Long, ain't you?" - -She had plenty of courage, and, after the first instant of shock, she -had herself in hand. She had quickly observed his condition, had marked -the candour of the eye and the decision and character of the face, and -doubt of him found no place in her mind. She had the keen observation -of the dweller in lonely places, where every traveller has the -potentialities of a foe, while the door of hospitality is opened to him -after the custom of the wilds. Year in, year out, since she was a -little girl and came to live here with her Uncle Sanger when her father -died--her mother had gone before she could speak--travellers had halted -at this door, going North or coming South, had had bite and sup, and -bed, may be, and had passed on, most of them never to be seen again. -More than that, too, there had been moments of peril, such as when, -alone, she had faced two wood-thieves with a revolver, as they -were taking her mountain-pony with them, and herself had made them -"hands-up," and had marched them into a prospector's camp five miles -away. - -She had no doubt about the man before her. Whatever he had done, it was -nothing dirty or mean--of that she was sure. - -"Yes, I'm Jenny Long," she answered. "What have you done? What are they -after you for?" - -"Oh! to-morrow," he answered, "to-morrow I got to git to Bindon. It's -life or death. I come from prospecting two hundred miles up North. I -done it in two days and a half. My horse dropped dead--I'm near -dead myself. I tried to borrow another horse up at Clancey's, and at -Scotton's Drive, but they didn't know me, and they bounced me. So I -borrowed a horse off Weigall's paddock, to make for here--to you. -I didn't mean to keep that horse. Hell, I'm no horse-stealer! But I -couldn't explain to them, except that I had to git to Bindon to save a -man's life. If people laugh in your face, it's no use explainin'. I took -a roan from Weigall's, and they got after me. 'Bout six miles up they -shot at me an' hurt me." - -She saw that one arm hung limp at his side and that his wrist was wound -with a red bandana. - -She started forward. "Are you hurt bad? Can I bind it up or wash it for -you? I've got plenty of hot water here, and it's bad letting a wound get -stale." - -He shook his head. "I washed the hole clean in the creek below. I -doubled on them. I had to go down past your place here, and then work -back to be rid of them. But there's no telling when they'll drop on to -the game, and come back for me. My only chance was to git to you. Even -if I had a horse, I couldn't make Bindon in time. It's two days round -the gorge by trail. A horse is no use now--I lost too much time since -last night. I can't git to Bindon to-morrow in time, if I ride the -trail." - -"The river?" she asked abruptly. - -"It's the only way. It cuts off fifty mile. That's why I come to you." - -She frowned a little, her face became troubled, and her glance fell -on his arm nervously. "What've I got to do with it?" she asked almost -sharply. - -"Even if this was all right,"--he touched the wounded arm--"I couldn't -take the rapids in a canoe. I don't know them, an' it would be sure -death. That's not the worst, for there's a man at Bindon would lose his -life--p'r'aps twenty men--I dunno; but one man sure. To-morrow, it's go -or stay with him. He was good--Lord, but he was good!--to my little -gal years back. She'd only been married to me a year when he saved her, -riskin' his own life. No one else had the pluck. My little gal, only -twenty she was, an' pretty as a picture, an' me fifty miles away when -the fire broke out in the hotel where she was. He'd have gone down to -hell for a friend, an' he saved my little gal. I had her for five years -after that. That's why I got to git to Bindon to-morrow. If I don't, I -don't want to see to-morrow. I got to go down the river to-night." - -She knew what he was going to ask her. She knew he was thinking what -all the North knew, that she was the first person to take the Dog Nose -Rapids in a canoe, down the great river scarce a stone's-throw from her -door; and that she had done it in safety many times. Not in all the -West and North were there a half-dozen people who could take a canoe -to Bindon, and they were not here. She knew that he meant to ask her to -paddle him down the swift stream with its murderous rocks, to Bindon. -She glanced at the white petticoat on the chair, and her lips tightened. -To-morrow-tomorrow was as much to her here as it would be to this man -before her, or the man he would save at Bindon. "What do you want?" she -asked, hardening her heart. "Can't you see? I want you to hide me here -till tonight. There's a full moon, an' it would be as plain goin' as by -day. They told me about you up North, and I said to myself, 'If I git to -Jenny Long, an' tell her about my friend at Bindon, an' my little gal, -she'll take me down to Bindon in time.' My little gal would have paid -her own debt if she'd ever had the chance. She didn't--she's lying up on -Mazy Mountain. But one woman'll do a lot for the sake of another woman. -Say, you'll do it, won't you? If I don't git there by to-morrow noon, -it's no good." - -She would not answer. He was asking more than he knew. Why should she be -sacrificed? Was it her duty to pay the "little gal's debt," to save the -man at Bindon? To-morrow was to be the great day in her own life. The -one man in all the world was coming to marry her to-morrow. After four -years' waiting, after a bitter quarrel in which both had been to blame, -he was coming from the mining town of Selby to marry her to-morrow. - -"What will happen? Why will your friend lose his life if you don't get -to Bindon?" - -"By noon to-morrow, by twelve o'clock noon; that's the plot; that's what -they've schemed. Three days ago, I heard. I got a man free from trouble -North--he was no good, but I thought he ought to have another chance, -and I got him free. He told me of what was to be done at Bindon. There'd -been a strike in the mine, an' my friend had took it in hand with -knuckle-dusters on. He isn't the kind to fell a tree with a jack-knife. -Then three of the strikers that had been turned away--they was the -ringleaders--they laid a plan that'd make the devil sick. They've put a -machine in the mine, an' timed it, an' it'll go off when my friend comes -out of the mine at noon to-morrow." - -Her face was pale now, and her eyes had a look of pain and horror. Her -man--him that she was to marry--was the head of a mine also at Selby, -forty miles beyond Bindon, and the horrible plot came home to her with -piercing significance. - -"Without a second's warning," he urged, "to go like that, the man that -was so good to my little gal, an' me with a chance to save him, an' -others too, p'r'aps. You won't let it be. Say, I'm pinnin' my faith to -you. I'm--" - -Suddenly he swayed. She caught him, held him, and lowered him gently in -a chair. Presently he opened his eyes. "It's want o' food, I suppose," -he said. "If you've got a bit of bread and meat--I must keep up." - -She went to a cupboard, but suddenly turned towards him again. Her ears -had caught a sound outside in the underbush. He had heard also, and he -half staggered to his feet. - -"Quick-in here!" she said, and, opening a door, pushed him inside. -"Lie down on my bed, and I'll bring you vittles as quick as I can," she -added. Then she shut the door, turned to the ironing-board, and took up -the iron, as the figure of a man darkened the doorway. - -"Hello, Jinny, fixin' up for to-morrow?" the man said, stepping inside, -with a rifle under his arm and some pigeons in his hand. - -She nodded and gave him an impatient, scrutinising glance. His face had -a fatuous kind of smile. - -"Been celebrating the pigeons?" she asked drily, jerking her head -towards the two birds, which she had seen drop from her Eden skies a -short time before. - -"I only had one swig of whiskey, honest Injun!" he answered. "I s'pose I -might have waited till to-morrow, but I was dead-beat. I got a bear over -by the Tenmile Reach, and I was tired. I ain't so young as I used to be, -and, anyhow, what's the good! What's ahead of me? You're going to git -married to-morrow after all these years we bin together, and you're -going down to Selby from the mountains, where I won't see you, not once -in a blue moon. Only that old trollop, Mother Massy, to look after me." - -"Come down to Selby and live there. You'll be welcome by Jake and me." - -He stood his gun in the corner and, swinging the pigeons in his hand, -said: "Me live out of the mountains? Don't you know better than that? -I couldn't breathe; and I wouldn't want to breathe. I've got my shack -here, I got my fur business, and they're still fond of whiskey up -North!" He chuckled to himself, as he thought of the illicit still -farther up the mountain behind them. "I make enough to live on, and I've -put a few dollars by, though I won't have so many after to-morrow, after -I've given you a little pile, Jinny." - -"P'r'aps there won't be any to-morrow, as you expect," she said slowly. - -The old man started. "What, you and Jake ain't quarrelled again? You -ain't broke it off at the last moment, same as before? You ain't had a -letter from Jake?" He looked at the white petticoat on the chairback, -and shook his head in bewilderment. - -"I've had no letter," she answered. "I've had no letter from Selby for -a month. It was all settled then, and there was no good writing, when -he was coming to-morrow with the minister and the licence. Who do you -think'd be postman from Selby here? It must have cost him ten dollars to -send the last letter." - -"Then what's the matter? I don't understand," the old man urged -querulously. He did not want her to marry and leave him, but he wanted -no more troubles; he did not relish being asked awkward questions by -every mountaineer he met, as to why Jenny Long didn't marry Jake Lawson. - -"There's only one way that I can be married tomorrow," she said at -last, "and that's by you taking a man down the Dog Nose Rapids to Bindon -to-night." - -He dropped the pigeons on the floor, dumbfounded. "What in--" - -He stopped short, in sheer incapacity, to go further. Jenny had not -always been easy to understand, but she was wholly incomprehensible now. - -She picked up the pigeons and was about to speak, but she glanced at the -bedroom door, where her exhausted visitor had stretched himself on her -bed, and beckoned her uncle to another room. - -"There's a plate of vittles ready for you in there," she said. "I'll -tell you as you eat." - -He followed her into the little living-room adorned by the trophies of -his earlier achievements with gun and rifle, and sat down at the table, -where some food lay covered by a clean white cloth. - -"No one'll ever look after me as you've done, Jinny," he said, as he -lifted the cloth and saw the palatable dish ready for him. Then he -remembered again about to-morrow and the Dog Nose Rapids. - -"What's it all about, Jinny? What's that about my canoeing a man down to -Bindon?" - -"Eat, uncle," she said more softly than she had yet spoken, for his -words about her care of him had brought a moisture to her eyes. "I'll be -back in a minute and tell you all about it." - -"Well, it's about took away my appetite," he said. "I feel a kind of -sinking." He took from his pocket a bottle, poured some of its contents -into a tin cup, and drank it off. - -"No, I suppose you couldn't take a man down to Bindon," she said, as she -saw his hand trembling on the cup. Then she turned and entered the other -room again. Going to the cupboard, she hastily heaped a plate with -food, and, taking a dipper of water from a pail near by, she entered her -bedroom hastily and placed what she had brought on a small table, as her -visitor rose slowly from the bed. - -He was about to speak, but she made a protesting gesture. - -"I can't tell you anything yet," she said. "Who was it come?" he asked. - -"My uncle--I'm going to tell him." - -"The men after me may git here any minute," he urged anxiously. - -"They'd not be coming into my room," she answered, flushing slightly. - -"Can't you hide me down by the river till we start?" he asked, his eyes -eagerly searching her face. He was assuming that she would take him down -the river: but she gave no sign. - -"I've got to see if he'll take you first," she answered. - -"He--your uncle, Tom Sanger? He drinks, I've heard. He'd never git to -Bindon." - -She did not reply directly to his words. "I'll come back and tell you. -There's a place you could hide by the river where no one could ever find -you," she said, and left the room. - -As she stepped out, she saw the old man standing in the doorway of the -other room. His face was petrified with amazement. - -"Who you got in that room, Jinny? What man you got in that room? I -heard a man's voice. Is it because o' him that you bin talkin' about no -weddin' to-morrow? Is it one o' the others come back, puttin' you off -Jake again?" - -Her eyes flashed fire at his first words, and her breast heaved with -anger, but suddenly she became composed again and motioned him to a -chair. - -"You eat, and I'll tell you all about it, Uncle Tom," she said, and, -seating herself at the table also, she told him the story of the man who -must go to Bindon. - -When she had finished, the old man blinked at her for a minute without -speaking, then he said slowly: "I heard something 'bout trouble down at -Bindon yisterday from a Hudson's Bay man goin' North, but I didn't take -it in. You've got a lot o' sense, Jinny, an' if you think he's tellin' -the truth, why, it goes; but it's as big a mixup as a lariat in a -steer's horns. You've got to hide him sure, whoever he is, for I -wouldn't hand an Eskimo over, if I'd taken him in my home once; we're -mountain people. A man ought to be hung for horse-stealin', but this was -different. He was doing it to save a man's life, an' that man at Bindon -was good to his little gal, an' she's dead." - -He moved his head from side to side with the air of a sentimental -philosopher. He had all the vanity of a man who had been a success in a -small, shrewd, culpable way--had he not evaded the law for thirty years -with his whiskey-still? - -"I know how he felt," he continued. "When Betsy died--we was only four -years married--I could have crawled into a knot-hole an' died there. You -got to save him, Jinny, but"--he came suddenly to his feet--"he ain't -safe here. They might come any minute, if they've got back on his trail. -I'll take him up the gorge. You know where." - -"You sit still, Uncle Tom," she rejoined. "Leave him where he is a -minute. There's things must be settled first. They ain't going to look -for him in my bedroom, be they?" - -The old man chuckled. "I'd like to see 'em at it. You got a temper, -Jinny; and you got a pistol too, eh?" He chuckled again. "As good a shot -as any in the mountains. I can see you darin' 'em to come on. But what -if Jake come, and he found a man in your bedroom"--he wiped the tears of -laughter from his eyes--"why, Jinny--!" - -He stopped short, for there was anger in her face. "I don't want to hear -any more of that. I do what I want to do," she snapped out. - -"Well, well, you always done what you wanted; but we got to git him up -the hills, till it's sure they're out o' the mountains and gone back. -It'll be days, mebbe." - -"Uncle Tom, you've took too much to drink," she answered. "You don't -remember he's got to be at Bindon by to-morrow noon. He's got to save -his friend by then." - -"Pshaw! Who's going to take him down the river to-night? You're goin' -to be married to-morrow. If you like, you can give him the canoe. It'll -never come back, nor him neither!" - -"You've been down with me," she responded suggestively. "And you went -down once by yourself." - -He shook his head. "I ain't been so well this summer. My sight ain't -what it was. I can't stand the racket as I once could. 'Pears to me I'm -gettin' old. No, I couldn't take them rapids, Jinny, not for one frozen -minute." - -She looked at him with trouble in her eyes, and her face lost some of -its colour. She was fighting back the inevitable, even as its shadow -fell upon her. "You wouldn't want a man to die, if you could save him, -Uncle Tom--blown up, sent to Kingdom Come without any warning at all; -and perhaps he's got them that love him--and the world so beautiful." - -"Well, it ain't nice dyin' in the summer, when it's all sun, and there's -plenty everywhere; but there's no one to go down the river with him. -What's his name?" - -Her struggle was over. She had urged him, but in very truth she was -urging herself all the time, bringing herself to the axe of sacrifice. - -"His name's Dingley. I'm going down the river with him--down to Bindon." - -The old man's mouth opened in blank amazement. His eyes blinked -helplessly. - -"What you talkin' about, Jinny! Jake's comin' up with the minister, an' -you're goin' to be married at noon to-morrow." - -"I'm takin' him"--she jerked her head towards the room where Dingley -was--"down Dog Nose Rapids to-night. He's risked his life for his -friend, thinkin' of her that's dead an' gone, and a man's life is a -man's life. If it was Jake's life in danger, what'd I think of a woman -that could save him, and didn't?" - -"Onct you broke off with Jake Lawson--the day before you was to be -married; an' it's took years to make up an' agree again to be spliced. -If Jake comes here to-morrow, and you ain't here, what do you think -he'll do? The neighbours are comin' for fifty miles round, two is comin' -up a hundred miles, an' you can't--Jinny, you can't do it. I bin sick -of answerin' questions all these years 'bout you and Jake, an' I ain't -goin' through it again. I've told more lies than there's straws in a -tick." - -She flamed out. "Then take him down the river yourself--a man to do a -man's work. Are you afeard to take the risk?" - -He held out his hands slowly and looked at them. They shook a little. -"Yes, Jinny," he said sadly, "I'm afeard. I ain't what I was. I made a -mistake, Jinny. I've took too much whiskey. I'm older than I ought to -be. I oughtn't never to have had a whiskey-still, an' I wouldn't have -drunk so much. I got money--money for you, Jinny, for you an' Jake, but -I've lost what I'll never git back. I'm afeard to go down the river with -him. I'd go smash in the Dog Nose Rapids. I got no nerve. I can't hunt -the grizzly any more, nor the puma, Jinny. I got to keep to common -shootin', now and henceforth, amen! No, I'd go smash in Dog Nose -Rapids." - -She caught his hands impulsively. "Don't you fret, Uncle Tom. You've -bin a good uncle to me, and you've bin a good friend, and you ain't the -first that's found whiskey too much for him. You ain't got an enemy in -the mountains. Why, I've got two or three--" - -"Shucks! Women--only women whose beaux left 'em to follow after you. -That's nothing, an' they'll be your friends fast enough after you're -married tomorrow." - -"I ain't going to be married to-morrow. I'm going down to Bindon -to-night. If Jake's mad, then it's all over, and there'll be more -trouble among the women up here." - -By this time they had entered the other room. The old man saw the white -petticoat on the chair. "No woman in the mountains ever had a petticoat -like that, Jinny. It'd make a dress, it's that pretty an' neat. Golly, -I'd like to see it on you, with the blue skirt over, and just hitched up -a little." - -"Oh, shut up--shut up!" she said in sudden anger, and caught up the -petticoat as though she would put it away; but presently she laid it -down again and smoothed it with quick, nervous fingers. "Can't you talk -sense and leave my clothes alone? If Jake comes, and I'm not here, and -he wants to make a fuss, and spoil everything, and won't wait, you give -him this petticoat. You put it in his arms. I bet you'll have the laugh -on him. He's got a temper." - -"So've you, Jinny, dear, so've you," said the old man, laughing. "You're -goin' to have your own way, same as ever--same as ever." - - -II - -A moon of exquisite whiteness silvering the world, making shadows on the -water as though it were sunlight and the daytime, giving a spectral look -to the endless array of poplar trees on the banks, glittering on the -foam of the rapids. The spangling stars made the arch of the sky like -some gorgeous chancel in a cathedral as vast as life and time. Like the -day which was ended, in which the mountain-girl had found a taste of -Eden, it seemed too sacred for mortal strife. Now and again there came -the note of a night-bird, the croak of a frog from the shore; but the -serene stillness and beauty of the primeval North was over all. - -For two hours after sunset it had all been silent and brooding, and then -two figures appeared on the bank of the great river. A canoe was softly -and hastily pushed out from its hidden shelter under the overhanging -bank, and was noiselessly paddled out to midstream, dropping down the -current meanwhile. - -It was Jenny Long and the man who must get to Bindon. They had waited -till nine o'clock, when the moon was high and full, to venture forth. -Then Dingley had dropped from her bedroom window, had joined her under -the trees, and they had sped away, while the man's hunters, who had -come suddenly, and before Jenny could get him away into the woods, -were carousing inside. These had tracked their man back to Tom Sanger's -house, and at first they were incredulous that Jenny and her uncle had -not seen him. They had prepared to search the house, and one had laid -his finger on the latch of her bedroom door; but she had flared out with -such anger that, mindful of the supper she had already begun to prepare -for them, they had desisted, and the whiskey-jug which the old man -brought out distracted their attention. - -One of their number, known as the Man from Clancey's, had, however, been -outside when Dingley had dropped from the window, and had seen him from -a distance. He had not given the alarm, but had followed, to make the -capture by himself. But Jenny had heard the stir of life behind them, -and had made a sharp detour, so that they had reached the shore and were -out in mid-stream before their tracker got to the river. Then he called -to them to return, but Jenny only bent a little lower and paddled on, -guiding the canoe towards the safe channel through the first small -rapids leading to the great Dog Nose Rapids. - -A rifle-shot rang out, and a bullet "pinged" over the water and -splintered the side of the canoe where Dingley sat. He looked calmly -back, and saw the rifle raised again, but did not stir, in spite of -Jenny's warning to lie down. - -"He'll not fire on you so long as he can draw a bead on me," he said -quietly. - -Again a shot rang out, and the bullet sang past his head. - -"If he hits me, you go straight on to Bindon," he continued. "Never mind -about me. Go to the Snowdrop Mine. Get there by twelve o'clock, and warn -them. Don't stop a second for me--" - -Suddenly three shots rang out in succession--Tom Sanger's house had -emptied itself on the bank of the river--and Dingley gave a sharp -exclamation. - -"They've hit me, but it's the same arm as before," he growled. "They got -no right to fire at me. It's not the law. Don't stop," he added quickly, -as he saw her half turn round. - -Now there were loud voices on the shore. Old Tom Sanger was threatening -to shoot the first man that fired again, and he would have kept his -word. - -"Who you firin' at?" he shouted. "That's my niece, Jinny Long, an' you -let that boat alone. This ain't the land o' lynch law. Dingley ain't -escaped from gaol. You got no right to fire at him." - -"No one ever went down Dog Nose Rapids at night," said the Man from -Clancey's, whose shot had got Dingley's arm. "There ain't a chance of -them doing it. No one's ever done it." - -The two were in the roaring rapids now, and the canoe was jumping -through the foam like a racehorse. The keen eyes on the bank watched -the canoe till it was lost in the half-gloom below the first rapids, and -then they went slowly back to Tom Sanger's house. - -"So there'll be no wedding to-morrow," said the Man from Clancey's. - -"Funerals, more likely," drawled another. - -"Jinny Long's in that canoe, an' she ginerally does what she wants to," -said Tom Sanger sagely. - -"Well, we done our best, and now I hope they'll get to Bindon," said -another. - -Sanger passed the jug to him freely. Then they sat down and talked -of the people who had been drowned in Dog Nose Rapids and of the last -wedding in the mountains. - - -III - -It was as the Man from Clancey's had said, no one had ever gone down Dog -Nose Rapids in the nighttime, and probably no one but Jenny Long would -have ventured it. Dingley had had no idea what a perilous task had been -set his rescuer. It was only when the angry roar of the great rapids -floated up-stream to them, increasing in volume till they could see the -terror of tumbling waters just below, and the canoe shot forward like a -snake through the swift, smooth current which would sweep them into the -vast caldron, that he realised the terrible hazard of the enterprise. - -The moon was directly overhead when they drew upon the race of rocks -and fighting water and foam. On either side only the shadowed shore, -forsaken by the races which had hunted and roamed and ravaged here--not -a light, nor any sign of life, or the friendliness of human presence to -make their isolation less complete, their danger, as it were, shared -by fellow-mortals. Bright as the moon was, it was not bright enough for -perfect pilotage. Never in the history of white men had these rapids -been ridden at nighttime. As they sped down the flume of the deep, -irresistible current, and were launched into the trouble of rocks and -water, Jenny realised how great their peril was, and how different the -track of the waters looked at nighttime from daytime. Outlines seemed -merged, rocks did not look the same, whirlpools had a different vortex, -islands of stone had a new configuration. As they sped on, lurching, -jumping, piercing a broken wall of wave and spray like a torpedo, -shooting an almost sheer fall, she came to rely on a sense of intuition -rather than memory, for night had transformed the waters. - -Not a sound escaped either. The man kept his eyes fixed on the woman; -the woman scanned the dreadful pathway with eyes deep-set and burning, -resolute, vigilant, and yet defiant too, as though she had been trapped -into this track of danger, and was fighting without great hope, but -with the temerity and nonchalance of despair. Her arms were bare to the -shoulder almost, and her face was again and again drenched; but second -succeeded second, minute followed minute in a struggle which might well -turn a man's hair grey, and now, at last-how many hours was it since -they had been cast into this den of roaring waters!--at last, suddenly, -over a large fall, and here smooth waters again, smooth and untroubled, -and strong and deep. Then, and only then, did a word escape either; -but the man had passed through torture and unavailing regret, for he -realised that he had had no right to bring this girl into such a fight. -It was not her friend who was in danger at Bindon. Her life had been -risked without due warrant. "I didn't know, or I wouldn't have asked -it," he said in a low voice. "Lord, but you are a wonder--to take that -hurdle for no one that belonged to you, and to do it as you've done it. -This country will rise to you." He looked back on the raging rapids far -behind, and he shuddered. "It was a close call, and no mistake. We must -have been within a foot of down-you-go fifty times. But it's all right -now, if we can last it out and git there." Again he glanced back, -then turned to the girl. "It makes me pretty sick to look at it," he -continued. "I bin through a lot, but that's as sharp practice as I -want." - -"Come here and let me bind up your arm," she answered. "They hit -you--the sneaks! Are you bleeding much?" - -He came near her carefully, as she got the big canoe out of the current -into quieter water. She whipped the scarf from about her neck, and with -his knife ripped up the seam of his sleeve. Her face was alive with -the joy of conflict and elated with triumph. Her eyes were shining. She -bathed the wound--the bullet had passed clean through the fleshy part -of the arm--and then carefully tied the scarf round it over her -handkerchief. - -"I guess it's as good as a man could do it," she said at last. - -"As good as any doctor," he rejoined. - -"I wasn't talking of your arm," she said. - -"'Course not. Excuse me. You was talkin' of them rapids, and I've got to -say there ain't a man that could have done it and come through like you. -I guess the man that marries you'll get more than his share of luck." - -"I want none of that," she said sharply, and picked up her paddle again, -her eyes flashing anger. - -He took a pistol from his pocket and offered it to her. "I didn't mean -any harm by what I said. Take this if you think I won't know how to -behave myself," he urged. - -She flung up her head a little. "I knew what I was doing before I -started," she said. "Put it away. How far is it, and can we do it in -time?" - -"If you can hold out, we can do it; but it means going all night and all -morning; and it ain't dawn yet, by a long shot." - -Dawn came at last, and the mist of early morning, and the imperious and -dispelling sun; and with mouthfuls of food as they drifted on, the two -fixed their eyes on the horizon beyond which lay Bindon. And now it -seemed to the girl as though this race to save a life or many lives -was the one thing in existence. To-morrow was to-day, and the white -petticoat was lying in the little house in the mountains, and her -wedding was an interminable distance off, so had this adventure drawn -her into its risks and toils and haggard exhaustion. - -Eight, nine, ten, eleven o'clock came, and then they saw signs of -settlement. Houses appeared here and there upon the banks, and now and -then a horseman watched them from the shore, but they could not pause. -Bindon--Bindon--Bindon--the Snowdrop Mine at Bindon, and a death-dealing -machine timed to do its deadly work, were before the eyes of the two -voyageurs. - -Half-past eleven, and the town of Bindon was just beyond them. A quarter -to twelve, and they had run their canoe into the bank beyond which were -the smokestacks and chimneys of the mine. Bindon was peacefully pursuing -its way, though here and there were little groups of strikers who had -not resumed work. - -Dingley and the girl scrambled up the bank. Trembling with fatigue, they -hastened on. The man drew ahead of her, for she had paddled for fifteen -hours, practically without ceasing, and the ground seemed to rise up at -her. But she would not let him stop. - -He hurried on, reached the mine, and entered, shouting the name of his -friend. It was seven minutes to twelve. - -A moment later, a half-dozen men came rushing from that portion of the -mine where Dingley had been told the machine was placed, and at their -head was Lawson, the man he had come to save. - -The girl hastened on to meet them, but she grew faint and leaned against -a tree, scarce conscious. She was roused by voices. - -"No, it wasn't me, it wasn't me that done it; it was a girl. Here she -is--Jenny Long! You got to thank her, Jake." - -Jake! Jake! The girl awakened to full understanding now. Jake--what -Jake? She looked, then stumbled forward with a cry. - -"Jake--it was my Jake!" she faltered. The mine-boss caught her in his -arms. "You, Jenny! It's you that's saved me!" - -Suddenly there was a rumble as of thunder, and a cloud of dust and stone -rose from the Snowdrop Mine. The mine-boss tightened his arm round the -girl's waist. "That's what I missed, through him and you, Jenny," he -said. - -"What was you doing here, and not at Selby, Jake?" she asked. - -"They sent for me-to stop the trouble here." - -"But what about our wedding to-day?" she asked with a frown. - -"A man went from here with a letter to you three days ago," he said, -"asking you to come down here and be married. I suppose he got drunk, -or had an accident, and didn't reach you. It had to be. I was needed -here--couldn't tell what would happen." - -"It has happened out all right," said Dingley, "and this'll be the end -of it. You got them miners solid now. The strikers'll eat humble pie -after to-day." - -"We'll be married to-day, just the same," the mine-boss said, as he gave -some brandy to the girl. - -But the girl shook her head. She was thinking of a white petticoat in a -little house in the mountains. "I'm not going to be married to-day," she -said decisively. - -"Well, to-morrow," said the mine-boss. - -But the girl shook her head again. "To-day is tomorrow," she answered. -"You can wait, Jake. I'm going back home to be married." - - - - -QU'APPELLE - -(Who calls?) - -"But I'm white; I'm not an Indian. My father was a white man. I've been -brought up as a white girl. I've had a white girl's schooling." - -Her eyes flashed as she sprang to her feet and walked up and down the -room for a moment, then stood still, facing her mother,--a dark-faced, -pock-marked woman, with heavy, somnolent eyes, and waited for her to -speak. The reply came slowly and sullenly-- - -"I am a Blackfoot woman. I lived on the Muskwat River among the braves -for thirty years. I have killed buffalo. I have seen battles. Men, too, -I have killed when they came to steal our horses and crept in on our -lodges in the night-the Crees! I am a Blackfoot. You are the daughter -of a Blackfoot woman. No medicine can cure that. Sit down. You have no -sense. You are not white. They will not have you. Sit down." - -The girl's handsome face flushed; she threw up her hands in an agony of -protest. A dreadful anger was in her panting breast, but she could not -speak. She seemed to choke with excess of feeling. For an instant she -stood still, trembling with agitation, then she sat down suddenly on -a great couch covered with soft deerskins and buffalo robes. There was -deep in her the habit of obedience to this sombre but striking woman. -She had been ruled firmly, almost oppressively, and she had not yet -revolted. Seated on the couch, she gazed out of the window at the flying -snow, her brain too much on fire for thought, passion beating like a -pulse in all her lithe and graceful young body, which had known the -storms of life and time for only twenty years. - -The wind shrieked and the snow swept past in clouds of blinding drift, -completely hiding from sight the town below them, whose civilisation had -built itself many habitations and was making roads and streets on the -green-brown plain, where herds of buffalo had stamped and streamed and -thundered not long ago. The town was a mile and a half away, and these -two were alone in a great circle of storm, one of them battling against -a tempest which might yet overtake her, against which she had set her -face ever since she could remember, though it had only come to violence -since her father died two years before--a careless, strong, wilful -white man, who had lived the Indian life for many years, but had been -swallowed at last by the great wave of civilisation streaming westward -and northward, wiping out the game and the Indian, and overwhelming the -rough, fighting, hunting, pioneer life. Joel Renton had made money, by -good luck chiefly, having held land here and there which he had got for -nothing, and had then almost forgotten about it, and, when reminded -of it, still held on to it with that defiant stubbornness which often -possesses improvident and careless natures. He had never had any real -business instinct, and to swagger a little over the land he held and -to treat offers of purchase with contempt was the loud assertion of a -capacity he did not possess. So it was that stubborn vanity, beneath -which was his angry protest against the prejudice felt by the new people -of the West for the white pioneer who married an Indian, and lived the -Indian life,--so it was that this gave him competence and a comfortable -home after the old trader had been driven out by the railway and the -shopkeeper. With the first land he sold he sent his daughter away to -school in a town farther east and south, where she had been brought in -touch with a life that at once cramped and attracted her; where, too, -she had felt the first chill of racial ostracism, and had proudly fought -it to the end, her weapons being talent, industry, and a hot, defiant -ambition. - -There had been three years of bitter, almost half-sullen, struggle, -lightened by one sweet friendship with a girl whose face she had since -drawn in a hundred different poses on stray pieces of paper, on the -walls of the big, well-lighted attic to which she retreated for hours -every day, when she was not abroad on the prairies, riding the Indian -pony that her uncle the Piegan Chief, Ice Breaker, had given her years -before. Three years of struggle, and then her father had died, and the -refuge for her vexed, defiant heart was gone. While he lived she could -affirm the rights of a white man's daughter, the rights of the daughter -of a pioneer who had helped to make the West; and her pride in him had -given a glow to her cheek and a spring to her step which drew every eye. -In the chief street of Portage la Drome men would stop their trafficking -and women nudge each other when she passed, and wherever she went she -stirred interest, excited admiration, or aroused prejudice--but the -prejudice did not matter so long as her father, Joel Renton, lived. -Whatever his faults, and they were many--sometimes he drank too much, -and swore a great deal, and bullied and stormed--she blinked at them -all, for he was of the conquering race, a white man who had slept in -white sheets and eaten off white tablecloths, and used a knife and fork, -since he was born; and the women of his people had had soft petticoats -and fine stockings, and silk gowns for festal days, and feathered -hats of velvet, and shoes of polished leather, always and always, back -through many generations. She had held her head high, for she was of his -women, of the women of his people, with all their rights and all their -claims. She had held it high till that stormy day--just such a day -as this, with the surf of snow breaking against the house--when they -carried him in out of the wild turmoil and snow, laying him on the couch -where she now sat, and her head fell on his lifeless breast, and she -cried out to him in vain to come back to her. - -Before the world her head was still held high, but in the attic-room, -and out on the prairies far away, where only the coyote or the -prairie-hen saw, her head drooped, and her eyes grew heavy with pain and -sombre protest. Once in an agony of loneliness, and cruelly hurt by a -conspicuous slight put upon her at the Portage by the wife of the Reeve -of the town, who had daughters twain of pure white blood got from behind -the bar of a saloon in Winnipeg, she had thrown open her window at night -with the frost below zero, and stood in her thin nightdress, craving the -death which she hoped the cold would give her soon. It had not availed, -however, and once again she had ridden out in a blizzard to die, but -had come upon a man lost in the snow, and her own misery had passed from -her, and her heart, full of the blood of plainsmen, had done for another -what it would not do for itself. The Indian in her had, with strange, -sure instinct, found its way to Portage la Drome, the man with both -hands and one foot frozen, on her pony, she walking at his side, only -conscious that she had saved one, not two, lives that day. - -Here was another such day, here again was the storm in her heart which -had driven her into the plains that other time, and here again was that -tempest of white death outside. - -"You have no sense. You are not white. They will not have you. Sit -down--" - -The words had fallen on her ears with a cold, deadly smother. There came -a chill upon her which stilled the wild pulses in her, which suddenly -robbed the eyes of their brightness and gave a drawn look to the face. - -"You are not white. They will not have you, Pauline." The Indian mother -repeated the words after a moment, her eyes grown still more gloomy; -for in her, too, there was a dark tide of passion moving. In all the -outlived years this girl had ever turned to the white father rather than -to her, and she had been left more and more alone. Her man had been -kind to her, and she had been a faithful wife, but she had resented the -natural instinct of her half-breed child, almost white herself and with -the feelings and ways of the whites, to turn always to her father, as -though to a superior guide, to a higher influence and authority. Was -not she herself the descendant of Blackfoot and Piegan chiefs through -generations of rulers and warriors? Was there not Piegan and Blackfoot -blood in the girl's veins? Must only the white man's blood be reckoned -when they made up their daily account and balanced the books of their -lives, credit and debtor,--misunderstanding and kind act, neglect -and tenderness, reproof and praise, gentleness and impulse, anger and -caress,--to be set down in the everlasting record? Why must the Indian -always give way--Indian habits, Indian desires, the Indian way of doing -things, the Indian point of view, Indian food, Indian medicine? Was it -all bad, and only that which belonged to white life good? - -"Look at your face in the glass, Pauline," she added at last. "You are -good-looking, but it isn't the good looks of the whites. The lodge of -a chieftainess is the place for you. There you would have praise and -honour; among the whites you are only a half-breed. What is the good? -Let us go back to the life out there beyond the Muskwat River--up -beyond. There is hunting still, a little, and the world is quiet, and -nothing troubles. Only the wild dog barks at night, or the wolf sniffs -at the door and all day there is singing. Somewhere out beyond the -Muskwat the feasts go on, and the old men build the great fires, and -tell tales, and call the wind out of the north, and make the thunder -speak; and the young men ride to the hunt or go out to battle, and build -lodges for the daughters of the tribe; and each man has his woman, and -each woman has in her breast the honour of the tribe, and the little -ones fill the lodge with laughter. Like a pocket of deerskin is every -house, warm and small and full of good things. Hai-yai, what is this -life to that! There you will be head and chief of all, for there is -money enough for a thousand horses; and your father was a white man, and -these are the days when the white man rules. Like clouds before the sun -are the races of men, and one race rises and another falls. Here you -are not first, but last; and the child of the white father and mother, -though they be as the dirt that flies from a horse's heels, it is before -you. Your mother is a Blackfoot." - -As the woman spoke slowly and with many pauses, the girl's mood changed, -and there came into her eyes a strange, dark look deeper than anger. -She listened with a sudden patience which stilled the agitation in -her breast and gave a little touch of rigidity to her figure. Her eyes -withdrew from the wild storm without and gravely settled on her mother's -face, and with the Indian woman's last words understanding pierced, -but did not dispel, the sombre and ominous look in her eyes. There was -silence for a moment, and then she spoke almost as evenly as her mother -had done. - -"I will tell you everything. You are my mother, and I love you; but -you will not see the truth. When my father took you from the lodges and -brought you here, it was the end of the Indian life. It was for you to -go on with him, but you would not go. I was young, but I saw, and I said -that in all things I would go with him. I did not know that it would be -hard, but at school, at the very first, I began to understand. There was -only one, a French girl--I loved her--a girl who said to me, 'You are -as white as I am, as anyone, and your heart is the same, and you are -beautiful.' Yes, Manette said I was beautiful." - -She paused a moment, a misty, far-away look came into her eyes, her -fingers clasped and unclasped, and she added: - -"And her brother, Julien,--he was older,--when he came to visit Manette, -he spoke to me as though I was all white, and was good to me. I have -never forgotten, never. It was five years ago, but I remember him. He -was tall and strong, and as good as Manette--as good as Manette. I loved -Manette, but she suffered for me, for I was not like the others, and my -ways were different--then. I had lived up there on the Warais among the -lodges, and I had not seen things--only from my father, and he did so -much in an Indian way. So I was sick at heart, and sometimes I wanted to -die; and once--But there was Manette, and she would laugh and sing, and -we would play together, and I would speak French and she would speak -English, and I learned from her to forget the Indian ways. What were -they to me? I had loved them when I was of them, but I came on to a -better life. The Indian life is to the white life as the parfleche pouch -to--to this." She laid her hand upon a purse of delicate silver mesh -hanging at her waist. "When your eyes are opened you must go on, you -cannot stop. There is no going back. When you have read of all there -is in the white man's world, when you have seen, then there is no -returning. You may end it all, if you wish, in the snow, in the river, -but there is no returning. The lodge of a chief--ah, if my father had -heard you say that--!" - -The Indian woman shifted heavily in her chair, then shrank away from -the look fixed on her. Once or twice she made as if she would speak, but -sank down in the great chair, helpless and dismayed. - -"The lodge of a chief!" the girl continued in a low, bitter voice. "What -is the lodge of a chief? A smoky fire, a pot, a bed of skins, aih-yi! If -the lodges of the Indians were millions, and I could be head of all, -and rule the land, yet would I rather be a white girl in the hut of her -white man, struggling for daily bread among the people who sweep the -buffalo out, but open up the land with the plough, and make a thousand -live where one lived before. It is peace you want, my mother, peace and -solitude, in which the soul goes to sleep. Your days of hope are over, -and you want to drowse by the fire. I want to see the white men's cities -grow, and the armies coming over the hill with the ploughs and the -reapers and the mowers, and the wheels and the belts and engines of the -great factories, and the white woman's life spreading everywhere; for I -am a white man's daughter. I can't be both Indian and white. I will not -be like the sun when the shadow cuts across it and the land grows dark. -I will not be half-breed. I will be white or I will be Indian; and I -will be white, white only. My heart is white, my tongue is white, I -think, I feel, as white people think and feel. What they wish, I wish; -as they live, I live; as white women dress, I dress." - -She involuntarily drew up the dark red skirt she wore, showing a white -petticoat and a pair of fine stockings on an ankle as shapely as she had -ever seen among all the white women she knew. She drew herself up -with pride, and her body had a grace and ease which the white woman's -convention had not cramped. - -Yet, with all her protests, no one would have thought her English. -She might have been Spanish, or Italian, or Roumanian, or Slav, though -nothing of her Indian blood showed in purely Indian characteristics, and -something sparkled in her, gave a radiance to her face and figure -which the storm and struggle in her did not smother. The white women -of Portage la Drome were too blind, too prejudiced, to see all that she -really was, and admiring white men could do little, for Pauline would -have nothing to do with them till the women met her absolutely as an -equal; and from the other halfbreeds, who intermarried with each other -and were content to take a lower place than the pure whites, she held -aloof, save when any of them was ill or in trouble. Then she recognised -the claim of race, and came to their doors with pity and soft impulses -to help them. French and Scotch and English half-breeds, as they were, -they understood how she was making a fight for all who were half-Indian, -half-white, and watched her with a furtive devotion, acknowledging her -superior place, and proud of it. - -"I will not stay here," said the Indian mother with sullen stubbornness. -"I will go back beyond the Warais. My life is my own life, and I will do -what I like with it." - -The girl started, but became composed again on the instant. "Is your -life all your own, mother?" she asked. "I did not come into the world -of my own will. If I had I would have come all white or all Indian. I am -your daughter, and I am here, good or bad--is your life all your own?" - -"You can marry and stay here, when I go. You are twenty. I had my man, -your father, when I was seventeen. You can marry. There are men. You -have money. They will marry you--and forget the rest." - -With a cry of rage and misery the girl sprang to her feet and started -forwards, but stopped suddenly at sound of a hasty knocking and a voice -asking admittance. An instant later, a huge, bearded, broad-shouldered -man stepped inside, shaking himself free of the snow, laughing -half-sheepishly as he did so, and laying his fur-cap and gloves with -exaggerated care on the wide window-sill. - -"John Alloway," said the Indian woman in a voice of welcome, and with -a brightening eye, for it would seem as though he came in answer to her -words of a few moments before. With a mother's instinct she had divined -at once the reason for the visit, though no warning thought crossed the -mind of the girl, who placed a chair for their visitor with a heartiness -which was real--was not this the white man she had saved from death in -the snow a year ago? Her heart was soft towards the life she had kept -in the world. She smiled at him, all the anger gone from her eyes, and -there was almost a touch of tender anxiety in her voice as she said -"What brought you out in this blizzard? It wasn't safe. It doesn't seem -possible you got here from the Portage." - -The huge ranchman and auctioneer laughed cheerily. "Once lost, twice get -there," he exclaimed, with a quizzical toss of the head, thinking he had -said a good thing. "It's a year ago to the very day that I was lost out -back"--he jerked a thumb over his shoulder--"and you picked me up and -brought me in; and what was I to do but come out on the anniversary and -say thank you? I'd fixed up all year to come to you, and I wasn't to be -stopped, 'cause it was like the day we first met, old Coldmaker hitting -the world with his whips of frost, and shaking his ragged blankets of -snow over the wild west." - -"Just such a day," said the Indian woman after a pause. Pauline remained -silent, placing a little bottle of cordial before their visitor, with -which he presently regaled himself, raising his glass with an air. - -"Many happy returns to us both!" he said, and threw the liquor down his -throat, smacked his lips, and drew his hand down his great moustache and -beard like some vast animal washing its face with its paw. Smiling -and yet not at ease, he looked at the two women and nodded his head -encouragingly, but whether the encouragement was for himself or for them -he could not have told. - -His last words, however, had altered the situation. The girl had caught -at a suggestion in them which startled her. This rough white plainsman -was come to make love to her, and to say--what? He was at once awkward -and confident, afraid of her, of her refinement, grace, beauty, and -education, and yet confident in the advantage of his position, a -white man bending to a half-breed girl. He was not conscious of the -condescension and majesty of his demeanour, but it was there, and his -untutored words and ways must make it all too apparent to the girl. The -revelation of the moment made her at once triumphant and humiliated. -This white man had come to make love to her, that was apparent; but that -he, ungrammatical, crude, and rough, should think he had but to put -out his hand, and she in whom every subtle emotion and influence had -delicate response, whose words and ways were as far removed from his as -day from night, would fly to him, brought the flush of indignation to -her cheek. She responded to his toast with a pleasant nod, however, and -said: - -"But if you will keep coming in such wild storms, there will not be many -anniversaries." Laughing, she poured out another glass of liquor for -him. - -"Well, now, p'r'aps you're right, and so the only thing to do is not to -keep coming, but to stay--stay right where you are." - -The Indian woman could not see her daughter's face, which was turned to -the fire, but she herself smiled at John Alloway, and nodded her head -approvingly. Here was the cure for her own trouble and loneliness. -Pauline and she, who lived in different worlds, and yet were tied to -each other by circumstances they could not control, would each work -out her own destiny after her own nature, since John Alloway had come -a-wooing. She would go back on the Warais, and Pauline would remain at -the Portage, a white woman with her white man. She would go back to the -smoky fires in the huddled lodges; to the venison stew and the snake -dance; to the feasts of the Medicine Men, and the long sleeps in the -summer days, and the winter's tales, and be at rest among her own -people; and Pauline would have revenge of the wife of the prancing -Reeve, and perhaps the people would forget who her mother was. - -With these thoughts flying through her sluggish mind, she rose and moved -heavily from the room, with a parting look of encouragement at Alloway, -as though to say, a man that is bold is surest. - -With her back to the man, Pauline watched her mother leave the room, -saw the look she gave Alloway. When the door was closed she turned and -looked Alloway in the eyes. - -"How old are you?" she asked suddenly. - -He stirred in his seat nervously. "Why, fifty, about," he answered with -confusion. - -"Then you'll be wise not to go looking for anniversaries in blizzards, -when they're few at the best," she said with a gentle and dangerous -smile. - -"Fifty-why, I'm as young as most men of thirty," he responded with -an uncertain laugh. "I'd have come here to-day if it had been snowing -pitchforks and chain-lightning. I made up my mind I would. You saved my -life, that's dead sure; and I'd be down among the moles if it wasn't -for you and that Piegan pony of yours. Piegan ponies are wonders in a -storm-seem to know their way by instinct. You, too--why, I bin on -the plains all my life, and was no better than a baby that day; but -you--why, you had Piegan in you, why, yes--" - -He stopped short for a moment, checked by the look in her face, then -went blindly on: "And you've got Blackfoot in you, too; and you just -felt your way through the tornado and over the blind prairie like a bird -reaching for the hills. It was as easy to you as picking out a moverick -in a bunch of steers to me. But I never could make out what you was -doing on the prairie that terrible day. I've thought of it a hundred -times. What was you doing, if it ain't cheek to ask?" - -"I was trying to lose a life," she answered quietly, her eyes dwelling -on his face, yet not seeing him; for it all came back on her, the agony -which had driven her out into the tempest to be lost evermore. - -He laughed. "Well, now, that's good," he said; "that's what they call -speaking sarcastic. You was out to save, and not to lose, a life; that -was proved to the satisfaction of the court." He paused and chuckled -to himself, thinking he had been witty, and continued: "And I was that -court, and my judgment was that the debt of that life you saved had to -be paid to you within one calendar year, with interest at the usual per -cent for mortgages on good security. That was my judgment, and there's -no appeal from it. I am the great Justinian in this case." - -"Did you ever save anybody's life?" she asked, putting the bottle of -cordial away, as he filled his glass for the third time. - -"Twice certain, and once dividin' the honours," he answered, pleased at -the question. - -"And did you expect to get any pay, with or without interest?" she -added. - -"Me? I never thought of it again. But yes--by gol, I did! One case was -funny, as funny can be. It was Ricky Wharton over on the Muskwat River. -I saved his life right enough, and he came to me a year after and said, -You saved my life, now what are you going to do with it? I'm stony -broke. I owe a hundred dollars, and I wouldn't be owing it if you hadn't -saved my life. When you saved it I was five hunderd to the good, and -I'd have left that much behind me. Now I'm on the rocks, because you -insisted on saving my life; and you just got to take care of me.' I -'insisted!' Well, that knocked me silly, and I took him on--blame me, if -I didn't keep Ricky a whole year, till he went north looking for gold. -Get pay--why, I paid! Saving life has its responsibilities, little gal." - -"You can't save life without running some risk yourself, not as a rule, -can you?" she said, shrinking from his familiarity. - -"Not as a rule," he replied. "You took on a bit of risk with me, you and -your Piegan pony." - -"Oh, I was young," she responded, leaning over the table, and drawing -faces on a piece of paper before her. "I could take more risks, I was -only nineteen!" - -"I don't catch on," he rejoined. "If it's sixteen or--" - -"Or fifty," she interposed. - -"What difference does it make? If you're done for, it's the same at -nineteen as fifty, and vicey-versey." - -"No, it's not the same," she answered. "You leave so much more that you -want to keep, when you go at fifty." - -"Well, I dunno. I never thought of that." - -"There's all that has belonged to you. You've been married, and have -children, haven't you?" - -He started, frowned, then straightened himself. "I got one girl--she's -east with her grandmother," he said jerkily. - -"That's what I said; there's more to leave behind at fifty," she -replied, a red spot on each cheek. She was not looking at him, but at -the face of a man on the paper before her--a young man with abundant -hair, a strong chin, and big, eloquent eyes; and all around his face she -had drawn the face of a girl many times, and beneath the faces of both -she was writing Manette and Julien. - -The water was getting too deep for John Alloway. - -He floundered towards the shore. "I'm no good at words," he said--"no -good at argyment; but I've got a gift for stories--round the fire of a -night, with a pipe and a tin basin of tea; so I'm not going to try and -match you. You've had a good education down at Winnipeg. Took every -prize, they say, and led the school, though there was plenty of fuss -because they let you do it, and let you stay there, being half-Indian. -You never heard what was going on outside, I s'pose. It didn't matter, -for you won out. Blamed foolishness, trying to draw the line between red -and white that way. Of course, it's the women always, always the women, -striking out for all-white or nothing. Down there at Portage they've -treated you mean, mean as dirt. The Reeve's wife--well, we'll fix that -up all right. I guess John Alloway ain't to be bluffed. He knows too -much and they all know he knows enough. When John Alloway, 32 Main -Street, with a ranch on the Katanay, says, 'We're coming--Mr. and Mrs. -John Alloway is coming,' they'll get out their cards visite, I guess." - -Pauline's head bent lower, and she seemed laboriously etching lines into -the faces before her--Manette and Julien, Julien and Manette; and there -came into her eyes the youth and light and gaiety of the days when -Julien came of an afternoon and the riverside rang with laughter; the -dearest, lightest days she had ever spent. - -The man of fifty went on, seeing nothing but a girl over whom he was -presently going to throw the lasso of his affection, and take her home -with him, yielding and glad, a white man, and his half-breed girl--but -such a half-breed! - -"I seen enough of the way some of them women treated you," he continued, -"and I sez to myself, Her turn next. There's a way out, I sez, and John -Alloway pays his debts. When the anniversary comes round I'll put things -right, I sez to myself. She saved my life, and she shall have the rest -of it, if she'll take it, and will give a receipt in full, and open -a new account in the name of John and Pauline Alloway. Catch it? -See--Pauline?" - -Slowly she got to her feet. There was a look in her eyes such as -had been in her mother's a little while before, but a hundred times -intensified: a look that belonged to the flood and flow of generations -of Indian life, yet controlled in her by the order and understanding of -centuries of white men's lives, the pervasive, dominating power of race. - -For an instant she kept her eyes towards the window. The storm had -suddenly ceased, and a glimmer of sunset light was breaking over the -distant wastes of snow. - -"You want to pay a debt you think you owe," she said, in a strange, -lustreless voice, turning to him at last. "Well, you have paid it. You -have given me a book to read which I will keep always. And I give you a -receipt in full for your debt." - -"I don't know about any book," he answered dazedly. "I want to marry you -right away." - -"I am sorry, but it is not necessary," she replied suggestively. Her -face was very pale now. - -"But I want to. It ain't a debt. That was only a way of putting it. I -want to make you my wife. I got some position, and I can make the West -sit up, and look at you and be glad." - -Suddenly her anger flared out, low and vivid and fierce, but her words -were slow and measured. "There is no reason why I should marry you--not -one. You offer me marriage as a prince might give a penny to a beggar. -If my mother were not an Indian woman, you would not have taken it all -as a matter of course. But my father was a white man, and I am a white -man's daughter, and I would rather marry an Indian, who would think me -the best thing there was in the light of the sun, than marry you. Had I -been pure white you would not have been so sure, you would have asked, -not offered. I am not obliged to you. You ought to go to no woman as -you came to me. See, the storm has stopped. You will be quite safe going -back now. The snow will be deep, perhaps, but it is not far." - -She went to the window, got his cap and gloves, and handed them to him. -He took them, dumbfounded and overcome. - -"Say, I ain't done it right, mebbe, but I meant well, and I'd be good to -you and proud of you, and I'd love you better than anything I ever saw," -he said shamefacedly, but eagerly and honestly too. - -"Ah, you should have said those last words first," she answered. - -"I say them now." - -"They come too late; but they would have been too late in any case," she -added. "Still, I am glad you said them." - -She opened the door for him. - -"I made a mistake," he urged humbly. "I understand better now. I never -had any schoolin'." - -"Oh, it isn't that," she answered gently. "Goodbye." - -Suddenly he turned. "You're right--it couldn't ever be," he said. -"You're--you're great. And I owe you my life still." - -He stepped out into the biting air. - -For a moment Pauline stood motionless in the middle of the room, her -gaze fixed upon the door which had just closed; then, with a wild -gesture of misery and despair, she threw herself upon the couch in a -passionate outburst of weeping. Sobs shook her from head to foot, and -her hands, clenched above her head, twitched convulsively. - -Presently the door opened and her mother looked in eagerly. At what she -saw her face darkened and hardened for an instant, but then the girl's -utter abandonment of grief and agony convinced and conquered her. -Some glimmer of the true understanding of the problem which Pauline -represented got into her heart, and drove the sullen selfishness from -her face and eyes and mind. She came over heavily and, sinking upon her -knees, swept an arm around the girl's shoulder. She realised what had -happened, and probably this was the first time in her life that she had -ever come by instinct to a revelation of her daughter's mind, or of the -faithful meaning of incidents of their lives. - -"You said no to John Alloway," she murmured. Defiance and protest spoke -in the swift gesture of the girl's hands. "You think because he was -white that I'd drop into his arms! No--no--no!" - -"You did right, little one." - -The sobs suddenly stopped, and the girl seemed to listen with all her -body. There was something in her Indian mother's voice she had never -heard before--at least, not since she was a little child, and swung in a -deer-skin hammock in a tamarac tree by Renton's Lodge, where the chiefs -met, and the West paused to rest on its onward march. Something of the -accents of the voice that crooned to her then was in the woman's tones -now. - -"He offered it like a lump of sugar to a bird--I know. He didn't know -that you have great blood--yes, but it is true. My man's grandfather, he -was of the blood of the kings of England. My man had the proof. And for -a thousand years my people have been chiefs. There is no blood in all -the West like yours. My heart was heavy, and dark thoughts came to me, -because my man is gone, and the life is not my life, and I am only an -Indian woman from the Warais, and my heart goes out there always now. -But some great Medicine has been poured into my heart. As I stood at the -door and saw you lying there, I called to the Sun. 'O great Spirit,' I -said, 'help me to understand; for this girl is bone of my bone and flesh -of my flesh, and Evil has come between us!' And the Sun Spirit poured -the Medicine into my spirit, and there is no cloud between us now. It -has passed away, and I see. Little white one, the white life is the only -life, and I will live it with you till a white man comes and gives you -a white man's home. But not John Alloway--shall the crow nest with the -oriole?" - -As the woman spoke with slow, measured voice, full of the cadences of -a heart revealing itself, the girl's breath at first seemed to stop, so -still she lay; then, as the true understanding of the words came to her, -she panted with excitement, her breast heaved, and the blood flushed -her face. When the slow voice ceased, and the room became still, she lay -quiet for a moment, letting the new thing find secure lodgment in her -thought; then, suddenly, she raised herself and threw her arms round her -mother in a passion of affection. - -"Lalika! O mother Lalika!" she said tenderly, and kissed her again -and again. Not since she was a little girl, long before they left the -Warais, had she called her mother by her Indian name, which her father -had humorously taught her to do in those far-off happy days by the -beautiful, singing river and the exquisite woods, when, with a bow and -arrow, she had ranged a young Diana who slew only with love. - -"Lalika, mother Lalika, it is like the old, old times," she added -softly. "Ah, it does not matter now, for you understand!" - -"I do not understand altogether," murmured the Indian woman gently. "I -am not white, and there is a different way of thinking; but I will hold -your hand, and we will live the white life together." - -Cheek to cheek they saw the darkness come, and, afterwards, the silver -moon steal up over a frozen world, in which the air bit like steel and -braced the heart like wine. Then, at last, before it was nine o'clock, -after her custom, the Indian woman went to bed, leaving her daughter -brooding peacefully by the fire. - -For a long time Pauline sat with hands clasped in her lap, her gaze on -the tossing flames, in her heart and mind a new feeling of strength and -purpose. The way before her was not clear, she saw no further than this -day, and all that it had brought; yet she was as one that has crossed -a direful flood and finds herself on a strange shore in an unknown -country, with the twilight about her, yet with so much of danger passed -that there was only the thought of the moment's safety round her, the -camp-fire to be lit, and the bed to be made under the friendly trees and -stars. - -For a half-hour she sat so, and then, suddenly, she raised her head -listening, leaning towards the window, through which the moonlight -streamed. She heard her name called without, distinct and -strange--"Pauline! Pauline!" - -Starting up, she ran to the door and opened it. All was silent and -cruelly cold. Nothing but the wide plain of snow and the steely air. But -as she stood intently listening, the red glow from the fire behind her, -again came the cry--"Pauline!" not far away. Her heart beat hard, and -she raised her head and called--why was it she should call out in a -language not her own? "Qu'appelle? Qu'appelle?" - -And once again on the still night air came the trembling -appeal--"Pauline!" - -"Qu'appelle? Qu'appelle?" she cried, then, with a gasping murmur of -understanding and recognition she ran forwards in the frozen night -towards the sound of the voice. The same intuitive sense which had made -her call out in French, without thought or reason, had revealed to her -who it was that called; or was it that even in the one word uttered -there was the note of a voice always remembered since those days with -Manette at Winnipeg? - -Not far away from the house, on the way to Portage la Drome, but a -little distance from the road, was a crevasse, and towards this she -sped, for once before an accident had happened there. Again the voice -called as she sped--"Pauline!" and she cried out that she was coming. -Presently she stood above the declivity, and peered over. Almost -immediately below her, a few feet down, was a man lying in the snow. He -had strayed from the obliterated road, and had fallen down the crevasse, -twisting his foot cruelly. Unable to walk he had crawled several hundred -yards in the snow, but his strength had given out, and then he had -called to the house, on whose dark windows flickered the flames of the -fire, the name of the girl he had come so far to see. With a cry of -joy and pain at once she recognised him now. It was as her heart had -said--it was Julien, Manette's brother. In a moment she was beside him, -her arm around his shoulder. - -"Pauline!" he said feebly, and fainted in her arms. An instant later -she was speeding to the house, and, rousing her mother and two of the -stablemen, she snatched a flask of brandy from a cupboard and hastened -back. - -An hour later Julien Labrosse lay in the great sitting-room beside the -fire, his foot and ankle bandaged, and at ease, his face alight with all -that had brought him there. And once again the Indian mother with a sure -instinct knew why he had come, and saw that now her girl would have a -white woman's home, and, for her man, one of the race like her father's -race, white and conquering. - -"I'm sorry to give trouble," Julien said, laughing--he had a trick -of laughing lightly; "but I'll be able to get back to the Portage -to-morrow." - -To this the Indian mother said, however: "To please yourself is a great -thing, but to please others is better; and so you will stay here till -you can walk back to the Portage, M'sieu' Julien." - -"Well, I've never been so comfortable," he said--"never so--happy. If -you don't mind the trouble!" The Indian woman nodded pleasantly, and -found an excuse to leave the room. But before she went she contrived -to place near his elbow one of the scraps of paper on which Pauline had -drawn his face, with that of Manette. It brought a light of hope and -happiness into his eyes, and he thrust the paper under the fur robes of -the couch. - -"What are you doing with your life?" Pauline asked him, as his eyes -sought hers a few moments later. - -"Oh, I have a big piece of work before me," he answered eagerly, "a -great chance--to build a bridge over the St. Lawrence, and I'm only -thirty! I've got my start. Then, I've made over the old Seigneury my -father left me, and I'm going to live in it. It will be a fine place, -when I've done with it--comfortable and big, with old oak timbers and -walls, and deep fireplaces, and carvings done in the time of Louis -Quinze, and dark red velvet curtains for the drawingroom, and skins and -furs. Yes, I must have skins and furs like these here." He smoothed the -skins with his hand. - -"Manette, she will live with you?" Pauline asked. "Oh no, her husband -wouldn't like that. You see, Manette is to be married. She told me to -tell you all about it." - -He told her all there was to tell of Manette's courtship, and added that -the wedding would take place in the spring. - -"Manette wanted it when the leaves first flourish and the birds come -back," he said gaily; "and so she's not going to live with me at the -Seigneury, you see. No, there it is, as fine a house, good enough for a -prince, and I shall be there alone, unless--" - -His eyes met hers, and he caught the light that was in them, before the -eyelids drooped over them and she turned her head to the fire. "But the -spring is two months off yet," he added. - -"The spring?" she asked, puzzled, yet half afraid to speak. - -"Yes, I'm going into my new house when Manette goes into her new -house--in the spring. And I won't go alone if--" - -He caught her eyes again, but she rose hurriedly and said: "You must -sleep now. Good-night." She held out her hand. - -"Well, I'll tell you the rest to-morrow-to-morrow night when it's quiet -like this, and the stars shine," he answered. "I'm going to have a home -of my own like this--ah, bien sur, Pauline." - -That night the old Indian mother prayed to the Sun. "O great Spirit," -she said, "I give thanks for the Medicine poured into my heart. Be good -to my white child when she goes with her man to the white man's home far -away. O great Spirit, when I return to the lodges of my people, be kind -to me, for I shall be lonely; I shall not have my child; I shall not -hear my white man's voice. Give me good Medicine, O Sun and great -Father, till my dream tells me that my man comes from over the hills for -me once more." - - - - -THE STAKE AND THE PLUMB-LINE - -She went against all good judgment in marrying him; she cut herself off -from her own people, from the life in which she had been an alluring and -beautiful figure. Washington had never had two such seasons as those in -which she moved; for the diplomatic circle who had had "the run of the -world" knew her value, and were not content without her. She might -have made a brilliant match with one ambassador thirty years older than -herself--she was but twenty-two; and there were at least six attaches -and secretaries of legation who entered upon a tournament for her heart -and hand; but she was not for them. All her fine faculties of tact and -fairness, of harmless strategy, and her gifts of wit and unexpected -humour were needed to keep her cavaliers constant and hopeful to the -last; but she never faltered, and she did not fail. The faces of old men -brightened when they saw her, and one or two ancient figures who, for -years, had been seldom seen at social functions now came when they knew -she was to be present. There were, of course, a few women who said she -would coquette with any male from nine to ninety; but no man ever said -so; and there was none, from first to last, but smiled with pleasure -at even the mention of her name, so had her vivacity, intelligence, and -fine sympathy conquered them. She was a social artist by instinct. In -their hearts they all recognised how fair and impartial she was; and she -drew out of every man the best that was in him. The few women who did -not like her said that she chattered; but the truth was she made other -people talk by swift suggestion or delicate interrogation. - -After the blow fell, Freddy Hartzman put the matter succinctly, and told -the truth faithfully, when he said, "The first time I met her, I told -her all I'd ever done that could be told, and all I wanted to do; -including a resolve to carry her off to some desert place and set up -a Kingdom of Two. I don't know how she did it. I was like a tap, and -poured myself out; and when it was all over, I thought she was the best -talker I'd ever heard. But yet she'd done nothing except look at me -and listen, and put in a question here and there, that was like a baby -asking to see your watch. Oh, she was a lily-flower, was Sally Seabrook, -and I've never been sorry I told her all my little story! It did me -good. Poor darling--it makes me sick sometimes when I think of it. Yet -she'll win out all right--a hundred to one she'll win out. She was a -star." - -Freddy Hartzman was in an embassy of repute; he knew the chancelleries -and salons of many nations, and was looked upon as one of the ablest and -shrewdest men in the diplomatic service. He had written one of the -best books on international law in existence, he talked English like a -native, he had published a volume of delightful verse, and had -omitted to publish several others, including a tiny volume which Sally -Seabrook's charms had inspired him to write. His view of her was shared -by most men who knew the world, and especially by the elderly men who -had a real knowledge of human nature, among whom was a certain important -member of the United States executive called John Appleton. When the end -of all things at Washington came for Sally, these two men united to bear -her up, that her feet should not stumble upon the stony path of the hard -journey she had undertaken. - -Appleton was not a man of much speech, but his words had weight; for he -was not only a minister; he came of an old family which had ruled -the social destinies of a state, and had alternately controlled and -disturbed its politics. On the day of the sensation, in the fiery cloud -of which Sally disappeared, Appleton delivered himself of his mind in -the matter at a reception given by the President. - -"She will come back--and we will all take her back, be glad to have her -back," he said. "She has the grip of a lever which can lift the eternal -hills with the right pressure. Leave her alone--leave her alone. This is -a democratic country, and she'll prove democracy a success before she's -done." - -The world knew that John Appleton had offered her marriage, and he had -never hidden the fact. What they did not know was that she had told him -what she meant to do before she did it. He had spoken to her plainly, -bluntly, then with a voice that was blurred and a little broken, -urging her against the course towards which she was set; but it had not -availed; and, realising that he had come upon a powerful will underneath -the sunny and so human surface, he had ceased to protest, to bear down -upon her mind with his own iron force. When he realised that all his -reasoning was wasted, that all worldly argument was vain, he made one -last attempt, a forlorn hope, as though to put upon record what he -believed to be the truth. - -"There is no position you cannot occupy," he said. "You have the perfect -gift in private life, and you have a public gift. You have a genius for -ruling. Say, my dear, don't wreck it all. I know you are not for me, but -there are better men in the country than I am. Hartzman will be a great -man one day--he wants you. Young Tilden wants you; he has millions, and -he will never disgrace them or you, the power which they can command, -and the power which you have. And there are others. Your people have -told you they will turn you off; the world will say things--will -rend you. There is nothing so popular for the moment as the fall of a -favourite. But that's nothing--it's nothing at all compared with the -danger to yourself. I didn't sleep last night thinking of it. Yet I'm -glad you wrote me; it gave me time to think, and I can tell you the -truth as I see it. Haven't you thought that he will drag you down, -down, down, wear out your soul, break and sicken your life, destroy your -beauty--you are beautiful, my dear, beyond what the world sees, even. -Give it up--ah, give it up, and don't break our hearts! There are too -many people loving you for you to sacrifice them--and yourself, too.... -You've had such a good time!" - -"It's been like a dream," she interrupted, in a faraway voice, "like a -dream, these two years." - -"And it's been such a good dream," he urged; "and you will only go to a -bad one, from which you will never wake. The thing has fastened on him; -he will never give it up. And penniless, too--his father has cast him -off. My girl, it's impossible. Listen to me. There's no one on earth -that would do more for you than I would--no one." - -"Dear, dear friend!" she cried with a sudden impulse, and caught his -hand in hers and kissed it before he could draw it back. "You are so -true, and you think you are right. But, but"--her eyes took on a -deep, steady, far-away look--"but I will save him; and we shall not be -penniless in the end. Meanwhile I have seven hundred dollars a year of -my own. No one can touch that. Nothing can change me now--and I have -promised." - -When he saw her fixed determination, he made no further protest, but -asked that he might help her, be with her the next day, when she was -to take a step which the wise world would say must lead to sorrow and a -miserable end. - -The step she took was to marry Jim Templeton, the drunken, cast-off son -of a millionaire senator from Kentucky, who controlled railways, and -owned a bank, and had so resented his son's inebriate habits that for -five years he had never permitted Jim's name to be mentioned in his -presence. Jim had had twenty thousand dollars left him by his mother, -and a small income of three hundred dollars from an investment which had -been made for him when a little boy. And this had carried him on; for, -drunken as he was, he had sense enough to eke out the money, limiting -himself to three thousand dollars a year. He had four thousand dollars -left, and his tiny income of three hundred, when he went to Sally -Seabrook, after having been sober for a month, and begged her to marry -him. - -Before dissipation had made him look ten years older than he was, there -had been no handsomer man in all America. Even yet he had a remarkable -face; long, delicate, with dark brown eyes, as fair a forehead as man -could wish, and black, waving hair, streaked with grey-grey, though he -was but twenty-nine years of age. - -When Sally was fifteen and he twenty-two, he had fallen in love with -her and she with him; and nothing had broken the early romance. He had -captured her young imagination, and had fastened his image on her heart. -Her people, seeing the drift of things, had sent her to a school on -the Hudson, and the two did not meet for some time. Then came a stolen -interview, and a fastening of the rivets of attraction--for Jim had -gifts of a wonderful kind. He knew his Horace and Anacreon and Heine -and Lamartine and Dante in the originals, and a hundred others; he was -a speaker of power and grace; and he had a clear, strong head for -business. He was also a lawyer, and was junior attorney to his father's -great business. It was because he had the real business gift, not -because he had a brilliant and scholarly mind, that his father had taken -him into his concerns, and was the more unforgiving when he gave way to -temptation. Otherwise, he would have pensioned Jim off, and dismissed -him from his mind as a useless, insignificant person; for Horace, -Anacreon, and philosophy and history were to him the recreations of the -feeble-minded. He had set his heart on Jim, and what Jim could do and -would do by and by in the vast financial concerns he controlled, when -he was ready to slip out and down; but Jim had disappointed him beyond -calculation. - -In the early days of their association Jim had left his post and taken -to drink at critical moments in their operations. At first, high words -had been spoken; then there came the strife of two dissimilar natures, -and both were headstrong, and each proud and unrelenting in his own way. -Then, at last, had come the separation, irrevocable and painful; and Jim -had flung out into the world, a drunkard, who, sober for a fortnight or -a month, or three months, would afterward go off on a spree, in which he -quoted Sappho and Horace in taverns, and sang bacchanalian songs with a -voice meant for the stage--a heritage from an ancestor who had sung upon -the English stage a hundred years before. Even in his cups, even after -his darling vice had submerged him, Jim Templeton was a man marked out -from his fellows, distinguished and very handsome. Society, however, had -ceased to recognise him for a long time, and he did not seek it. For two -or three years he practised law now and then. He took cases, preferably -criminal cases, for which very often he got no pay; but that, too, -ceased at last. Now, in his quiet, sober intervals he read omnivorously, -and worked out problems in physics for which he had a taste, until the -old appetite surged over him again. Then his spirits rose, and he was -the old brilliant talker, the joyous galliard until, in due time, he -became silently and lethargically drunk. - -In one of his sober intervals he had met Sally Seabrook in the street. -It was the first time in four years, for he had avoided her, and though -she had written to him once or twice, he had never answered her--shame -was in his heart. Yet all the time the old song was in Sally's ears. -Jim Templeton had touched her in some distant and intimate corner of her -nature where none other had reached; and in all her gay life, when men -had told their tale of admiration in their own way, her mind had gone -back to Jim, and what he had said under the magnolia trees; and his -voice had drowned all others. She was not blind to what he had become, -but a deep belief possessed her that she, of all the world, could save -him. She knew how futile it would look to the world, how wild a dream -it looked even to her own heart, how perilous it was; but, play upon -the surface of things as she had done so much and so often in her brief -career, she was seized of convictions having origin, as it might seem, -in something beyond herself. - -So when she and Jim met in the street, the old true thing rushed upon -them both, and for a moment they stood still and looked at each other. -As they might look who say farewell forever, so did each dwell upon the -other's face. That was the beginning of the new epoch. A few days more, -and Jim came to her and said that she alone could save him; and she -meant him to say it, had led him to the saying, for the same conviction -was burned deep in her own soul. She knew the awful risk she was taking, -that the step must mean social ostracism, and that her own people would -be no kinder to her than society; but she gasped a prayer, smiled at Jim -as though all were well, laid her plans, made him promise her one thing -on his knees, and took the plunge. - -Her people did as she expected. She was threatened with banishment from -heart and home--with disinheritance; but she pursued her course; and the -only person who stood with her and Jim at the altar was John Appleton, -who would not be denied, and who had such a half-hour with Jim before -the ceremony as neither of them forgot in the years that the locust ate -thereafter. And, standing at the altar, Jim's eyes were still wet, with -new resolves in his heart and a being at his side meant for the best man -in the world. As he knelt beside her, awaiting the benediction, a sudden -sense of the enormity of this act came upon him, and for her sake he -would have drawn back then, had it not been too late. He realised that -it was a crime to put this young, beautiful life in peril; that his own -life was a poor, contemptible thing, and that he had been possessed of -the egotism of the selfish and the young. - -But the thing was done, and a new life was begun. Before they were -launched upon it, however, before society had fully grasped the -sensation, or they had left upon their journey to northern Canada, where -Sally intended they should work out their problem and make their home, -far and free from all old associations, a curious thing happened. Jim's -father sent an urgent message to Sally to come to him. When she came, he -told her she was mad, and asked her why she had thrown her life away. - -"Why have you done it?" he said. "You--you knew all about him; you might -have married the best man in the country. You could rule a kingdom; you -have beauty and power, and make people do what you want: and you've got -a sot." - -"He is your son," she answered quietly. - -She looked so beautiful and so fine as she stood there, fearless and -challenging before him, that he was moved. But he would not show it. - -"He was my son--when he was a man," he retorted grimly. - -"He is the son of the woman you once loved," she answered. - -The old man turned his head away. - -"What would she have said to what you did to Jim?" He drew himself -around sharply. Her dagger had gone home, but he would not let her know -it. - -"Leave her out of the question--she was a saint," he said roughly. - -"She cannot be left out; nor can you. He got his temperament naturally; -he inherited his weakness from your grandfather, from her father. Do you -think you are in no way responsible?" - -He was silent for a moment, but then said stubbornly: "Why--why have you -done it? What's between him and me can't be helped; we are father and -son; but you--you had no call, no responsibility." - -"I love Jim. I always loved him, ever since I can remember, as you did. -I see my way ahead. I will not desert him. No one cares what happens to -him, no one but me. Your love wouldn't stand the test; mine will." - -"Your folks have disinherited you,--you have almost nothing, and I will -not change my mind. What do you see ahead of you?" - -"Jim--only Jim--and God." - -Her eyes were shining, her hands were clasped together at her side in -the tenseness of her feeling, her indomitable spirit spoke in her face. - -Suddenly the old man brought his fist down on the table with a bang. -"It's a crime--oh, it's a crime, to risk your life so! You ought to have -been locked up. I'd have done it." - -"Listen to me," she rejoined quietly. "I know the risk. But do you think -that I could have lived my life out, feeling that I might have saved -Jim, and didn't try? You talk of beauty and power and ruling--you say -what others have said to me. Which is the greater thing, to get what -pleases one, or to work for something which is more to one than all else -in the world? To save one life, one intellect, one great man--oh, he -has the making of a great man in him!--to save a soul, would not life be -well lost, would not love be well spent in doing it?" - -"Love's labour lost," said the old man slowly, cynically, but not -without emotion. - -"I have ambition," she continued. "No girl was ever more ambitious, but -my ambition is to make the most and best of myself. Place?--Jim and I -will hold it yet. Power?--it shall be as it must be; but Jim and I will -work for it to fulfil ourselves. For me--ah, if I can save him--and -I mean to do so--do you think that I would not then have my heaven on -earth? You want money--money--money, power, and to rule; and these -are to you the best things in the world. I make my choice differently, -though I would have these other things if I could; and I hope I shall. -But Jim first--Jim first, your son, Jim--my husband, Jim." - -The old man got to his feet slowly. She had him at bay. "But you are -great," he said, "great! It is an awful stake--awful. Yet if you win, -you'll have what money can't buy. And listen to me. We'll make the stake -bigger. It will give it point, too, in another way. If you keep Jim -sober for four years from the day of your marriage, on the last day -of that four years I'll put in your hands for you and him, or for your -child--if you have one--five millions of dollars. I am a man of my word. -While Jim drinks I won't take him back; he's disinherited. I'll give him -nothing now or hereafter. Save him for four years,--if he can do that he -will do all, and there's five millions as sure as the sun's in heaven. -Amen and amen." - -He opened the door. There was a strange soft light in her eyes as she -came to go. - -"Aren't you going to kiss me?" she said, looking at him whimsically. - -He was disconcerted. She did not wait, but reached up and kissed him -on the cheek. "Good-by," she said with a smile. "We'll win the stake. -Good-by." - -An instant, and she was gone. He shut the door, then turned and looked -in a mirror on the wall. Abstractedly he touched the cheek she had -kissed. Suddenly a change passed over his face. He dropped in a chair, -and his fist struck the table as he said: "By God, she may do it, she -may do it! But it's life and death--it's life and death." - -Society had its sensation, and then the veil dropped. For a long time -none looked behind it except Jim's father. He had too much at stake not -to have his telescope upon them. A detective followed them to keep Jim's -record. But this they did not know. - - -II - -From the day they left Washington Jim put his life and his fate in his -wife's hands. He meant to follow her judgment, and, self-willed and -strong in intellect as he was, he said that she should have a fair -chance of fulfilling her purpose. There had been many pour parlers as -to what Jim should do. There was farming. She set that aside, because -it meant capital, and it also meant monotony and loneliness; and capital -was limited, and monotony and loneliness were bad for Jim, deadening an -active brain which must not be deprived of stimulants--stimulants of a -different sort, however, from those which had heretofore mastered it. -There was the law. But Jim would have to become a citizen of Canada, -change his flag, and where they meant to go--to the outskirts--there -would be few opportunities for the law; and with not enough to do there -would be danger. Railway construction? That seemed good in many ways, -but Jim had not the professional knowledge necessary; his railway -experience with his father had only been financial. Above all else he -must have responsibility, discipline, and strict order in his life. - -"Something that will be good for my natural vanity, and knock the -nonsense out of me," Jim agreed, as they drew farther and farther away -from Washington and the past, and nearer and nearer to the Far North and -their future. Never did two more honest souls put their hands in each -other's, and set forth upon the thorniest path to a goal which was their -hearts' desire. Since they had become one, there had come into Sally's -face that illumination which belongs only to souls possessed of an idea -greater than themselves, outside themselves--saints, patriots; faces -which have been washed in the salt tears dropped for others' sorrows, -and lighted by the fire of self-sacrifice. Sally Seabrook, the -high-spirited, the radiant, the sweetly wilful, the provoking, to -concentrate herself upon this narrow theme--to reconquer the lost -paradise of one vexed mortal soul! - -What did Jim's life mean?--It was only one in the millions coming and -going, and every man must work out his own salvation. Why should she -cramp her soul to this one issue, when the same soul could spend itself -upon the greater motives and in the larger circle? A wide world of -influence had opened up before her; position, power, adulation, could -all have been hers, as John Appleton and Jim's father had said. She -might have moved in well-trodden ways, through gardens of pleasure, -lived a life where all would be made easy, where she would be shielded -at every turn, and her beauty would be flattered by luxury into a -constant glow. She was not so primitive, so unintellectual, as not to -have thought of this, else her decision would have had less importance; -she would have been no more than an infatuated emotional woman with a -touch of second class drama in her nature. She had thought of it all, -and she had made her choice. The easier course was the course for meaner -souls, and she had not one vein of thin blood nor a small idea in her -whole nature. She had a heart and mind for great issues. She believed -that Jim had a great brain, and would and could accomplish great things. -She knew that he had in him the strain of hereditary instinct--his -mother's father had ended a brief life in a drunken duel on the -Mississippi, and Jim's boyhood had never had discipline or direction, -or any strenuous order. He might never acquire order, and the power that -order and habit and the daily iteration of necessary thoughts and acts -bring; but the prospect did not appal her. She had taken the risk with -her eyes wide open; had set her own life and happiness in the hazard. -But Jim must be saved, must be what his talents, his genius, entitled -him to be. And the long game must have the long thought. - -So, as they drew into the great Saskatchewan Valley, her hand in his, -and hope in his eyes, and such a look of confidence and pride in her as -brought back his old strong beauty of face, and smoothed the careworn -lines of self-indulgence, she gave him his course: as a private he must -join the North-West Mounted Police, the red-coated riders of the plains, -and work his way up through every stage of responsibility, beginning at -the foot of the ladder of humbleness and self-control. She believed that -he would agree with her proposal; but her hands clasped his a little -more firmly and solicitously--there was a faint, womanly fear at her -heart--as she asked him if he would do it. The life meant more than -occasional separation; it meant that there would be periods when she -would not be with him; and there was great danger in that; but she knew -that the risks must be taken, and he must not be wholly reliant on her -presence for his moral strength. - -His face fell for a moment when she made the suggestion, but it cleared -presently, and he said with a dry laugh: "Well, I guess they must make -me a sergeant pretty quick. I'm a colonel in the Kentucky Carbineers!" - -She laughed, too; then a moment afterwards, womanlike, wondered if she -was right, and was a little frightened. But that was only because she -was not self-opinionated, and was anxious, more anxious than any woman -in all the North. - -It happened as Jim said; he was made a sergeant at once--Sally managed -that; for, when it came to the point, and she saw the conditions in -which the privates lived, and realised that Jim must be one of them and -clean out the stables, and groom his horse and the officers' horses, -and fetch and carry, her heart failed her, and she thought that she -was making her remedy needlessly heroical. So she went to see the -Commissioner, who was on a tour of scrutiny on their arrival at the -post, and, as better men than he had done in more knowing circles, -he fell under her spell. If she had asked for a lieutenancy, he would -probably have corrupted some member of Parliament into securing it for -Jim. - -But Jim was made a sergeant, and the Commissioner and the captain of the -troop kept their eyes on him. So did other members of the troop who did -not quite know their man, and attempted, figuratively, to pinch him here -and there. They found that his actions were greater than his words, and -both were in perfect harmony in the end, though his words often seemed -pointless to their minds, until they understood that they had conveyed -truths through a medium more like a heliograph than a telephone. By and -by they begin to understand his heliographing, and, when they did that, -they began to swear by him, not at him. - -In time it was found that the troop never had a better disciplinarian -than Jim. He knew when to shut his eyes, and when to keep them open. To -non-essentials he kept his eyes shut; to essentials he kept them very -wide open. There were some men of good birth from England and elsewhere -among them, and these mostly understood him first. But they all -understood Sally from the beginning, and after a little they were glad -enough to be permitted to come, on occasion, to the five-roomed little -house near the barracks, and hear her talk, then answer her questions, -and, as men had done at Washington, open out their hearts to her. They -noticed, however, that while she made them barley-water, and all kinds -of soft drinks from citric acid, sarsaparilla and the like, and had one -special drink of her own invention, which she called cream-nectar, no -spirits were to be had. They also noticed that Jim never drank a drop -of liquor, and by and by, one way or another, they got a glimmer of the -real truth, before it became known who he really was or anything of his -story. And the interest in the two, and in Jim's reformation, spread -through the country, while Jim gained reputation as the smartest man in -the force. - -They were on the outskirts of civilisation; as Jim used to say, "One -step ahead of the procession." Jim's duty was to guard the columns of -settlement and progress, and to see that every man got his own rights -and not more than his rights; that justice should be the plumb-line of -march and settlement. His principle was embodied in certain words which -he quoted once to Sally from the prophet Amos: "And the Lord said unto -me, Amos, what seest thou? And I said, A plumbline." - -On the day that Jim became a lieutenant his family increased by one. It -was a girl, and they called her Nancy, after Jim's mother. It was the -anniversary of their marriage, and, so far, Jim had won, with what -fightings and strugglings and wrestlings of the spirit only Sally and -himself knew. And she knew as well as he, and always saw the storm -coming before it broke--a restlessness, then a moodiness, then a hungry, -eager, helpless look, and afterwards an agony of longing, a feverish -desire to break away and get the thrilling thing which would still the -demon within him. - -There had been moments when his doom seemed certain--he knew and she -knew that if he once got drunk again he would fall never to rise. On one -occasion, after a hard, long, hungry ride, he was half-mad with desire, -but even as he seized the flask that was offered to him by his only -enemy, the captain of B Troop, at the next station eastward, there -came a sudden call to duty, two hundred Indians having gone upon the -war-path. It saved him; it broke the spell. He had to mount and away, -with the antidote and stimulant of responsibility driving him on. - -Another occasion was equally perilous to his safety. They had been idle -for days in a hot week in summer, waiting for orders to return from -the rail-head where they had gone to quell a riot, and where drink and -hilarity were common. Suddenly--more suddenly than it had ever come, -the demon of his thirst had Jim by the throat. Sergeant Sewell, of the -grey-stubble head, who loved him more than his sour heart had loved -anybody in all his life, was holding himself ready for the physical -assault he must make upon his superior officer, if he raised a glass to -his lips, when salvation came once again. An accident had occurred far -down on the railway line, and the operator of the telegraph-office had -that very day been stricken down with pleurisy and pneumonia. In despair -the manager had sent to Jim, eagerly hoping that he might help them, -for the Riders of the Plains were a sort of court of appeal for every -trouble in the Far North. - -Instantly Jim was in the saddle with his troop. Out of curiosity he -had learned telegraphy when a boy, as he had learned many things, and, -arrived at the scene of the accident, he sent messages and received -them--by sound, not on paper as did the official operator, to the -amazement and pride of the troop. Then, between caring for the injured -in the accident, against the coming of the relief train, and nursing -the sick operator through the dark moments of his dangerous illness, -he passed a crisis of his own disease triumphantly; but not the last -crisis. - -So the first and so the second and third years passed in safety. - - -III - -"PLEASE, I want to go, too, Jim." - -Jim swung round and caught the child up in his arms. "Say, how dare you -call your father Jim--eh, tell me that?" - -"It's what mummy calls you--it's pretty." - -"I don't call her 'mummy' because you do, and you mustn't call me Jim -because she does--do you hear?" The whimsical face lowered a little, -then the rare and beautiful dark blue eyes raised slowly, shaded by the -long lashes, and the voice said demurely, "Yes--Jim." - -"Nancy--Nancy," said a voice from the corner in reproof, mingled with -suppressed laughter. "Nancy, you musn't be saucy. You must say 'father' -to--" - -"Yes, mummy. I'll say father to--Jim." - -"You imp--you imp of delight," said Jim, as he strained the dainty -little lass to his breast, while she appeared interested in a wave of -his black hair, which she curled around her finger. - -Sally came forwards with the little parcel of sandwiches she had been -preparing, and put them in the saddle-bags lying on a chair at the -door, in readiness for the journey Jim was about to make. Her eyes were -glistening, and her face had a heightened colour. The three years -which had passed since she married had touched her not at all to her -disadvantage, rather to her profit. She looked not an hour older; -motherhood had only added to her charm, lending it a delightful gravity. -The prairie life had given a shining quality to her handsomeness, an air -of depth and firmness, an exquisite health and clearness to the colour -in her cheeks. Her step was as light as Nancy's, elastic and buoyant--a -gliding motion which gave a sinuous grace to the movements of her -body. There had also come into her eyes a vigilance such as deaf people -possess, a sensitive observation imparting a deeper intelligence to the -face. - -Here was the only change by which you could guess the story of her life. -Her eyes were like the ears of an anxious mother who can never sleep -till every child is abed; whose sense is quick to hear the faintest -footstep without or within; and who, as years go on, and her children -grow older and older, must still lie awake hearkening for the late -footstep on the stair. In Sally's eyes was the story of the past three -years: of love and temptation and struggle, of watchfulness and yearning -and anxiety, of determination and an inviolable hope. Her eyes had a -deeper look than that in Jim's. Now, as she gazed at him, the maternal -spirit rose up from the great well of protectiveness in her and engulfed -both husband and child. There was always something of the maternal in -her eyes when she looked at Jim. He did not see it--he saw only the -wonderful blue, and the humour which had helped him over such difficult -places these past three years. In steadying and strengthening Jim's -will, in developing him from his Southern indolence into Northern -industry and sense of responsibility, John Appleton's warnings had -rung in Sally's ears, and Freddy Hartzman's forceful and high-minded -personality had passed before her eyes with an appeal powerful and -stimulating; but always she came to the same upland of serene faith and -white-hearted resolve; and Jim became dearer and dearer. - -The baby had done much to brace her faith in the future and comfort her -anxious present. The child had intelligence of a rare order. She would -lie by the half-hour on the floor, turning over the leaves of a book -without pictures, and, before she could speak, would read from the pages -in a language all her own. She made a fairy world for herself, peopled -by characters to whom she gave names, to whom she assigned curious -attributes and qualities. They were as real to her as though flesh and -blood, and she was never lonely, and never cried; and she had buried -herself in her father's heart. She had drawn to her the roughest men in -the troop, and for old Sewell, the grim sergeant, she had a specially -warm place. - -"You can love me if you like," she had said to him at the very start, -with the egotism of childhood; but made haste to add, "because I love -you, Gri-Gri." She called him Gri-Gri from the first, but they knew only -long afterwards that "gri-gri" meant "grey-grey," to signify that she -called him after his grizzled hairs. - -What she had been in the life-history of Sally and Jim they both knew. -Jim regarded her with an almost superstitious feeling. Sally was his -strength, his support, his inspiration, his bulwark of defence; Nancy -was the charm he wore about his neck--his mascot, he called her. Once, -when she was ill, he had suffered as he had never done before in his -life. He could not sleep nor eat, and went about his duties like one -in a dream. When his struggles against his enemy were fiercest, he -kept saying over her name to himself, as though she could help him. Yet -always it was Sally's hand he held in the darkest hours, in his brutal -moments; for in this fight between appetite and will there are moments -when only the animal seems to exist, and the soul disappears in the -glare and gloom of the primal emotions. Nancy he called his "lucky -sixpence," but he called Sally his "guinea-girl." - -From first to last his whimsicality never deserted him. In his worst -hours, some innate optimism and humour held him steady in his fight. It -was not depression that possessed him at the worst, but the violence of -an appetite most like a raging pain which men may endure with a smile -upon their lips. He carried in his face the story of a conflict, the -aftermath of bitter experience; and through all there pulsed the glow -of experience. He had grown handsomer, and the graceful decision of his -figure, the deliberate certainty of every action, heightened the force -of a singular personality. As in the eyes of Sally, in his eyes was a -long reflective look which told of things overcome, and yet of dangers -present. His lips smiled often, but the eyes said: "I have lived, I have -seen, I have suffered, and I must suffer more. I have loved, I have been -loved under the shadow of the sword. Happiness I have had, and golden -hours, but not peace--never peace. My soul has need of peace." - -In the greater, deeper experience of their lives, the more material side -of existence had grown less and less to them. Their home was a model -of simple comfort and some luxury, though Jim had insisted that Sally's -income should not be spent, except upon the child, and should be saved -for the child, their home being kept on his pay and on the tiny income -left by his mother. With the help of an Indian girl, and a half-breed -for outdoor work and fires and gardening, Sally had cared for the house -herself. Ingenious and tasteful, with a gift for cooking and an educated -hand, she had made her little home as pretty as their few possessions -would permit. Refinement covered all, and three or four-score books were -like so many friends to comfort her when Jim was away; like kind and -genial neighbours when he was at home. From Browning she had written -down in her long sliding handwriting, and hung up beneath Jim's -looking-glass, the heartening and inspiring words: - - "One who never turned his back, but marched breast forward, - Never doubted clouds would break, - Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would triumph, - Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better, - Sleep to wake." - -They had lived above the sordid, and there was something in the nature -of Jim's life to help them to it. He belonged to a small handful of men -who had control over an empire, with an individual responsibility and -influence not contained in the scope of their commissions. It was a -matter of moral force and character, and of uniform, symbolical only of -the great power behind; of the long arm of the State; of the insistence -of the law, which did not rely upon force alone, but on the certainty of -its administration. In such conditions the smallest brain was bound to -expand, to take on qualities of judgment and temperateness which -would never be developed in ordinary circumstances. In the case of -Jim Templeton, who needed no stimulant to his intellect, but rather a -steadying quality, a sense of proportion, the daily routine, the command -of men, the diverse nature of his duties, half civil, half military, -the personal appeals made on all sides by the people of the country for -advice, for help, for settlement of disputes, for information which -his well-instructed mind could give--all these modified the romantic -brilliance of his intellect, made it and himself more human. - -It had not come to him all at once. His intellect at first stood in his -way. His love of paradox, his deep observation, his insight, all made -him inherently satirical, though not cruelly so; but satire had become -pure whimsicality at last; and he came to see that, on the whole, -the world was imperfect, but also, on the whole, was moving towards -perfection rather than imperfection. He grew to realise that what seemed -so often weakness in men was tendency and idiosyncrasy rather than evil. -And in the end he thought better of himself as he came to think better -of all others. For he had thought less of all the world because he had -thought so little of himself. He had overestimated his own faults, had -made them into crimes in his own eyes, and, observing things in others -of similar import, had become almost a cynic in intellect, while in -heart he had remained, a boy. - -In all that he had changed a great deal. His heart was still the heart -of a boy, but his intellect had sobered, softened, ripened--even in this -secluded and seemingly unimportant life; as Sally had said and hoped it -would. Sally's conviction had been right. But the triumph was not yet -achieved. She knew it. On occasion the tones of his voice told her, the -look that came into his eyes proclaimed it to her, his feverishness and -restlessness made it certain. How many a night had she thrown her arm -over his shoulder, and sought his hand and held it while in the dark -silence, wide-eyed, dry-lipped, and with a throat like fire he had held -himself back from falling. There was liquor in the house--the fight -would not have been a fight without it. She had determined that he -should see his enemy and meet him in the plains and face him down; and -he was never many feet away from his possible disaster. Yet for long -over three years all had gone well. There was another year. Would he -last out the course? - -At first the thought of the great stake for which she was playing in -terms of currency, with the head of Jim's father on every note, was much -with her. The amazing nature of the offer of five millions of dollars -stimulated her imagination, roused her; gold coins are counters in the -game of success, signs and tokens. Money alone could not have lured her; -but rather what it represented--power, width of action, freedom to help -when the heart prompted, machinery for carrying out large plans, ability -to surround with advantage those whom we love. So, at first, while -yet the memories of Washington were much with her, the appeal of the -millions was strong. The gallant nature of the contest and the great -stake braced her; she felt the blood quicken in her pulse. - -But, all through, the other thing really mastered her: the fixed idea -that Jim must be saved. As it deepened, the other life that she had -lived became like the sports in which we shared when children, full of -vivacious memory, shining with impulse and the stir of life, but not to -be repeated--days and deeds outgrown. So the light of one idea shone in -her face. Yet she was intensely human too; and if her eyes had not been -set on the greater glory, the other thought might have vulgarised her -mind, made her end and goal sordid--the descent of a nature rather than -its ascension. - -When Nancy came, the lesser idea, the stake, took on a new importance, -for now it seemed to her that it was her duty to secure for the child -its rightful heritage. Then Jim, too, appeared in a new light, as -one who could never fulfil himself unless working through the natural -channels of his birth, inheritance, and upbringing. Jim, drunken and -unreliable, with broken will and fighting to find himself--the waste -places were for him, until he was the master of his will and emotions. -Once however, secure in ability to control himself, with cleansed brain -and purpose defined, the widest field would still be too narrow for his -talents--and the five, yes, the fifty millions of his father must be -his. - -She had never repented having married Jim; but twice in those three -years she had broken down and wept as though her heart would break. -There were times when Jim's nerves were shaken in his struggle against -the unseen foe, and he had spoken to her querulously, almost sharply. -Yet in her tears there was no reproach for him, rather for herself--the -fear that she might lose her influence over him, that she could not -keep him close to her heart, that he might drift away from her in the -commonplaces and monotony of work and domestic life. Everything so -depended on her being to him not only the one woman for whom he cared, -but the woman without whom he could care for nothing else. - -"Oh, my God, give me his love," she had prayed. "Let me keep it yet a -little while. For his sake, not for my own, let me have the power to -hold his love. Make my mind always quiet, and let me blow neither hot -nor cold. Help me to keep my temper sweet and cheerful, so that he will -find the room empty where I am not, and his footsteps will quicken when -he comes to the door. Not for my sake, dear God, but for his, or my -heart will break--it will break unless Thou dost help me to hold him. O -Lord, keep me from tears; make my face happy that I may be goodly to his -eyes, and forgive the selfishness of a poor woman who has little, and -would keep her little and cherish it, for Christ's sake." - -Twice had she poured out her heart so, in the agony of her fear that -she should lose favour in Jim's sight--she did not know how alluring she -was, in spite of the constant proofs offered her. She had had her will -with all who came her way, from governor to Indian brave. Once, in a -journey they had made far north, soon after they came, she had stayed -at a Hudson's Bay Company's post for some days, while there came news -of restlessness among the Indians, because of lack of food, and Jim had -gone farther north to steady the tribes, leaving her with the factor and -his wife and a halfbreed servant. - -While she and the factor's wife were alone in the yard of the post one -day, an Indian--chief, Arrowhead, in warpaint and feathers, entered -suddenly, brandishing a long knife. He had been drinking, and there was -danger in his black eyes. With a sudden inspiration she came forward -quickly, nodded and smiled to him, and then pointed to a grindstone -standing in the corner of the yard. As she did so, she saw Indians -crowding into the gate armed with knives, guns, bows, and arrows. She -beckoned to Arrowhead, and he followed her to the grindstone. She -poured some water on the wheel and began to turn it, nodding at the now -impassive Indian to begin. Presently he nodded also, and put his knife -on the stone. She kept turning steadily, singing to herself the while, -as with anxiety she saw the Indians drawing closer and closer in from -the gate. Faster and faster she turned, and at last the Indian lifted -his knife from the stone. She reached out her hand with simulated -interest, felt the edge with her thumb, the Indian looking darkly at her -the while. Presently, after feeling the edge himself, he bent over the -stone again, and she went on turning the wheel still singing softly. At -last he stopped again and felt the edge. With a smile which showed her -fine white teeth, she said, "Is that for me?" making a significant sign -across her throat at the same time. - -The old Indian looked at her grimly, then slowly shook his head in -negation. - -"I go hunt Yellow Hawk to-night," he said. "I go fight; I like marry you -when I come back. How!" he said and turned away towards the gate. - -Some of his braves held back, the blackness of death in their looks. -He saw. "My knife is sharp," he said. "The woman is brave. She shall -live--go and fight Yellow Hawk, or starve and die." - -Divining their misery, their hunger, and the savage thought that had -come to them, Sally had whispered to the factor's wife to bring food, -and the woman now came running out with two baskets full, and returned -for more. Sally ran forward among the Indians and put the food into -their hands. With grunts of satisfaction they seized what she gave, and -thrust it into their mouths, squatting on the ground. Arrowhead looked -on stern and immobile, but when at last she and the factor's wife sat -down before the braves with confidence and an air of friendliness, he -sat down also; yet, famished as he was, he would not touch the food. At -last Sally, realising his proud defiance of hunger, offered him a little -lump of pemmican and a biscuit, and with a grunt he took it from her -hands and ate it. Then, at his command a fire was lit, the pipe of peace -was brought out, and Sally and the factor's wife touched their lips to -it, and passed it on. - -So was a new treaty of peace and loyalty made with Arrowhead and -his tribe by a woman without fear, whose life had seemed not worth a -minute's purchase; and, as the sun went down, Arrowhead and his men went -forth to make war upon Yellow Hawk beside the Nettigon River. In this -wise had her influence spread in the land. - - ....................... - -Standing now with the child in his arms and his wife looking at him with -a shining moisture of the eyes, Jim laughed outright. There came upon -him a sudden sense of power, of aggressive force--the will to do. Sally -understood, and came and laughingly grasped his arm. - -"Oh, Jim," she said playfully, "you are getting muscles like steel. You -hadn't these when you were colonel of the Kentucky Carbineers!" - -"I guess I need them now," he said, smiling, and with the child still in -his arms drew her to a window looking northward. As far as the eye could -see, nothing but snow, like a blanket spread over the land. Here and -there in the wide expanse a tree silhouetted against the sky, a tracery -of eccentric beauty, and off in the far distance a solitary horseman -riding towards the postriding hard. - -"It was root, hog, or die with me, Sally," he continued, "and I rooted -... I wonder--that fellow on the horse--I have a feeling about him. See, -he's been riding hard and long-you can tell by the way the horse drops -his legs. He sags a bit himself.... But isn't it beautiful, all that out -there--the real quintessence of life." - -The air was full of delicate particles of frost on which the sun -sparkled, and though there was neither bird nor insect, nor animal, nor -stir of leaf, nor swaying branch or waving grass, life palpitated in -the air, energy sang its song in the footstep that crunched the frosty -ground, that broke the crusted snow; it was in the delicate wind that -stirred the flag by the barracks away to the left; hope smiled in the -wide prospect over which the thrilling, bracing air trembled. Sally had -chosen right. - -"You had a big thought when you brought me here, guinea-girl," he added -presently. "We are going to win out here"--he set the child down--"you -and I and this lucky sixpence." He took up his short fur coat. "Yes, -we'll win, honey." Then, with a brooding look in his face, he added: - - "'The end comes as came the beginning, - And shadows fail into the past; - And the goal, is it not worth the winning, - If it brings us but home at the last? - - "'While far through the pain of waste places - We tread, 'tis a blossoming rod - That drives us to grace from disgraces, - From the fens to the gardens of God!'" - -He paused reflectively. "It's strange that this life up here makes you -feel that you must live a bigger life still, that this is only the wide -porch to the great labour-house--it makes you want to do things. Well, -we've got to win the stake first," he added with a laugh. - -"The stake is a big one, Jim--bigger than you think." - -"You and her and me--me that was in the gutter." - -"What is the gutter, dadsie?" asked Nancy. - -"The gutter--the gutter is where the dish-water goes, midget," he -answered with a dry laugh. - -"Oh, I don't think you'd like to be in the gutter," Nancy said solemnly. - -"You have to get used to it first, miss," answered Jim. Suddenly Sally -laid both hands on Jim's shoulders and looked him in the eyes. "You must -win the stake Jim. Think--now!" - -She laid a hand on the head of the child. He did not know that he was -playing for a certain five millions, perhaps fifty millions, of dollars. -She had never told him of his father's offer. He was fighting only for -salvation, for those he loved, for freedom. As they stood there, -the conviction had come upon her that they had come to the last -battle-field, that this journey which Jim now must take would decide -all, would give them perfect peace or lifelong pain. The shadow of -battle was over them, but he had no foreboding, no premonition; he had -never been so full of spirits and life. - -To her adjuration Jim replied by burying his face in her golden hair, -and he whispered: "Say, I've done near four years, my girl. I think I'm -all right now--I think. This last six months, it's been easy--pretty -fairly easy." - -"Four months more, only four months more--God be good to us!" she said -with a little gasp. - -If he held out for four months more, the first great stage in their -life--journey would be passed, the stake won. - -"I saw a woman get an awful fall once," Jim said suddenly. "Her bones -were broken in twelve places, and there wasn't a spot on her body -without injury. They set and fixed up every broken bone except one. It -was split down. They didn't dare perform the operation; she couldn't -stand it. There was a limit to pain, and she had reached the boundary. -Two years went by, and she got better every way, but inside her leg -those broken pieces of bone were rubbing against each other. She tried -to avoid the inevitable operation, but nature said, 'You must do it, or -die in the end.' She yielded. Then came the long preparations for the -operation. Her heart shrank, her mind got tortured. She'd suffered -too much. She pulled herself together, and said, 'I must conquer this -shrinking body of mine, by my will. How shall I do it?' Something within -her said, 'Think and do for others. Forget yourself.' And so, as they -got her ready for her torture, she visited hospitals, agonised cripple -as she was, and smiled and talked to the sick and broken, telling them -of her own miseries endured and dangers faced, of the boundary of human -suffering almost passed; and so she got her courage for her own trial. -And she came out all right in the end. Well, that's the way I've felt -sometimes. But I'm ready for my operation now whenever it comes, and -it's coming, I know. Let it come when it must." He smiled. There came -a knock at the door, and presently Sewell entered. "The Commissioner -wishes you to come over, sir," he said. - -"I was just coming, Sewell. Is all ready for the start?" - -"Everything's ready, sir, but there's to be a change of orders. -Something's happened--a bad job up in the Cree country, I think." - -A few minutes later Jim was in the Commissioner's office. The murder of -a Hudson's Bay Company's man had been committed in the Cree country. -The stranger whom Jim and Sally had seen riding across the plains -had brought the news for thirty miles, word of the murder having been -carried from point to point. The Commissioner was uncertain what to do, -as the Crees were restless through want of food and the absence of game, -and a force sent to capture Arrowhead, the chief who had committed the -murder, might precipitate trouble. Jim solved the problem by offering to -go alone and bring the chief into the post. It was two hundred miles to -the Cree encampment, and the journey had its double dangers. - -Another officer was sent on the expedition for which Jim had been -preparing, and he made ready to go upon his lonely duty. His wife -did not know till three days after he had gone what the nature of his -mission was. - - -IV - -Jim made his journey in good weather with his faithful dogs alone, and -came into the camp of the Crees armed with only a revolver. If he had -gone with ten men, there would have been an instant melee, in which -he would have lost his life. This is what the chief had expected, had -prepared for; but Jim was more formidable alone, with power far behind -him which could come with force and destroy the tribe, if resistance -was offered, than with fifty men. His tongue had a gift of terse -and picturesque speech, powerful with a people who had the gift of -imagination. With five hundred men ready to turn him loose in the plains -without dogs or food, he carried himself with a watchful coolness and -complacent determination which got home to their minds with great force. - -For hours the struggle for the murderer went on, a struggle of mind over -inferior mind and matter. Arrowhead was a chief whose will had never -been crossed by his own people, and to master that will by a superior -will, to hold back the destructive force which, to the ignorant minds -of the braves, was only a natural force of defence, meant a task needing -more than authority behind it. For the very fear of that authority put -in motion was an incentive to present resistance to stave off the day -of trouble. The faces that surrounded Jim were thin with hunger, and -the murder that had been committed by the chief had, as its origin, the -foolish replies of the Hudson's Bay Company's man to their demand for -supplies. Arrowhead had killed him with his own hand. - -But Jim Templeton was of a different calibre. Although he had not been -told it, he realised that, indirectly, hunger was the cause of the crime -and might easily become the cause of another; for their tempers were -sharper even than their appetites. Upon this he played; upon this he -made an exhortation to the chief. He assumed that Arrowhead had become -violent, because of his people's straits, that Arrowhead's heart yearned -for his people and would make sacrifice for them. Now, if Arrowhead came -quietly, he would see that supplies of food were sent at once, and that -arrangements were made to meet the misery of their situation. Therefore, -if Arrowhead came freely, he would have so much in his favour before his -judges; if he would not come quietly, then he must be brought by force; -and if they raised a hand to prevent it, then destruction would fall -upon all--all save the women and children. The law must be obeyed. They -might try to resist the law through him, but, if violence was shown, he -would first kill Arrowhead, and then destruction would descend like -a wind out of the north, darkness would swallow them, and their bones -would cover the plains. - -As he ended his words a young brave sprang forwards with hatchet raised. -Jim's revolver slipped down into his palm from his sleeve, and a bullet -caught the brave in the lifted arm. The hatchet dropped to the ground. - -Then Jim's eyes blazed, and he turned a look of anger on the chief, his -face pale and hard, as he said: "The stream rises above the banks; come -with me, chief, or all will drown. I am master, and I speak. Ye are -hungry because ye are idle. Ye call the world yours, yet ye will not -stoop to gather from the earth the fruits of the earth. Ye sit idle -in the summer, and women and children die round you when winter comes. -Because the game is gone, ye say. Must the world stand still because a -handful of Crees need a hunting-ground? Must the makers of cities and -the wonders of the earth, who fill the land with plenty--must they stand -far off, because the Crees and their chief would wander over millions of -acres, for each man a million, when by a hundred, ay, by ten, each white -man would live in plenty, and make the land rejoice. See. Here is the -truth. When the Great Spirit draws the game away so that the hunting is -poor, ye sit down and fill your hearts with murder, and in the blackness -of your thoughts kill my brother. Idle and shiftless and evil ye are, -while the earth cries out to give you of its plenty, a great harvest -from a little seed, if ye will but dig and plant, and plough and sow and -reap, and lend your backs to toil. Now hear and heed. The end is come. - -"For this once ye shall be fed--by the blood of my heart, ye shall -be fed! And another year ye shall labour, and get the fruits of your -labour, and not stand waiting, as it were, till a fish shall pass the -spear, or a stag water at your door, that ye may slay and eat. The end -is come, ye idle men. O chief, harken! One of your braves would have -slain me, even as you slew my brother--he one, and you a thousand. Speak -to your people as I have spoken, and then come and answer for the deed -done by your hand. And this I say that right shall be done between men -and men. Speak." - -Jim had made his great effort, and not without avail. Arrowhead rose -slowly, the cloud gone out of his face, and spoke to his people, bidding -them wait in peace until food came, and appointing his son chief in his -stead until his return. - -"The white man speaks truth, and I will go," he said. "I shall return," -he continued, "if it be written so upon the leaves of the Tree of Life; -and if it be not so written, I shall fade like a mist, and the tepees -will know me not again. The days of my youth are spent, and my step no -longer springs from the ground. I shuffle among the grass and the fallen -leaves, and my eyes scarce know the stag from the doe. The white man is -master--if he wills it we shall die, if he wills it we shall live. And -this was ever so. It is in the tale of our people. One tribe ruled, and -the others were their slaves. If it is written on the leaves of the Tree -of Life that the white man rule us for ever, then it shall be so. I have -spoken. Now, behold I go." - -Jim had conquered, and together they sped away with the dogs through the -sweet-smelling spruce woods where every branch carried a cloth of white, -and the only sound heard was the swish of a blanket of snow as it fell -to the ground from the wide webs of green, or a twig snapped under the -load it bore. Peace brooded in the silent and comforting forest, and Jim -and Arrowhead, the Indian ever ahead, swung along, mile after mile, on -their snow-shoes, emerging at last upon the wide white prairie. - -A hundred miles of sun and fair weather, sleeping at night in the open -in a trench dug in the snow, no fear in the thoughts of Jim, nor evil in -the heart of the heathen man. There had been moments of watchfulness, of -uncertainty, on Jim's part, the first few hours of the first night after -they left the Cree reservation; but the conviction speedily came to Jim -that all was well; for the chief slept soundly from the moment he lay -down in his blankets between the dogs. Then Jim went to sleep as in his -own bed, and, waking, found Arrowhead lighting a fire from a little load -of sticks from the sledges. And between murderer and captor there sprang -up the companionship of the open road which brings all men to a certain -land of faith and understanding, unless they are perverted and vile. -There was no vileness in Arrowhead. There were no handcuffs on his -hands, no sign of captivity; they two ate out of the same dish, drank -from the same basin, broke from the same bread. The crime of Arrowhead, -the gallows waiting for him, seemed very far away. They were only two -silent travellers, sharing the same hardship, helping to give material -comfort to each other--in the inevitable democracy of those far places, -where small things are not great nor great things small; where into -men's hearts comes the knowledge of the things that matter; where, from -the wide, starry sky, from the august loneliness, and the soul of the -life which has brooded there for untold generations, God teaches the -values of this world and the next. - -One hundred miles of sun and fair weather, and then fifty miles of -bitter, aching cold, with nights of peril from the increasing chill, -so that Jim dared not sleep lest he should never wake again, but die -benumbed and exhausted. Yet Arrowhead slept through all. Day after day -so, and then ten miles of storm such as come only to the vast barrens of -the northlands; and woe to the traveller upon whom the icy wind and the -blinding snow descended! Woe came upon Jim Templeton and Arrowhead, the -heathen. - -In the awful struggle between man and nature that followed, the captive -became the leader. The craft of the plains, the inherent instinct, the -feeling which was more than eyesight became the only hope. One whole -day to cover ten miles--an endless path of agony, in which Jim went down -again and again, but came up blinded by snow and drift, and cut as with -lashes by the angry wind. At the end of the ten miles was a Hudson's Bay -Company's post and safety; and through ten hours had the two struggled -towards it, going off at tangents, circling on their own tracks; but the -Indian, by an instinct as sure as the needle to the pole, getting -the direction to the post again, in the moments of direst peril and -uncertainty. To Jim the world became a sea of maddening forces which -buffeted him; a whirlpool of fire in which his brain was tortured, his -mind was shrivelled up; a vast army rending itself, each man against -the other. It was a purgatory of music, broken by discords; and then at -last--how sweet it all was, after the eternity of misery--"Church bells -and voices low," and Sally singing to him, Nancy's voice calling! Then, -nothing but sleep--sleep, a sinking down millions of miles in an ether -of drowsiness which thrilled him; and after--no more. - -None who has suffered up to the limit of what the human body and soul -may bear can remember the history of those distracted moments when the -struggle became one between the forces in nature and the forces in -man, between agonised body and smothered mind, yet with the divine -intelligence of the created being directing, even though subconsciously, -the fight. - -How Arrowhead found the post in the mad storm he could never have told. -Yet he found it, with Jim unconscious on the sledge and with limbs -frozen, all the dogs gone but two, the leathers over the Indian's -shoulders as he fell against the gate of the post with a shrill cry that -roused the factor and his people within, together with Sergeant Sewell, -who had been sent out from headquarters to await Jim's arrival there. It -was Sewell's hand which first felt Jim's heart and pulse, and found that -there was still life left, even before it could be done by the doctor -from headquarters, who had come to visit a sick man at the post. - -For hours they worked with snow upon the frozen limbs to bring back life -and consciousness. Consciousness came at last with half delirium, half -understanding; as emerging from the passing sleep of anaesthetics, the -eye sees things and dimly registers them, before the brain has set them -in any relation to life or comprehension. - -But Jim was roused at last, and the doctor presently held to his lips -a glass of brandy. Then from infinite distance Jim's understanding -returned; the mind emerged, but not wholly, from the chaos in which it -was travelling. His eyes stood out in eagerness. - -"Brandy! brandy!" he said hungrily. - -With an oath Sewell snatched the glass from the doctor's hand, put it -on the table, then stooped to Jim's ear and said hoarsely: -"Remember--Nancy. For God's sake, sir, don't drink." - -Jim's head fell back, the fierce light went out of his eyes, the face -became greyer and sharper. "Sally--Nancy--Nancy," he whispered, and his -fingers clutched vaguely at the quilt. - -"He must have brandy or he will die. The system is pumped out. He must -be revived," said the doctor. He reached again for the glass of spirits. - -Jim understood now. He was on the borderland between life and death; his -feet were at the brink. "No--not--brandy, no!" he moaned. "Sally-Sally, -kiss me," he said faintly, from the middle world in which he was. - -"Quick, the broth!" said Sewell to the factor, who had been preparing -it. "Quick, while there's a chance." He stooped and called into Jim's -ear: "For the love of God, wake up, sir. They're coming--they're both -coming--Nancy's coming. They'll soon be here." What matter that he lied, -a life was at stake. - -Jim's eyes opened again. The doctor was standing with the brandy in -his hand. Half madly Jim reached out. "I must live until they come," -he cried; "the brandy--give it me! Give it--ah, no, no, I must not!" he -added, gasping, his lips trembling, his hands shaking. - -Sewell held the broth to his lips. He drank a little, yet his face -became greyer and greyer; a bluish tinge spread about his mouth. - -"Have you nothing else, sir?" asked Sewell in despair. The doctor put -down the brandy, went quickly to his medicine-case, dropped into a glass -some liquid from a phial, came over again, and poured a little between -the lips; then a little more, as Jim's eyes opened again; and at last -every drop in the glass trickled down the sinewy throat. - -Presently as they watched him the doctor said: "It will not do. He must -have brandy. It has life-food in it." - -Jim understood the words. He knew that if he drank the brandy the -chances against his future were terrible. He had made his vow, and he -must keep it. Yet the thirst was on him; his enemy had him by the throat -again, was dragging him down. Though his body was so cold, his throat -was on fire. But in the extremity of his strength his mind fought -on--fought on, growing weaker every moment. He was having his last -fight. They watched him with an aching anxiety, and there was anger in -the doctor's face. He had no patience with these forces arrayed against -him. - -At last the doctor whispered to Sewell: "It's no use; he must have the -brandy, or he can't live an hour." - -Sewell weakened; the tears fell down his rough, hard cheeks. "It'll ruin -him-it's ruin or death." - -"Trust a little more in God, and in the man's strength. Let us give him -the chance. Force it down his throat--he's not responsible," said the -physician, to whom saving life was more than all else. - -Suddenly there appeared at the bedside Arrowhead, gaunt and weak, his -face swollen, the skin of it broken by the whips of storm. - -"He is my brother," he said, and, stooping, laid both hands, which he -had held before the fire for a long time, on Jim's heart. "Take his -feet, his hands, his, legs, and his head in your hands," he said to them -all. "Life is in us; we will give him life." - -He knelt down and kept both hands on Jim's heart, while the others, even -the doctor, awed by his act, did as they were bidden. "Shut your eyes. -Let your life go into him. Think of him, and him alone. Now!" said -Arrowhead in a strange voice. - -He murmured, and continued murmuring, his body drawing closer and closer -to Jim's body, while in the deep silence, broken only by the chanting -of his low monotonous voice, the others pressed Jim's hands and head and -feet and legs--six men under the command of a heathen murderer. - -The minutes passed. The colour came back to Jim's face, the skin of his -hands filled up, they ceased twitching, his pulse got stronger, his eyes -opened with a new light in them. - -"I'm living, anyhow," he said at last with a faint smile. "I'm -hungry--broth, please." - -The fight was won, and Arrowhead, the pagan murderer, drew over to the -fire and crouched down beside it, his back to the bed, impassive and -still. They brought him a bowl of broth and bread, which he drank -slowly, and placed the empty bowl between his knees. He sat there -through the night, though they tried to make him lie down. - -As the light came in at the windows, Sewell touched him on the shoulder, -and said: "He is sleeping now." - -"I hear my brother breathe," answered Arrowhead. "He will live." - -All night he had listened, and had heard Jim's breath as only a man who -has lived in waste places can hear. "He will live. What I take with one -hand I give with the other." - -He had taken the life of the factor; he had given Jim his life. And when -he was tried three months later for murder, some one else said this for -him, and the hearts of all, judge and jury, were so moved they knew not -what to do. - -But Arrowhead was never sentenced, for, at the end of the first day's -trial, he lay down to sleep and never waked again. He was found the next -morning still and cold, and there was clasped in his hands a little doll -which Nancy had given him on one of her many visits to the prison during -her father's long illness. They found a piece of paper in his belt with -these words in the Cree language: "With my hands on his heart at the -post I gave him the life that was in me, saving but a little until now. -Arrowhead, the chief, goes to find life again by the well at the root of -the tree. How!" - - -V - -On the evening of the day that Arrowhead made his journey to "the well -at the root of the tree" a stranger knocked at the door of Captain -Templeton's cottage; then, without awaiting admittance, entered. - -Jim was sitting with Nancy on his knee, her head against his shoulder, -Sally at his side, her face alight with some inner joy. Before the knock -came to the door Jim had just said, "Why do your eyes shine so, Sally? -What's in your mind?" She had been about to answer, to say to him what -had been swelling her heart with pride, though she had not meant to -tell him what he had forgotten--not till midnight. But the figure that -entered the room, a big man with deep-set eyes, a man of power who had -carried everything before him in the battle of life, answered for her. - -"You have won the stake, Jim," he said in a hoarse voice. "You and she -have won the stake, and I've brought it--brought it." - -Before they could speak he placed in Sally's hands bonds for five -million dollars. - -"Jim--Jim, my son!" he burst out. Then, suddenly, he sank into a chair -and, putting his head in his hands, sobbed aloud. - -"My God, but I'm proud of you--speak to me, Jim. You've broken me up." -He was ashamed of his tears, but he could not wipe them away. - -"Father, dear old man!" said Jim, and put his hands on the broad -shoulders. - -Sally knelt down beside him, took both the great hands from the -tear-stained face, and laid them against her cheek. But presently she -put Nancy on his knees. - -"I don't like you to cry," the child said softly; "but to-day I cried -too, 'cause my Indian man is dead." - -The old man could not speak, but he put his cheek down to hers. After -a minute, "Oh, but she's worth ten times that!" he said as Sally came -close to him with the bundle he had thrust into her hands. - -"What is it?" said Jim. - -"It's five million dollars--for Nancy," she said. "Five-million--what?" - -"The stake, Jim," said Sally. "If you did not drink for four -years--never touched a drop--we were to have five million dollars." - -"You never told him, then--you never told him that?" asked the old man. - -"I wanted him to win without it," she said. "If he won, he would be the -stronger; if he lost, it would not be so hard for him to bear." - -The old man drew her down and kissed her cheek. He chuckled, though the -tears were still in his eyes. "You are a wonder--the tenth wonder of the -world!" he declared. - -Jim stood staring at the bundle in Nancy's hands. "Five millions--five -million dollars!"--he kept saying to himself. - -"I said Nancy's worth ten times that, Jim." The old man caught his hand -and pressed it. "But it was a damned near thing, I tell you," he added. -"They tried to break me and my railways and my bank. I had to fight -the combination, and there was one day when I hadn't that five million -dollars there, nor five. Jim, they tried to break the old man. And if -they'd broken me, they'd have made me out a scoundrel to her--to this -wife of yours who risked everything for both of us, for both of us, Jim; -for she'd given up the world to save you, and she was playing like a -soul in Hell for Heaven. If they'd broken me, I'd never have lifted my -head again. When things were at their worst I played to save that five -millions,--her stake and mine,--I played for that. I fought for it as a -man fights his way out of a burning house. And I won--I won. And it was -by fighting for that five millions I saved fifty--fifty millions, son. -They didn't break the old man, Jim. They didn't break him--not much." - -"There are giants in the world still," said Jim, his own eyes full. -He knew now his father and himself, and he knew the meaning of all the -bitter and misspent life of the old days. He and his father were on a -level of understanding at last. - -"Are you a giant?" asked Nancy, peering up into her grandfather's eyes. - -The old man laughed, then sighed. "Perhaps I was once, more or less, my -dear--" saying to her what he meant for the other two. "Perhaps I was; -but I've finished. I'm through. I've had my last fight." - -He looked at his son. "I pass the game on to you, Jim. You can do it. -I knew you could do it as the reports came in this year. I've had a -detective up here for four years. I had to do it. It was the devil in -me. - -"You've got to carry on the game, Jim; I'm done. I'll stay home and -potter about. I want to go back to Kentucky, and build up the old place, -and take care of it a bit-your mother always loved it. I'd like to have -it as it was when she was there long ago. But I'll be ready to help you -when I'm wanted, understand." - -"You want me to run things--your colossal schemes? You think--?" - -"I don't think. I'm old enough to know." - - - - -WHEN THE SWALLOWS HOMEWARD FLY - -The arrogant sun had stalked away into the evening, trailing behind him -banners of gold and crimson, and a swift twilight was streaming over the -land. As the sun passed, the eyes of two men on a high hill followed it, -and the look of one was like a light in a window to a lost traveller. -It had in it the sense of home and the tale of a journey done. Such -a journey this man had made as few have ever attempted, and fewer -accomplished. To the farthermost regions of snow and ice, where the -shoulder of a continent juts out into the northwestern Arctic seas, -he had travelled on foot and alone, save for his dogs, and for Indian -guides, who now and then shepherded him from point to point. The vast -ice-hummocks had been his housing, pemmican, the raw flesh of fish, and -even the fat and oil of seals had been his food. Ever and ever through -long months the everlasting white glitter of the snow and ice, ever and -ever the cold stars, the cloudless sky, the moon at full, or swung like -a white sickle in the sky to warn him that his life must be mown like -grass. At night to sleep in a bag of fur and wool, by day the steely -wind, or the air shaking with a filmy powder of frost; while the -illimitably distant sun made the tiny flakes sparkle like silver--a -poudre day, when the face and hands are most like to be frozen, and all -so still and white and passionless, yet aching with energy. Hundreds -upon hundreds of miles that endless trail went winding to the farthest -North-west. No human being had ever trod its lengths before, though -Indians or a stray Hudson's Bay Company man had made journeys over part -of it during the years that have passed since Prince Rupert sent his -adventurers to dot that northern land with posts and forts, and trace -fine arteries of civilisation through the wastes. - -Where this man had gone none other had been of white men from the -Western lands, though from across the wide Pacific, from the Eastern -world, adventurers and exiles had once visited what is now known as the -Yukon Valley. So this man, browsing in the library of his grandfather, -an Eastern scholar, had come to know; and for love of adventure, and -because of the tale of a valley of gold and treasure to be had, and -because he had been ruined by bad investments, he had made a journey -like none ever essayed before. And on his way up to those regions, where -the veil before the face of God is very thin and fine, and men's hearts -glow within them, where there was no oasis save the unguessed deposit -of a great human dream that his soul could feel, the face of a girl -had haunted him. Her voice--so sweet a voice that it rang like muffled -silver in his ears, till, in the everlasting theatre of the Pole, the -stars seemed to repeat it through millions of echoing hills, growing -softer and softer as the frost hushed it to his ears-had said to him -late and early, "You must come back with the swallows." Then she had -sung a song which had been like a fire in his heart, not alone because -of the words of it, but because of the soul in her voice, and it had -lain like a coverlet on his heart to keep it warm: - - "Adieu! The sun goes awearily down, - The mist creeps up o'er the sleepy town, - The white sail bends to the shuddering mere, - And the reapers have reaped and the night is here. - - Adieu! And the years are a broken song, - The right grows weak in the strife with wrong, - The lilies of love have a crimson stain, - And the old days never will come again. - - Adieu! Where the mountains afar are dim - 'Neath the tremulous tread of the seraphim, - Shall not our querulous hearts prevail, - That have prayed for the peace of the Holy Grail. - - Adieu! Sometime shall the veil between - The things that are and that might have been - Be folded back for our eyes to see, - And the meaning of all shall be clear to me." - -It had been but an acquaintance of five days while he fitted out for his -expedition, but in this brief time it had sunk deep into his mind that -life was now a thing to cherish, and that he must indeed come back; -though he had left England caring little if, in the peril and danger of -his quest, he ever returned. He had been indifferent to his fate till he -came to the Valley of the Saskatchewan, to the town lying at the foot of -the maple hill beside the great northern stream, and saw the girl whose -life was knit with the far north, whose mother's heart was buried in -the great wastes where Sir John Franklin's expedition was lost; for her -husband had been one of the ill-fated if not unhappy band of lovers -of that civilisation for which they had risked all and lost all save -immortality. Hither the two had come after he had been cast away on the -icy plains, and as the settlement had crept north, had gone north -with it, always on the outer edge of house and field, ever stepping -northward. Here, with small income but high hearts and quiet souls, they -had lived and laboured. And when this newcomer from the old land set his -face northward to an unknown destination, the two women had prayed as -the mother did in the old days when the daughter was but a babe at her -knee, and it was not yet certain that Franklin and his men had been cast -away for ever. Something in him, his great height, his strength of body, -his clear, meditative eyes, his brave laugh, reminded her of him--her -husband--who, like Sir Humphrey Gilbert, had said that it mattered -little where men did their duty, since God was always near to take or -leave as it was His will. When Bickersteth went, it was as though one -they had known all their lives had passed; and the woman knew also that -a new thought had been sown in her daughter's mind, a new door opened in -her heart. - -And he had returned. He was now looking down into the valley where -the village lay. Far, far over, two days' march away, he could see -the cluster of houses, and the glow of the sun on the tin spire of the -little Mission Church where he had heard the girl and her mother sing, -till the hearts of all were swept by feeling and ravished by the desire -for "the peace of the Holy Grail." The village was, in truth, but a -day's march away from him, but he was not alone, and the journey could -not be hastened. Beside him, his eyes also upon the sunset and the -village, was a man in a costume half-trapper, half-Indian, with bushy -grey beard and massive frame, and a distant, sorrowful look, like that -of one whose soul was tuned to past suffering. As he sat, his head sunk -on his breast, his elbow resting on a stump of pine--the token of a -progressive civilisation--his chin upon his hand, he looked like the -figure of Moses made immortal by Michael Angelo. But his strength was -not like that of the man beside him, who was thirty years younger. -When he walked, it was as one who had no destination, who had no haven -towards which to travel, who journeyed as one to whom the world is a -wilderness, and one tent or one hut is the same as another, and none is -home. - -Like two ships meeting hull to hull on the wide seas, where a few miles -of water will hide them from each other, whose ports are thousands of -miles apart, whose courses are not the same, they two had met, the elder -man, sick and worn, and near to death, in the poor hospitality of -an Indian's tepee. John Bickersteth had nursed the old man back to -strength, and had brought him southward with him--a silent companion, -who spoke in monosyllables, who had no conversation at all of the -past, and little of the present; but who was a woodsman and an Arctic -traveller of the most expert kind; who knew by instinct where the -best places for shelter and for sleeping might be found; who never -complained, and was wonderful with the dogs. Close as their association -was, Bickersteth had felt concerning the other that his real self was in -some other sphere or place towards which his mind was always turning, as -though to bring it back. - -Again and again had Bickersteth tried to get the old man to speak about -the past, but he had been met by a dumb sort of look, a straining to -understand. Once or twice the old man had taken his hands in both of his -own, and gazed with painful eagerness into his face, as though trying -to remember or to comprehend something that eluded him. Upon these -occasions the old man's eyes dropped tears in an apathetic quiet, which -tortured Bickersteth beyond bearing. Just such a look he had seen in the -eyes of a favourite dog when he had performed an operation on it to save -its life--a reproachful, non-comprehending, loving gaze. - -Bickersteth understood a little of the Chinook language, which is -familiar to most Indian tribes, and he had learned that the Indians knew -nothing exact concerning the old man; but rumours had passed from tribe -to tribe that this white man had lived for ever in the farthest north -among the Arctic tribes, and that he passed from people to people, -disappearing into the untenanted wilderness, but reappearing again among -stranger tribes, never resting, and as one always seeking what he could -not find. - -One thing had helped this old man in all his travels and sojourning. He -had, as it seemed to the native people, a gift of the hands; for when -they were sick, a few moments' manipulation of his huge, quiet fingers -vanquished pain. A few herbs he gave in tincture, and these also were -praised; but it was a legend that when he was persuaded to lay on his -hands and close his eyes, and with his fingers to "search for the pain -and find it, and kill it," he always prevailed. They believed that -though his body was on earth his soul was with Manitou, and that it was -his soul which came into him again, and gave the Great Spirit's -healing to the fingers. This had been the man's safety through how many -years--or how many generations--they did not know; for legends regarding -the pilgrim had grown and were fostered by the medicine men who, -by giving him great age and supernatural power, could, with more -self-respect, apologise for their own incapacity. - -So the years--how many it was impossible to tell, since he did not know -or would not say--had gone on; and now, after ceaseless wandering, his -face was turned towards that civilisation out of which he had come so -long ago--or was it so long ago--one generation, or two, or ten? It -seemed to Bickersteth at times as though it were ten, so strange, so -unworldly was his companion. At first he thought that the man remembered -more than he would appear to acknowledge, but he found that after a day -or two everything that happened as they journeyed was also forgotten. - -It was only visible things, or sounds, that appeared to open the doors -of memory of the most recent happenings. These happenings, if not -varied, were of critical moment, since, passing down from the land of -unchanging ice and snow, they had come into March and April storms, and -the perils of the rapids and the swollen floods of May. Now, in June, -two years and a month since Bickersteth had gone into the wilds, they -looked down upon the goal of one at least--of the younger man who had -triumphed in his quest up in these wilds abandoned centuries ago. - -With the joyous thought in his heart, that he had discovered anew one of -the greatest gold-fields of the world, that a journey unparalleled -had been accomplished, he turned towards his ancient companion, and -a feeling of pity and human love enlarged within him. He, John -Bickersteth, was going into a world again, where--as he believed--a -happy fate awaited him; but what of this old man? He had brought him -out of the wilds, out of the unknown--was he only taking him into the -unknown again? Were there friends, any friends anywhere in the world -waiting for him? He called himself by no name, he said he had no name. -Whence came he? Of whom? Whither was he wending now? Bickersteth had -thought of the problem often, and he had no answer for it save that he -must be taken care of, if not by others, then by himself; for the old -man had saved him from drowning; had also saved him from an awful death -on a March day when he fell into a great hole and was knocked insensible -in the drifting snow; had saved him from brooding on himself--the -beginning of madness--by compelling him to think for another. And -sometimes, as he had looked at the old man, his imagination had caught -the spirit of the legend of the Indians, and he had cried out, "O soul, -come back and give him memory--give him back his memory, Manitou the -mighty!" - -Looking on the old man now, an impulse seized him. "Dear old man," he -said, speaking as one speaks to a child that cannot understand, "you -shall never want, while I have a penny, or have head or hands to work. -But is there no one that you care for or that cares for you, that you -remember, or that remembers you?" - -The old man shook his head though not with understanding, and he laid a -hand on the young man's shoulder, and whispered: - -"Once it was always snow, but now it is green, the land. I have seen -it--I have seen it once." His shaggy eyebrows gathered over, his eyes -searched, searched the face of John Bickersteth. "Once, so long ago--I -cannot think," he added helplessly. - -"Dear old man," Bickersteth said gently, knowing he would not wholly -comprehend, "I am going to ask her--Alice--to marry me, and if she does, -she will help look after you, too. Neither of us would have been here -without the other, dear old man, and we shall not be separated. Whoever -you are, you are a gentleman, and you might have been my father or -hers--or hers." - -He stopped suddenly. A thought had flashed through his mind, a thought -which stunned him, which passed like some powerful current through his -veins, shocked him, then gave him a palpitating life. It was a wild -thought, but yet why not--why not? There was the chance, the faint, -far-off chance. He caught the old man by the shoulders, and looked him -in the eyes, scanned his features, pushed back the hair from the rugged -forehead. - -"Dear old man," he said, his voice shaking, "do you know what I'm -thinking? I'm thinking that you may be of those who went out to -the Arctic Sea with Sir John Franklin--with Sir John Franklin, you -understand. Did you know Sir John Franklin--is it true, dear old boy, is -it true? Are you one that has lived to tell the tale? Did you know Sir -John Franklin--is it--tell me, is it true?" - -He let go the old man's shoulders, for over the face of the other -there had passed a change. It was strained and tense. The hands were -outstretched, the eyes were staring straight into the west and the -coming night. - -"It is--it is--that's it!" cried Bickersteth. "That's it--love o' God, -that's it! Sir John Franklin--Sir John Franklin, and all the brave -lads that died up there! You remember the ship--the Arctic Sea--the -ice-fields, and Franklin--you remember him? Dear old man, say you -remember Franklin?" - -The thing had seized him. Conviction was upon him, and he watched the -other's anguished face with anguish and excitement in his own. But--but -it might be, it might be her father--the eyes, the forehead are like -hers; the hands, the long hands, the pointed fingers. "Come, tell me, -did you have a wife and child, and were they both called Alice--do you -remember? Franklin--Alice! Do you remember?" - -The other got slowly to his feet, his arms outstretched, the look in his -face changing, understanding struggling for its place, memory fighting -for its own, the soul contending for its mastery. - -"Franklin--Alice--the snow," he said confusedly, and sank down. - -"God have mercy!" cried Bickersteth, as he caught the swaying body, and -laid it upon the ground. "He was there--almost." - -He settled the old man against the great pine stump and chafed his -hands. "Man, dear man, if you belong to her--if you do, can't you see -what it will mean to me? She can't say no to me then. But if it's true, -you'll belong to England and to all the world, too, and you'll have fame -everlasting. I'll have gold for her and for you, and for your Alice, -too, poor old boy. Wake up now and remember if you are Luke Allingham -who went with Franklin to the silent seas of the Pole. If it's you, -really you, what wonder you lost your memory! You saw them all die, -Franklin and all, die there in the snow, with all the white world round -them. If you were there, what a travel you have had, what strange things -you have seen! Where the world is loneliest, God lives most. If you get -close to the heart of things, it's no marvel you forgot what you were, -or where you came from; because it didn't matter; you knew that you were -only one of thousands of millions who have come and gone, that make up -the soul of things, that make the pulses of the universe beat. That's -it, dear old man. The universe would die, if it weren't for the -souls that leave this world and fill it with life. Wake up! Wake up, -Allingham, and tell us where you've been and what you've seen." - -He did not labour in vain. Slowly consciousness came back, and the grey -eyes opened wide, the lips smiled faintly under the bushy beard; but -Bickersteth saw that the look in the face was much the same as it had -been before. The struggle had been too great, the fight for the other -lost self had exhausted him, mind and body, and only a deep obliquity -and a great weariness filled the countenance. He had come back to the -verge, he had almost again discovered himself; but the opening door -had shut fast suddenly, and he was back again in the night, the -incompanionable night of forgetfulness. - -Bickersteth saw that the travail and strife had drained life and energy, -and that he must not press the mind and vitality of this exile of time -and the unknown too far. He felt that when the next test came the -old man would either break completely, and sink down into another and -everlasting forgetfulness, or tear away forever the veil between himself -and his past, and emerge into a long-lost life. His strength must be -shepherded, and he must be kept quiet and undisturbed until they came to -the town yonder in the valley, over which the night was slowly settling -down. There two women waited, the two Alices, from both of whom had gone -lovers into the North. The daughter was living over again in her young -love the pangs of suspense through which her mother had passed. Two -years since Bickersteth had gone, and not a sign! - -Yet, if the girl had looked from her bedroom window, this Friday night, -she would have seen on the far hill a sign; for there burned a fire -beside which sat two travellers who had come from the uttermost limits -of snow. But as the fire burned--a beacon to her heart if she had but -known it--she went to her bed, the words of a song she had sung at -choir--practice with tears in her voice and in her heart ringing in her -ears. A concert was to be held after the service on the coming Sunday -night, at which there was to be a collection for funds to build another -mission-house a hundred miles farther North, and she had been practising -music she was to sing. Her mother had been an amateur singer of great -power, and she was renewing her mother's gift in a voice behind which -lay a hidden sorrow. As she cried herself to sleep the words of the song -which had moved her kept ringing in her ears and echoing in her heart: - - "When the swallows homeward fly, - And the roses' bloom is o'er--" - -But her mother, looking out into the night, saw on the far hill the -fire, burning like a star, where she had never seen a fire set before, -and a hope shot into her heart for her daughter--a hope that had flamed -up and died down so often during the past year. Yet she had fanned with -heartening words every such glimmer of hope when it came, and now she -went to bed saying, "Perhaps he will come to-morrow." In her mind, too, -rang the words of the song which had ravished her ears that night, the -song she had sung the night before her own husband, Luke Allingham, had -gone with Franklin to the Polar seas: - -"When the swallows homeward fly--" - -As she and her daughter entered the little church on the Sunday evening, -two men came over the prairie slowly towards the town, and both raised -their heads to the sound of the church-bell calling to prayer. In the -eyes of the younger man there was a look which has come to many in this -world returning from hard enterprise and great dangers, to the familiar -streets, the friendly faces of men of their kin and clan-to the lights -of home. - -The face of the older man, however, had another look. - -It was such a look as is seldom seen in the faces of men, for it showed -the struggle of a soul to regain its identity. The words which the old -man had uttered in response to Bickersteth's appeal before he fainted -away, "Franklin--Alice--the snow," had showed that he was on the verge; -the bells of the church pealing in the summer air brought him near it -once again. How many years had gone since he had heard church-bells? -Bickersteth, gazing at him in eager scrutiny, wondered if, after all, -he might be mistaken about him. But no, this man had never been born and -bred in the far North. His was a type which belonged to the civilisation -from which he himself had come. There would soon be the test of it all. -Yet he shuddered, too, to think what might happen if it was all true, -and discovery or reunion should shake to the centre the very life of the -two long-parted ones. - -He saw the look of perplexed pain and joy at once in the face of the old -man, but he said nothing, and he was almost glad when the bell stopped. -The old man turned to him. - -"What is it?" he asked. "I remember--" but he stopped suddenly, shaking -his head. - -An hour later, cleared of the dust of travel, the two walked slowly -towards the church from the little tavern where they were lodged. The -service was now over, but the concert had begun. The church was full, -and there were people in the porch; but these made way for the two -strangers; and, as Bickersteth was recognised by two or three present, -place was found for them. Inside, the old man stared round him in a -confused and troubled way, but his motions were quiet and abstracted and -he looked like some old viking, his workaday life done, come to pray ere -he went hence forever. They had entered in a pause in the concert, but -now two ladies came forward to the chancel steps, and one with her hands -clasped before her, began to sing: - - "When the swallows homeward fly, - And the roses' bloom is o'er, - And the nightingale's sweet song - In the woods is heard no more--" - -It was Alice--Alice the daughter--and presently the mother, the other -Alice, joined in the refrain. At sight of them Bickersteth's eyes had -filled, not with tears, but with a cloud of feeling, so that he went -blind. There she was, the girl he loved. Her voice was ringing in his -ears. In his own joy for one instant he had forgotten the old man -beside him, and the great test that was now upon him. He turned quickly, -however, as the old man got to his feet. For an instant the lost exile -of the North stood as though transfixed. The blood slowly drained from -his face, and in his eyes was an agony of struggle and desire. For a -moment an awful confusion had the mastery, and then suddenly a clear -light broke into his eyes, his face flushed healthily and shone, his -arms went up, and there rang in his ears the words: - - "Then I think with bitter pain, - Shall we ever meet again? - When the swallows homeward fly--" - -"Alice--Alice!" he called, and tottered forward up the aisle, followed -by John Bickersteth. - -"Alice, I have come back!" he cried again. - - - - -GEORGE'S WIFE - -"She's come, and she can go back. No one asked her, no one wants her, -and she's got no rights here. She thinks she'll come it over me, but -she'll get nothing, and there's no place for her here." - -The old, grey-bearded man, gnarled and angular, with overhanging brows -and a harsh face, made this little speech of malice and unfriendliness, -looking out on the snow-covered prairie through the window. Far in -the distance were a sleigh and horses like a spot in the snow, growing -larger from minute to minute. - -It was a day of days. Overhead, the sun was pouring out a flood of light -and warmth, and though it was bitterly cold, life was beating hard in -the bosom of the West. Men walked lightly, breathed quickly, and their -eyes were bright with the brightness of vitality and content. Even the -old man at the window of this lonely house, in a great lonely stretch of -country, with the cedar hills behind it, had a living force which defied -his seventy odd years, though the light in his face was hard and his -voice was harder still. Under the shelter of the foothills, cold as the -day was, his cattle were feeding in the open, scratching away the thin -layer of snow, and browsing on the tender grass underneath. An arctic -world in appearance, it had an abounding life which made it friendly -and generous--the harshness belonged to the surface. So, perhaps, it was -with the old man who watched the sleigh in the distance coming nearer, -but that in his nature on which any one could feed was not so easily -reached as the fresh young grass under the protecting snow. - -"She'll get nothing out of me," he repeated, as the others in the room -behind him made no remark, and his eyes ranged gloatingly over the -cattle under the foothills and the buildings which he had gathered -together to proclaim his substantial greatness in the West. "Not a sous -markee," he added, clinking some coins in his pocket. "She's got no -rights." - -"Cassy's got as much right here as any of us, Abel, and she's coming to -say it, I guess." - -The voice which spoke was unlike a Western voice. It was deep and full -and slow, with an organ-like quality. It was in good keeping with the -tall, spare body and large, fine rugged face of the woman to whom it -belonged. She sat in a rocking-chair, but did not rock, her fingers busy -with the knitting-needles, her feet planted squarely on the home-made -hassock at her feet. - -The old man waited for a minute in a painful silence, then he turned -slowly round, and, with tight-pressed lips, looked at the woman in the -rocking-chair. If it had been anyone else who had "talked back" at -him, he would have made quick work of them, for he was of that class -of tyrant who pride themselves on being self-made, and have an undue -respect for their own judgment and importance. But the woman who had -ventured to challenge his cold-blooded remarks about his dead son's -wife, now hastening over the snow to the house her husband had left -under a cloud eight years before, had no fear of him, and, maybe, no -deep regard for him. He respected her, as did all who knew her--a very -reticent, thoughtful, busy being, who had been like a well of comfort -to so many that had drunk and passed on out of her life, out of time and -time's experiences. Seventy-nine years saw her still upstanding, strong, -full of work, and fuller of life's knowledge. It was she who had sent -the horses and sleigh for "Gassy," when the old man, having read the -letter that Cassy had written him, said that she could "freeze at the -station" for all of him. Aunt Kate had said nothing then, but, when the -time came, by her orders the sleigh and horses were at the station; and -the old man had made no direct protest, for she was the one person he -had never dominated nor bullied. If she had only talked, he would have -worn her down, for he was fond of talking, and it was said by those -who were cynical and incredulous about him that he had gone to -prayer-meetings, had been a local preacher, only to hear his own voice. -Probably if there had been any politics in the West in his day, he would -have been a politician, though it would have been too costly for his -taste, and religion was very cheap; it enabled him to refuse to join in -many forms of expenditure, on the ground that he "did not hold by such -things." - -In Aunt Kate, the sister of his wife, dead so many years ago, he had -found a spirit stronger than his own. He valued her; he had said more -than once, to those who he thought would never repeat it to her, that -she was a "great woman"; but self-interest was the mainspring of his -appreciation. Since she had come again to his house--she had lived with -him once before for two years when his wife was slowly dying--it had -been a different place. Housekeeping had cost less than before, yet -the cooking was better, the place was beautifully clean, and discipline -without rigidity reigned everywhere. One by one the old woman's boys and -girls had died--four of them--and she was now alone, with not a single -grandchild left to cheer her; and the life out here with Abel Baragar -had been unrelieved by much that was heartening to a woman; for -Black Andy, Abel's son, was not an inspiring figure, though even his -moroseness gave way under her influence. So it was that when Cassy's -letter came, her breast seemed to grow warmer, and swell with longing -to see the wife of her nephew, who had such a bad reputation in Abel's -eyes, and to see George's little boy, who was coming too. After all, -whatever Cassy was, she was the mother of Abel's son's son; and Aunt -Kate was too old and wise to be frightened by tales told of Cassy or any -one else. So, having had her own way so far regarding Cassy's coming, -she looked Abel calmly in the eyes, over the gold-rimmed spectacles -which were her dearest possession--almost the only thing of value she -had. She was not afraid of Abel's anger, and he knew it; but his eldest -son, Black Andy, was present, and he must make a show of being master of -the situation. - -"Aunt Kate," he said, "I didn't make a fuss about you sending the horses -and sleigh for her, because women do fool things sometimes. I suppose -curiosity got the best of you. Anyhow, mebbe it's right Cassy should -find out, once for all, how things stand, and that they haven't altered -since she took George away, and ruined his life, and sent him to his -grave. That's why I didn't order Mick back when I saw him going out with -the team." - -"Cassy Mavor," interjected a third voice from a corner behind the great -stove--"Cassy Mavor, of the variety-dance-and-song, and a talk with the -gallery between!" - -Aunt Kate looked over at Black Andy, and stopped knitting, for there was -that in the tone of the sullen ranchman which stirred in her a sudden -anger, and anger was a rare and uncomfortable sensation to her. A flush -crept slowly over her face, then it died away, and she said quietly to -Black Andy--for she had ever prayed to be master of the demon of temper -down deep in her, and she was praying now: - -"She earnt her living by singing and dancing, and she's brought up -George's boy by it, and singing and dancing isn't a crime. David danced -before the Lord. I danced myself when I was a young girl, and before I -joined the church. 'Twas about the only pleasure I ever had; 'bout the -only one I like to remember. There's no difference to me 'twixt making -your feet handy and clever and full of music, and playing with your -fingers on the piano or on a melodeon at a meeting. As for singing, -it's God's gift; and many a time I wisht I had it. I'd have sung the -blackness out of your face and heart, Andy." She leaned back again and -began to knit very fast. "I'd like to hear Cassy sing, and see her dance -too." - -Black Andy chuckled coarsely, "I often heard her sing and saw her dance -down at Lumley's before she took George away East. You wouldn't have -guessed she had consumption. She knocked the boys over down to Lumley's. -The first night at Lumley's done for George." - -Black Andy's face showed no lightening of its gloom as he spoke, but -there was a firing up of the black eyes, and the woman with the knitting -felt that--for whatever reason--he was purposely irritating his father. - -"The devil was in her heels and in her tongue," Andy continued. "With -her big mouth, red hair, and little eyes, she'd have made anybody laugh. -I laughed." - -"You laughed!" snapped out his father with a sneer. - -Black Andy's eyes half closed with a morose look, then he went on. "Yes, -I laughed at Cassy. While she was out here at Lumley's getting cured, -accordin' to the doctor's orders, things seemed to get a move on in the -West. But it didn't suit professing Christians like you, dad." He jerked -his head towards the old man and drew the spittoon near with his feet. - -"The West hasn't been any worse off since she left," snarled the old -man. - -"Well, she took George with her," grimly retorted Black Andy. - -Abel Baragar's heart had been warmer towards his dead son George than to -any one else in the world. George had been as fair of face and hair -as Andrew was dark; as cheerful and amusing as Andrew was gloomy and -dispiriting; as agile and dexterous of mind and body as his brother -was slow and angular; as emotional and warm-hearted as the other was -phlegmatic and sour--or so it seemed to the father and to nearly all -others. - -In those old days they had not been very well off. The railway was not -completed, and the West had not begun "to move." The old man had bought -and sold land and cattle and horses, always living on a narrow margin -of safety, but in the hope that one day the choice bits of land he -was shepherding here and there would take a leap up in value; and his -judgment had been right. His prosperity had all come since George went -away with Cassy Mavor. His anger at George had been the more acute, -because the thing happened at a time when his affairs were on the edge -of a precipice. He had won through it, but only by the merest shave, -and it had all left him with a bad spot in his heart, in spite of his -"having religion." Whenever he remembered George, he instinctively -thought of those black days when a Land and Cattle Syndicate was -crowding him over the edge into the chasm of failure, and came so near -doing it. A few thousand dollars less to put up here and there, and he -would have been ruined; his blood became hotter whenever he thought of -it. He had had to fight the worst of it through alone, for George, who -had been useful as a kind of buyer and seller, who was ever all things -to all men, and ready with quip and jest, and not a little uncertain -as to truth--to which the old man shut his eyes when there was a "deal" -on--had, in the end, been of no use at all, and had seemed to go to -pieces just when he was most needed. His father had put it all down to -Cassy Mavor, who had unsettled things since she had come to Lumley's, -and being a man of very few ideas, he cherished those he had with an -exaggerated care. Prosperity had not softened him; it had given him -an arrogance unduly emphasised by a reputation for rigid virtue and -honesty. The indirect attack which Andrew now made on George's memory -roused him to anger, as much because it seemed to challenge his own -judgment as cast a slight on the name of the boy whom he had cast off, -yet who had a firmer hold on his heart than any human being ever had. -It had only been pride which had prevented him from making it up with -George before it was too late; but, all the more, he was set against -the woman who "kicked up her heels for a living"; and, all the more, he -resented Black Andy, who, in his own grim way, had managed to remain a -partner with him in their present prosperity, and had done so little for -it. - -"George helped to make what you've got, Andy," he said darkly now. "The -West missed George. The West said, 'There was a good man ruined by a -woman.' The West'd never think anything or anybody missed you, 'cept -yourself. When you went North, it never missed you; when you come back, -its jaw fell. You wasn't fit to black George's boots." - -Black Andy's mouth took on a bitter sort of smile, and his eyes drooped -furtively, as he struck the damper of the stove heavily with his foot, -then he replied slowly: - -"Well, that's all right; but if I wasn't fit to black his boots, -it ain't my fault. I git my nature honest, as he did. We wasn't any -cross-breeds, I s'pose. We got the strain direct, and we was all right -on her side." He jerked his head towards Aunt Kate, whose face was -growing pale. She interposed now. - -"Can't you leave the dead alone?" she asked in a voice ringing a little. -"Can't you let them rest? Ain't it enough to quarrel about the living? -Cassy'll be here soon," she added, peering out of the window, "and if I -was you, I'd try and not make her sorry she ever married a Baragar. It -ain't a feeling that'd make a sick woman live long." - -Aunt Kate did not strike often, but when she did, she struck hard. -Abel Baragar staggered a little under this blow, for, at the moment, it -seemed to him that he saw his dead wife's face looking at him from the -chair where her sister now sat. Down in his ill-furnished heart, where -there had been little which was companionable, there was a shadowed -corner. Sophy Baragar had been such a true-hearted, brave-souled woman, -and he had been so impatient and exacting with her, till the beautiful -face, which had been reproduced in George, had lost its colour and its -fire, had become careworn and sweet with that sweetness which goes early -out of the world. In all her days the vanished wife had never hinted -at as much as Aunt Kate suggested now, and Abel Baragar shut his eyes -against the thing which he was seeing. He was not all hard, after all. - -Aunt Kate turned to Black Andy now. - -"Mebbe Cassy ain't for long," she said. "Mebbe she's come out for what -she came out for before. It seems to me it's that, or she wouldn't have -come; because she's young yet, and she's fond of her boy, and she'd -not want to bury herself alive out here with us. Mebbe her lungs is bad -again." - -"Then she's sure to get another husband out here," said the old man, -recovering himself. "She got one before easy, on the same ticket." With -something of malice he looked over at Black Andy. - -"If she can sing and dance as she done nine years ago, I shouldn't -wonder," answered Black Andy smoothly. These two men knew each other; -they had said hard things to each other for many a year, yet they lived -on together unshaken by each other's moods and bitternesses. - -"I'm getting old,--I'm seventy-nine,--and I ain't for long," urged Aunt -Kate, looking Abel in the eyes. "Some day soon I'll be stepping out and -away. Then things'll go to sixes and sevens, as they did after Sophy -died. Some one ought to be here that's got a right to be here, not a -hired woman." - -Suddenly the old man raged out. - -"Her--off the stage, to look after this! Her, that's kicked up her heels -for a living! It's--no, she's no good. She's common. She's come, and she -can go. I ain't having sweepings from the streets living here as if they -had rights." - -Aunt Kate set her lips. - -"Sweepings! You've got to take that back, Abel. It's not Christian. -You've got to take that back." - -"He'll take it back all right before we've done, I guess," remarked -Black Andy. "He'll take a lot back." - -"Truth's truth, and I'll stand by it, and--" - -The old man stopped, for there came to them now, clearly, the sound of -sleigh bells. They all stood still for an instant, silent and attentive, -then Aunt Kate moved towards the door. - -"Cassy's come," she said. "Cassy and George's boy've come." - -Another instant and the door was opened on the beautiful, white, -sparkling world, and the low sleigh, with its great warm buffalo robes, -in which the small figures of a woman and a child were almost lost, -stopped at the door. Two whimsical but tired eyes looked over a rim of -fur at the old woman in the doorway, then Cassy's voice rang out. - -"Hello, that's Aunt Kate, I know! Well, here we are, and here's my boy. -Jump, George!" - -A moment later, and the gaunt old woman folded both mother and son in -her arms and drew them into the room. The door was shut, and they all -faced each other. - -The old man and Black Andy did not move, but stood staring at the trim -figure in black, with the plain face, large mouth, and tousled red hair, -and the dreamy-eyed, handsome little boy beside her. - -Black Andy stood behind the stove, looking over at the new-comers with -quizzical, almost furtive eyes, and his father remained for a moment -with mouth open, gazing at his dead son's wife and child, as though not -quite comprehending the scene. The sight of the boy had brought back, -in some strange, embarrassing way, a vision of thirty years before, when -George was a little boy in buckskin pants and jacket, and was beginning -to ride the prairie with him. This boy was like George, yet not like -him. The face was George's, the sensuous, luxurious mouth; but the eyes -were not those of a Baragar, nor yet those of Aunt Kate's family; and -they were not wholly like the mother's. They were full and brimming, -while hers were small and whimsical; yet they had her quick, humourous -flashes and her quaintness. - -"Have I changed so much? Have you forgotten me?" Cassy asked, looking -the old man in the eyes. "You look as strong as a bull." She held out -her hand to him and laughed. - -"Hope I see you well," said Abel Baragar mechanically, as he took the -hand and shook it awkwardly. - -"Oh, I'm all right," answered the nonchalant little woman, undoing her -jacket. "Shake hands with your grandfather, George. That's right--don't -talk too much," she added, with a half-nervous little laugh, as the old -man, with a kind of fixed smile, and the child shook hands in silence. - -Presently she saw Black Andy behind the stove. "Well, Andy, have you -been here ever since?" she asked, and, as he came forward, she suddenly -caught him by both arms, stood on tiptoe, and kissed him. "Last time I -saw you, you were behind the stove at Lumley's. Nothing's ever too warm -for you," she added. "You'd be shivering on the Equator. You were always -hugging the stove at Lumley's." - -"Things was pretty warm there, too, Cassy," he said, with a sidelong -look at his father. - -She saw the look, her face flashed with sudden temper, then her eyes -fell on her boy, now lost in the arms of Aunt Kate, and she curbed -herself. - -"There were plenty of things doing at Lumley's in those days," she -said brusquely. "We were all young and fresh then," she added, and then -something seemed to catch her voice, and she coughed a little--a hard, -dry, feverish cough. "Are the Lumleys all right? Are they still there, -at the Forks?" she asked, after the little paroxysm of coughing. - -"Cleaned out--all scattered. We own the Lumleys' place now," replied -Black Andy, with another sidelong glance at his father, who, as he put -some more wood on the fire and opened the damper of the stove wider, -grimly watched and listened. - -"Jim, and Lance, and Jerry, and Abner?" she asked almost abstractedly. - -"Jim's dead-shot by a U. S. marshal by mistake for a smuggler," answered -Black Andy suggestively. "Lance is up on the Yukon, busted; Jerry is one -of our hands on the place; and Abner is in jail." - -"Abner-in jail!" she exclaimed in a dazed way. "What did he do? Abner -always seemed so straight." - -"Oh, he sloped with a thousand dollars of the railway people's money. -They caught him, and he got seven years." - -"He was married, wasn't he?" she asked in a low voice. "Yes, to Phenie -Tyson. There's no children, so she's all right, and divorce is cheap -over in the States, where she is now." - -"Phenie Tyson didn't marry Abner because he was a saint, but because he -was a man, I suppose," she replied gravely. "And the old folks?" - -"Both dead. What Abner done sent the old man to his grave. But Abner's -mother died a year before." - -"What Abner done killed his father," said Abel Baragar with dry -emphasis. "Phenie Tyson was extravagant-wanted this and that, and -nothin' was too good for her. Abner spoilt his life gettin' her what she -wanted; and it broke old Ezra Lumley's heart." - -George's wife looked at him for a moment with her eyes screwed up, and -then she laughed softly. "My, it's curious how some folks go up and some -go down! It must be lonely for Phenie waiting all these years for Abner -to get free.... I had the happiest time in my life at Lumley's. I was -getting better of my-cold. While I was there I got lots of strength -stored up, to last me many a year when I needed it; and, then, George -and I were married at Lumley's...." - -Aunt Kate came slowly over with the boy, and laid a hand on Cassy's -shoulder, for there was an undercurrent to the conversation which boded -no good. The very first words uttered had plunged Abel Baragar and his -son's wife into the midst of the difficulty which she had hoped might, -after all, be avoided. - -"Come, and I'll show you your room, Cassy," she said. "It faces south, -and you'll get the sun all day. It's like a sun-parlour. We're going to -have supper in a couple of hours, and you must rest some first. Is the -house warm enough for you?" - -The little, garish woman did not reply directly, but shook back her red -hair and caught her boy to her breast and kissed him; then she said in -that staccato manner which had given her words on the stage such point -and emphasis, "Oh, this house is a'most too warm for me, Aunt Kate!" - -Then she moved towards the door with the grave, kindly old woman, her -son's hand in her own. - -"You can see the Lumleys' place from your window, Cassy," said Black -Andy grimly. "We got a mortgage on it, and foreclosed it, and it's ours -now; and Jerry Lumley's stock-riding for us. Anyhow, he's better off -than Abner, or Abner's wife." - -Cassy turned at the door and faced him. Instinctively she caught at some -latent conflict with old Abel Baragar in what Black Andy had said, and -her face softened, for it suddenly flashed into her mind that he was not -against her. - -"I'm glad to be back West," she said. "It meant a lot to me when I was -at Lumley's." She coughed a little again, but turned to the door with a -laugh. - -"How long have you come to stay here--out West?" asked the old man -furtively. - -"Why, there's plenty of time to think of that!" she answered brusquely, -and she heard Black Andy laugh derisively as the door closed behind her. - -In a blaze of joy the sun swept down behind the southern hills, and -the windows of Lumley's house at the Forks, catching the oblique rays, -glittered and shone like flaming silver. Nothing of life showed, save -the cattle here and there, creeping away to the shelter of the foothills -for the night. The white, placid snow made a coverlet as wide as the -vision of the eye, save where spruce and cedar trees gave a touch of -warmth and refuge here and there. A wonderful, buoyant peace seemed to -rest upon the wide, silent expanse. The birds of song were gone South -over the hills, and the living wild things of the prairies had stolen -into winter quarters. Yet, as Cassy Mavor looked out upon the exquisite -beauty of the scene, upon the splendid outspanning of the sun along the -hills, the deep plangent blue of the sky and the thrilling light, she -saw a world in agony and she heard the moans of the afflicted. The sun -shone bright on the windows of Lumley's house, but she could hear the -crying of Abner's wife, and of old Ezra and Eliza Lumley, when their -children were stricken or shamed; when Abel Baragar drew tighter and -tighter the chains of the mortgage, which at last made them tenants -in the house once their own. Only eight years ago, and all this had -happened. And what had not happened to her, too, in those eight years! - -With George--reckless, useless, loving, lying George--she had left -Lumley's with her sickness cured, as it seemed, after a long year in the -West, and had begun life again. What sort of life had it been? "Kicking -up her heels on the stage," as Abel Baragar had said; but, somehow, -not as it was before she went West to give her perforated lung to the -healing air of the plains, and to live outdoors with the men--a man's -life. Then she had never put a curb on her tongue, or greatly on her -actions, except that, though a hundred men quarrelled openly, or in -their own minds, about her, no one had ever had any right to quarrel -about her. With a tongue which made men gasp with laughter, with as -comic a gift as ever woman had, and as equally comic a face, she had -been a good-natured little tyrant in her way. She had given a kiss here -and there, and had taken one, but always there had been before her mind -the picture of a careworn woman who struggled to bring up her three -children honestly, and without the help of charity, and, with a sigh of -content and weariness, had died as Cassy made her first hit on the stage -and her name became a household word. And Cassy, garish, gay, freckled, -witty and whimsical, had never forgotten those days when her mother -prayed and worked her heart out to do her duty by her children. Cassy -Mavor had made her following, had won her place, was the idol of "the -gallery"; and yet she was "of the people," as she had always been, until -her first sickness came, and she had gone out to Lumley's, out along the -foothills of the Rockies. - -What had made her fall in love with George Baragar? - -She could not have told, if she had been asked. He was wayward, given to -drink at times, given also to card-playing and racing; but he had a way -with him which few women could resist and which made men his friends; -and he had a sense of humour akin to her own. In any case, one day she -let him catch her up in his arms, and there was the end of it. But no, -not the end, after all. It was only the beginning of real life for her. -All that had gone before seemed but playing on the threshold, though -it had meant hard, bitter hard work, and temptation, and patience, and -endurance of many kinds. And now George was gone for ever. But George's -little boy lay there on the bed in a soft sleep, with all his life -before him. - -She turned from the warm window and the buoyant, inspiring scene to -the bed. Stooping over, she kissed the sleeping boy with an abrupt -eagerness, and made a little awkward, hungry gesture of love over him, -and her face flushed hot with the passion of motherhood in her. - -"All I've got now," she murmured. "Nothing else left--nothing else at -all." - -She heard the door open behind her, and she turned round. Aunt Kate was -entering with a bowl in her hands. - -"I heard you moving about, and I've brought you something hot to drink," -she said. - -"That's real good of you, Aunt Kate," was the cheerful reply. "But it's -near supper-time, and I don't need it." - -"It's boneset tea--for your cold," answered Aunt Kate gently, and put it -on the high dressing-table made of a wooden box and covered with muslin. -"For your cold, Cassy," she repeated. - -The little woman stood still a moment gazing at the steaming bowl, -lines growing suddenly around her mouth, then she looked at Aunt Kate -quizzically. "Is my cold bad--so bad that I need boneset?" she asked in -a queer, constrained voice. - -"It's comforting, is boneset tea, even when there's no cold, 'specially -when the whiskey's good, and the boneset and camomile has steeped some -days." - -"Have you been steeping them some days?" Cassy asked softly, eagerly. - -Aunt Kate nodded, then tried to explain. - -"It's always good to be prepared, and I didn't know but what the cold -you used to have might be come back," she said. "But I'm glad if it -ain't, if that cough of yours is only one of the measly little hacks -people get in the East, where it's so damp." - -Cassy was at the window again, looking out at the dying radiance of the -sun. Her voice seemed hollow and strange and rather rough, as she said -in reply: - -"It's a real cold, deep down, the same as I had nine years ago, Aunt -Kate; and it's come to stay, I guess. That's why I came back West. But -I couldn't have gone to Lumley's again, even if they were at the Forks -now, for I'm too poor. I'm a back-number now. I had to give up singing -and dancing a year ago, after George died. So I don't earn my living any -more, and I had to come to George's father with George's boy." - -Aunt Kate had a shrewd mind, and it was tactful, too. She did not -understand why Cassy, who had earned so much money all these years, -should be so poor now, unless it was that she hadn't saved--that she and -George hadn't saved. But, looking at the face before her, and the child -on the bed, she was convinced that the woman was a good woman, that, -singer and dancer as she was, there was no reason why any home should -be closed to her, or any heart should shut its doors before her. She -guessed a reason for this poverty of Cassy Mavor, but it only made her -lay a hand on the little woman's shoulders and look into her eyes. - -"Cassy," she said gently, "you was right to come here. There's trials -before you, but for the boy's sake you must bear them. Sophy, George's -mother, had to bear them, and Abel was fond of her, too, in his way. -He's stored up a lot of things to say, and he'll say them; but you'll -keep the boy in your mind, and be patient, won't you, Cassy? You got -rights here, and it's comfortable, and there's plenty, and the air will -cure your lung as it did before. It did all right before, didn't it?" -She handed the bowl of boneset tea. "Take it; it'll do you good, Cassy," -she added. - -Cassy said nothing in reply. She looked at the bed where her boy -lay, she looked at the angular face of the woman, with its brooding -motherliness, at the soft, grey hair, and, with a little gasp of -feeling, she raised the bowl to her lips and drank freely. Then, putting -it down, she said: - -"He doesn't mean to have us, Aunt Kate, but I'll try and keep my temper -down. Did he ever laugh in his life?" - -"He laughs sometimes--kind o' laughs." - -"I'll make him laugh real, if I can," Cassy rejoined. "I've made a lot -of people laugh in my time." - -The old woman leaned suddenly over, and drew the red, ridiculous head to -her shoulder with a gasp of affection, and her eyes were full of tears. - -"Cassy," she exclaimed, "Cassy, you make me cry." Then she turned and -hurried from the room. - -Three hours later the problem was solved in the big sitting-room where -Cassy had first been received with her boy. Aunt Kate sat with her feet -on a hassock, rocking gently and watching and listening. Black Andy was -behind the great stove with his chair tilted back, carving the bowl of -a pipe; the old man sat rigid by the table, looking straight before him -and smacking his lips now and then as he was won't to do at meeting; -while Cassy, with her chin in her hands and elbows on her knees, gazed -into the fire and waited for the storm to break. - -Her little flashes of humour at dinner had not brightened things, and -she had had an insane desire to turn cart-wheels round the room, so -implacable and highly strained was the attitude of the master of the -house, so unctuous was the grace and the thanksgiving before and -after the meal. Abel Baragar had stored up his anger and his righteous -antipathy for years, and this was the first chance he had had of -visiting his displeasure on the woman who had "ruined" George, and who -had now come to get "rights," which he was determined she should not -have. He had steeled himself against seeing any good in her whatever. -Self-will, self-pride, and self-righteousness were big in him, and so -the supper had ended in silence, and with a little attack of coughing -on the part of Cassy, which made her angry at herself. Then the boy had -been put to bed, and she had come back to await the expected outburst. -She could feel it in the air, and while her blood tingled in a desire -to fight this tyrant to the bitter end, she thought of her boy and his -future, and she calmed the tumult in her veins. - -She did not have to wait very long. The querulous voice of the old man -broke the silence. - -"When be you goin' back East? What time did you fix for goin'?" he -asked. - -She raised her head and looked at him squarely. "I didn't fix any time -for going East again," she replied. "I came out West this time to stay." - -"I thought you was on the stage," was the rejoinder. - -"I've left the stage. My voice went when I got a bad cold again, and -I couldn't stand the draughts of the theatre, and so I couldn't dance, -either. I'm finished with the stage. I've come out here for good and -all. - -"Where did you think of livin' out here?" - -"I'd like to have gone to Lumley's, but that's not possible, is it? -Anyway, I couldn't afford it now. So I thought I'd stay here, if there -was room for me." - -"You want to board here?" - -"I didn't put it to myself that way. I thought perhaps you'd be glad to -have me. I'm handy. I can cook, I can sew, and I'm quite cheerful and -kind. Then there's George--little George. I thought you'd like to have -your grandson here with you." - -"I've lived without him--or his father--for eight years, an' I could -bear it a while yet, mebbe." - -There was a half-choking sound from the old woman in the rocking-chair, -but she did not speak, though her knitting dropped into her lap. - -"But if you knew us better, perhaps you'd like us better," rejoined -Cassy gently. "We're both pretty easy to get on with, and we see the -bright side of things. He has a wonderful disposition, has George." - -"I ain't goin' to like you any better," said the old man, getting to his -feet. "I ain't goin' to give you any rights here. I've thought it out, -and my mind's made up. You can't come it over me. You ruined my boy's -life and sent him to his grave. He'd have lived to be an old man out -here; but you spoiled him. You trapped him into marrying you, with your -kicking and your comic songs, and your tricks of the stage, and you -parted us--parted him and me for ever." - -"That was your fault. George wanted to make it up." - -"With you!" The old man's voice rose shrilly, the bitterness and passion -of years was shooting high in the narrow confines of his mind. The -geyser of his prejudice and antipathy was furiously alive. "To come back -with you that ruined him and broke up my family, and made my life like -bitter aloes! No! And if I wouldn't have him with you, do you think I'll -have you without him? By the God of Israel, no!" - -Black Andy was now standing up behind the stove intently watching, his -face grim and sombre; Aunt Kate sat with both hands gripping the arms of -the rocker. - -Cassy got slowly to her feet. "I've been as straight a woman as your -mother or your wife ever was," she said, "and all the world knows it. -I'm poor--and I might have been rich. I was true to myself before I -married George, and I was true to George after, and all I earned he -shared; and I've got little left. The mining stock I bought with what -I saved went smash, and I'm poor as I was when I started to work for -myself. I can work awhile yet, but I wanted to see if I could fit in -out here, and get well again, and have my boy fixed in the house of his -grandfather. That's the way I'm placed, and that's how I came. But give -a dog a bad name--ah, you shame your dead boy in thinking bad of me! I -didn't ruin him. I didn't kill him. He never came to any bad through me. -I helped him; he was happy. Why, I--" She stopped suddenly, putting -a hand to her mouth. "Go on, say what you want to say, and let's -understand once for all," she added with a sudden sharpness. - -Abel Baragar drew himself up. "Well, I say this. I'll give you three -thousand dollars, and you can go somewhere else to live. I'll keep the -boy here. That's what I've fixed in my mind to do. You can go, and the -boy stays. I ain't goin' to live with you that spoiled George's life." - -The eyes of the woman dilated, she trembled with a sudden rush of anger, -then stood still, staring in front of her without a word. Black Andy -stepped from behind the stove. - -"You are going to stay here, Cassy," he said; "here where you have -rights as good as any, and better than any, if it comes to that." He -turned to his father. "You thought a lot of George," he added. "He was -the apple of your eye. He had a soft tongue, and most people liked him; -but George was foolish--I've known it all these years. George was pretty -foolish. He gambled, he bet at races, he speculated--wild. You didn't -know it. He took ten thousand dollars of your money, got from the -Wonegosh farm he sold for you. He--" - -Cassy Mavor started forwards with a cry, but Black Andy waved her down. - -"No, I'm going to tell it. George lost your ten thousand dollars, dad, -gambling, racing, speculating. He told her--Cassy-two days after they -was married, and she took the money she earned on the stage, and give -it to him to pay you back on the quiet through the bank. You never knew, -but that's the kind of boy your son George was, and that's the kind of -wife he had. George told me all about it when I was East six years ago." - -He came over to Cassy and stood beside her. "I'm standing by George's -wife," he said, taking her hand, while she shut her eyes in her -misery--had she not hid her husband's wrong-doing all these years? "I'm -standing by her. If it hadn't been for that ten thousand dollars she -paid back for George, you'd have been swamped when the Syndicate got -after you, and we wouldn't have had Lumley's place, nor this, nor -anything. I guess she's got rights here, dad, as good as any." - -The old man sank slowly into a chair. "George--George stole from -me--stole money from me!" he whispered. His face was white. His -pride and vainglory were broken. He was a haggard, shaken figure. His -self-righteousness was levelled in the dust. - -With sudden impulse, Cassy stole over to him, and took his hand and held -it tight. - -"Don't! Don't feel so bad!" she said. "He was weak and wild then. But he -was all right afterwards. He was happy with me." - -"I've owed Cassy this for a good many years, dad," said Black Andy, "and -it had to be paid. She's got better stuff in her than any Baragar." - - ......................... - -An hour later, the old man said to Cassy at the door of her room: "You -got to stay here and git well. It's yours, the same as the rest of -us--what's here." - -Then he went downstairs and sat with Aunt Kate by the fire. - -"I guess she's a good woman," he said at last. "I didn't use her right." - -"You've been lucky with your women-folk," Aunt Kate answered quietly. - -"Yes, I've been lucky," he answered. "I dunno if I deserve it. Mebbe -not. Do you think she'll git well?" - -"It's a healing air out here," Aunt Kate answered, and listened to the -wood of the house snapping in the sharp frost. - - - - -MARCILE - -That the day was beautiful, that the harvest of the West had been a -great one, that the salmon-fishing had been larger than ever before, -that gold had been found in the Yukon, made no difference to Jacques -Grassette, for he was in the condemned cell of Bindon Jail, living out -those days which pass so swiftly between the verdict of the jury and the -last slow walk with the Sheriff. - -He sat with his back to the stone wall, his hands on his knees, looking -straight before him. All that met his physical gaze was another stone -wall, but with his mind's eye he was looking beyond it into spaces far -away. His mind was seeing a little house with dormer windows, and a -steep roof on which the snow could not lodge in winter-time; with a -narrow stoop in front where one could rest of an evening, the day's work -done; the stone-and-earth oven near by in the open, where the bread -for a family of twenty was baked; the wooden plough tipped against the -fence, to wait the "fall" cultivation; the big iron cooler in which the -sap from the maple trees was boiled, in the days when the snow thawed -and spring opened the heart of the wood; the flash of the sickle and the -scythe hard by; the fields of the little narrow farm running back from -the St. Lawrence like a riband; and, out on the wide stream, the -great rafts with their riverine population floating down to Michelin's -mill-yards. - -For hours he had sat like this, unmoving, his gnarled red hands clamping -each leg as though to hold him steady while he gazed; and he saw himself -as a little lad, barefooted, doing chores, running after the shaggy, -troublesome pony which would let him catch it when no one else could, -and, with only a halter on, galloping wildly back to the farmyard, to be -hitched up in the carriole which had once belonged to the old Seigneur. -He saw himself as a young man, back from "the States" where he had been -working in the mills, regarded austerely by little Father Roche, who had -given him his first Communion--for, down in Massachusetts he had learned -to wear his curly hair plastered down on his forehead, smoke bad cigars, -and drink "old Bourbon," to bet and to gamble, and be a figure at -horse-races. - -Then he saw himself, his money all gone, but the luck still with him, -at Mass on the Sunday before going to the backwoods lumber-camp for -the winter, as boss of a hundred men. He had a way with him, and he had -brains, had Jacques Grassette, and he could manage men, as Michelin -the lumber-king himself had found in a great river-row and strike, when -bloodshed seemed certain. Even now the ghost of a smile played at his -lips, as he recalled the surprise of the old habitants and of Father -Roche when he was chosen for this responsible post; for to run a great -lumber-camp well, hundreds of miles from civilisation, where there is -no visible law, no restraints of ordinary organised life, and where men, -for seven months together, never saw a woman or a child, and ate pork -and beans, and drank white whisky, was a task of administration as -difficult as managing a small republic new-created out of violent -elements of society. But Michelin was right, and the old Seigneur, Sir -Henri Robitaille, who was a judge of men, knew he was right, as did also -Hennepin the schoolmaster, whose despair Jacques had been, for he -never worked at his lessons as a boy, and yet he absorbed Latin and -mathematics by some sure but unexplainable process. "Ah! if you would -but work, Jacques, you vaurien, I would make a great man of you," -Hennepin had said to him more than once; but this had made no impression -on Jacques. It was more to the point that the ground-hogs and black -squirrels and pigeons were plentiful in Casanac Woods. - -And so he thought as he stood at the door of the Church of St. Francis -on that day before going "out back" to the lumber-camp. He had reached -the summit of greatness--to command men. That was more than wealth or -learning, and as he spoke to the old Seigneur going in to Mass, he still -thought so, for the Seigneur's big house and the servants and the great -gardens had no charm for him. The horses--that was another thing; but -there would be plenty of horses in the lumber-camp; and, on the whole, -he felt himself rather superior to the old Seigneur, who now was -Lieutenant-Governor of the province in which lay Bindon Jail. - -At the door of the Church of St. Francis he had stretched himself up -with good-natured pride, for he was by nature gregarious and friendly, -but with a temper quick and strong, and even savage when roused; though -Michelin the lumber-king did not know that when he engaged him as boss, -having seen him only at the one critical time, when his superior brain -and will saw its chance to command, and had no personal interest in the -strife. He had been a miracle of coolness then, and his six-foot-two of -pride and muscle was taking natural tribute at the door of the Church -of St. Francis, where he waited till nearly everyone had entered, and -Father Roche's voice could be heard in the Mass. - -Then had happened the real event of his life: a blackeyed, rose-checked -girl went by with her mother, hurrying in to Mass. As she passed him -their eyes met, and his blood leapt in his veins. He had never seen -her before, and, in a sense, he had never seen any woman before. He -had danced with many a one, and kissed a few in the old days among the -flax-beaters, at the harvesting, in the gaieties of a wedding, and also -down in Massachusetts. That, however, was a different thing, which he -forgot an hour after; but this was the beginning of the world for him; -for he knew now, of a sudden, what life was, what home meant, why "old -folks" slaved for their children, and mothers wept when girls married or -sons went away from home to bigger things; why in there, in at Mass, so -many were praying for all the people, and thinking only of one. All in -a moment it came--and stayed; and he spoke to her, to Marcile, that very -night, and he spoke also to her father, Valloir the farrier, the next -morning by lamplight, before he started for the woods. He would not -be gainsaid, nor take no for an answer, nor accept, as a reason for -refusal, that she was only sixteen, and that he did not know her, for -she had been away with a childless aunt since she was three. That she -had fourteen brothers and sisters who had to be fed and cared for did -not seem to weigh with the farrier. That was an affair of le bon Dieu, -and enough would be provided for them all as heretofore--one could make -little difference; and though Jacques was a very good match, considering -his prospects and his favour with the lumber-king, Valloir had a kind -of fear of him, and could not easily promise his beloved Marcile, -the flower of his flock, to a man of whom the priest so strongly -disapproved. But it was a new sort of Jacques Grassette who, that -morning, spoke to him with the simplicity and eagerness of a child; and -the suddenly conceived gift of a pony stallion, which every man in the -parish envied Jacques, won Valloir over; and Jacques went "away back" -with the first timid kiss of Marcile Valloir burning on his cheek. - -"Well, bagosh, you are a wonder!" said Jacques' father, when he told him -the news, and saw Jacques jump into the carriole and drive away. - -Here in prison, this, too, Jacques saw--this scene; and then the wedding -in the spring, and the tour through the parishes for days together, -lads and lasses journeying with them; and afterwards the new home with -a bigger stoop than any other in the village, with some old gnarled -crab-apple trees and lilac bushes, and four years of happiness, and a -little child that died; and all the time Jacques rising in the esteem -of Michelin the lumber-king, and sent on inspections, and to organise -camps; for weeks, sometimes for months, away from the house behind -the lilac bushes--and then the end of it all, sudden and crushing and -unredeemable. - -Jacques came back one night and found the house empty. Marcile had gone -to try her luck with another man. - -That was the end of the upward career of Jacques Grassette. He went -out upon a savage hunt which brought him no quarry, for the man and the -woman had disappeared as completely as though they had been swallowed -by the sea. And here, at last, he was waiting for the day when he must -settle a bill for a human life taken in passion and rage. - -His big frame seemed out of place in the small cell, and the watcher -sitting near him, to whom he had not addressed a word nor replied to a -question since the watching began, seemed an insignificant factor in the -scene. Never had a prisoner been more self-contained, or rejected -more completely all those ministrations of humanity which relieve the -horrible isolation of the condemned cell. Grassette's isolation was -complete. He lived in a dream, did what little there was to do in a dark -abstraction, and sat hour after hour, as he was sitting now, piercing, -with a brain at once benumbed to all outer things and afire with inward -things, those realms of memory which are infinite in a life of forty -years. - -"Sacre!" he muttered at last, and a shiver seemed to pass through him -from head to foot; then an ugly and evil oath fell from his lips, which -made his watcher shrink back appalled, for he also was a Catholic, and -had been chosen of purpose, in the hope that he might have an influence -on this revolted soul. It had, however, been of no use, and Grassette -had refused the advances and ministrations of the little good priest, -Father Laflamme, who had come from the coast of purpose to give him -the offices of the Church. Silent, obdurate, sullen, he had looked the -priest straight in the face and had said in broken English, "Non, I pay -my bill. Nom de diable, I will say my own Mass, light my own candle, go -my own way. I have too much." - -Now, as he sat glooming, after his outbreak of oaths, there came a -rattling noise at the door, the grinding of a key in the lock, the -shooting of bolts, and a face appeared at the little wicket in the door. -Then the door opened and the Sheriff stepped inside, accompanied by -a white-haired, stately old man. At sight of this second figure--the -Sheriff had come often before, and would come for one more doleful walk -with him--Grassette started. His face, which had never whitened in -all the dismal and terrorising doings of the capture and the trial and -sentence, though it had flushed with rage more than once, now turned -a little pale, for it seemed as if this old man had stepped out of the -visions which had just passed before his eyes. - -"His Honour, the Lieutenant-Governor, Sir Henri Robitaille, has come to -speak with you.... Stand up," the Sheriff added sharply, as Grassette -kept his seat. - -Grassette's face flushed with anger, for the prison had not broken his -spirits; then he got up slowly. "I not stand up for you," he growled at -the Sheriff; "I stand up for him." He jerked his head towards Sir Henri -Robitaille. This grand Seigneur, with Michelin, had believed in him in -those far-off days which he had just been seeing over again, and all his -boyhood and young manhood was rushing back on him. But now it was the -Governor who turned pale, seeing who the criminal was. - -"Jacques Grassette!" he cried in consternation and emotion, for under -another name the murderer had been tried and sentenced, nor had his -identity been established--the case was so clear, the defence had been -perfunctory, and Quebec was very far away. - -"M'sieu'!" was the respectful response, and Grassette's fingers -twitched. - -"It was my sister's son you killed, Grassette," said the Governor in a -low, strained voice. - -"Nom de Dieu!" said Grassette hoarsely. - -"I did not know, Grassette," the Governor went on "I did not know it was -you." - -"Why did you come, m'sieu'?" - -"Call him 'your Honour,"' said the Sheriff sharply. Grassette's -face hardened, and his look turned upon the Sheriff was savage and -forbidding. "I will speak as it please me. Who are you? What do I care? -To hang me--that is your business; but, for the rest, you spik to me -differen'. Who are you? Your father kep' a tavern for thieves, vous -savez bien!" It was true that the Sheriff's father had had no savoury -reputation in the West. - -The Governor turned his head away in pain and trouble, for the man's -rage was not a thing to see--and they both came from the little parish -of St. Francis, and had passed many an hour together. - -"Never mind, Grassette," he said gently. "Call me what you will. You've -got no feeling against me; and I can say with truth that I don't want -your life for the life you took." - -Grassette's breast heaved. "He put me out of my work, the man I kill. He -pass the word against me, he hunt me out of the mountains, he call--tete -de diable! he call me a name so bad. Everything swim in my head, and I -kill him." - -The Governor made a protesting gesture. "I understand. I am glad his -mother was dead. But do you not think how sudden it was? Now here, in -the thick of life, then, out there, beyond this world in the darkin -purgatory." - -The brave old man had accomplished what everyone else, priest, lawyer, -Sheriff and watcher, had failed to do: he had shaken Grassette out of -his blank isolation and obdurate unrepentance, had touched some chord of -recognisable humanity. - -"It is done--well, I pay for it," responded Grassette, setting his jaw. -"It is two deaths for me. Waiting and remembering, and then with the -Sheriff there the other--so quick, and all." - -The Governor looked at him for some moments without speaking. The -Sheriff intervened again officiously. - -"His Honour has come to say something important to you," he remarked -oracularly. - -"Hold you--does he need a Sheriff to tell him when to spik?" was -Grassette's surly comment. Then he turned to the Governor. "Let us speak -in French," he said in patois. "This rope-twister will not understan'. -He is no good--I spit at him." - -The Governor nodded, and, despite the Sheriff's protest, they spoke in -French, Grassette with his eyes intently fixed on the other, eagerly -listening. - -"I have come," said the Governor, "to say to you, Grassette, that you -have still a chance of life." - -He paused, and Grassette's face took on a look of bewilderment and vague -anxiety. A chance of life--what did it mean? - -"Reprieve?" he asked in a hoarse voice. - -The Governor shook his head. "Not yet; but there is a chance. Something -has happened. A man's life is in danger, or it may be he is dead; but -more likely he is alive. You took a life; perhaps you can save one now. -Keeley's Gulch--the mine there." - -"They have found it--gold?" asked Grassette, his eyes staring. He was -forgetting for a moment where and what he was. - -"He went to find it, the man whose life is in danger. He had heard from -a trapper who had been a miner once. While he was there, a landslip -came, and the opening to the mine was closed up--" - -"There were two ways in. Which one did he take?" cried Grassette. - -"The only one he could take, the only one he or anyone else knew. You -know the other way in--you only, they say." - -"I found it--the easier, quick way in; a year ago I found it." - -"Was it near the other entrance?" Grassette shook his head. "A mile -away." - -"If the man is alive--and we think he is--you are the only person that -can save him. I have telegraphed the Government. They do not promise, -but they will reprieve, and save your life, if you find the man." - -"Alive or dead?" - -"Alive or dead, for the act would be the same. I have an order to take -you to the Gulch, if you will go; and I am sure that you will have your -life, if you do it. I will promise--ah yes, Grassette, but it shall be -so! Public opinion will demand it. You will do it?" - -"To go free--altogether?" - -"Well, but if your life is saved, Grassette?" - -The dark face flushed, then grew almost repulsive again in its -sullenness. - -"Life--and this, in prison, shut in year after year. To do always what -some one else wills, to be a slave to a warder. To have men like -that over me that have been a boss of men--wasn't it that drove me to -kill?--to be treated like dirt. And to go on with this, while outside -there is free life, and to go where you will at your own price-no! What -do I care for life! What is it to me! To live like this--ah, I would -break my head against these stone walls, I would choke myself with my -own hands! If I stayed here, I would kill again, I would kill--kill." - -"Then to go free altogether--that would be the wish of all the world, -if you save this man's life, if it can be saved. Will you not take the -chance? We all have to die some time or other, Grassette, some sooner, -some later; and when you go, will you not want to take to God in your -hands a life saved for a life taken? Have you forgotten God, Grassette? -We used to remember Him in the Church of St. Francis down there at -home." - -There was a moment's silence, in which Grassette's head was thrust -forwards, his eyes staring into space. The old Seigneur had touched a -vulnerable corner in his nature. - -Presently he said in a low voice: "To be free altogether.... What is his -name? Who is he?" - -"His name is Bignold," the Governor answered. He turned to the Sheriff -inquiringly. "That is it, is it not?" he asked in English again. - -"James Tarran Bignold," answered the Sheriff. - -The effect of these words upon Grassette was remarkable. His body -appeared to stiffen, his face became rigid, he stared at the Governor -blankly, appalled, the colour left his face, and his mouth opened with -a curious and revolting grimace. The others drew back, startled, and -watched him. - -"Sang de Dieu!" he murmured at last, with a sudden gesture of misery and -rage. - -Then the Governor understood: he remembered that the name just given by -the Sheriff and himself was the name of the Englishman who had carried -off Grassette's wife years ago. He stepped forwards and was about to -speak, but changed his mind. He would leave it all to Grassette; he -would not let the Sheriff know the truth, unless Grassette himself -disclosed the situation. He looked at Grassette with a look of poignant -pity and interest combined. In his own placid life he had never had any -tragic happening, his blood had run coolly, his days had been blessed by -an urbane fate; such scenes as this were but a spectacle to him; there -was no answering chord of human suffering in his own breast, to make him -realise what Grassette was undergoing now; but he had read widely, he -had been an acute observer of the world and its happenings, and he had -a natural human sympathy which had made many a man and woman eternally -grateful to him. - -What would Grassette do? It was a problem which had no precedent, and -the solution would be a revelation of the human mind and heart. What -would the man do? - -"Well, what is all this, Grassette?" asked the Sheriff brusquely. His -official and officious intervention, behind which was the tyranny of -the little man, given a power which he was incapable of wielding wisely, -would have roused Grassette to a savage reply a half-hour before, but -now it was met by a contemptuous wave of the hand, and Grassette kept -his eyes fixed on the Governor. - -"James Tarran Bignold!" Grassette said harshly, with eyes that searched -the Governor's face; but they found no answering look there. The -Governor, then, did not remember that tragedy of his home and hearth, -and the man who had made of him an Ishmael. Still, Bignold had been -almost a stranger in the parish, and it was not curious if the Governor -had forgotten. - -"Bignold!" he repeated, but the Governor gave no response. - -"Yes, Bignold is his name, Grassette," said the Sheriff. "You took a -life, and now, if you save one, that'll balance things. As the Governor -says, there'll be a reprieve anyhow. It's pretty near the day, and this -isn't a bad world to kick in, so long as you kick with one leg on the -ground, and--" - -The Governor hastily intervened upon the Sheriff's brutal remarks. -"There is no time to be lost, Grassette. He has been ten days in the -mine." - -Grassette's was not a slow brain. For a man of such physical and bodily -bulk, he had more talents than are generally given. If his brain had -been slower, his hand also would have been slower to strike. But his -intelligence had been surcharged with hate these many years, and since -the day he had been deserted, it had ceased to control his actions--a -passionate and reckless wilfulness had governed it. But now, after -the first shock and stupefaction, it seemed to go back to where it was -before Marcile went from him, gather up the force and intelligence it -had then, and come forwards again to this supreme moment, with all that -life's harsh experiences had done for it, with the education that misery -and misdoing give. Revolutions are often the work of instants, not -years, and the crucial test and problem by which Grassette was now faced -had lifted him into a new atmosphere, with a new capacity alive in him. -A moment ago his eyes had been bloodshot and swimming with hatred and -passion; now they grew, almost suddenly, hard and lurking and quiet, -with a strange, penetrating force and inquiry in them. - -"Bignold--where does he come from? What is he?" he asked the Sheriff. - -"He is an Englishman; he's only been out here a few months. He's been -shooting and prospecting; but he's a better shooter than prospector. -He's a stranger; that's why all the folks out here want to save him if -it's possible. It's pretty hard dying in a strange land far away from -all that's yours. Maybe he's got a wife waiting for him over there." - -"Nom de Dieu!" said Grassette with suppressed malice, under his breath. - -"Maybe there's a wife waiting for him, and there's her to think of. The -West's hospitable, and this thing has taken hold of it; the West wants -to save this stranger, and it's waiting for you, Grassette, to do its -work for it, you being the only man that can do it, the only one -that knows the other secret way into Keeley's Gulch. Speak right out, -Grassette. It's your chance for life. Speak out quick." - -The last three words were uttered in the old slave-driving tone, though -the earlier part of the speech had been delivered oracularly, and had -brought again to Grassette's eyes the reddish, sullen look which had -made them, a little while before, like those of some wounded, angered -animal at bay; but it vanished slowly, and there was silence for a -moment. The Sheriff's words had left no vestige of doubt in Grassette's -mind. This Bignold was the man who had taken Marcile away, first to the -English province, then into the States, where he had lost track of them, -then over to England. Marcile--where was Marcile now? - -In Keeley's Gulch was the man who could tell him, the man who had ruined -his home and his life. Dead or alive, he was in Keeley's Gulch, the man -who knew where Marcile was; and if he knew where Marcile was, and if she -was alive, and he was outside these prison walls, what would he do to -her? And if he was outside these prison walls, and in the Gulch, and the -man was there alive before him, what would he do? - -Outside these prison walls-to be out there in the sun, where life would -be easier to give up, if it had to be given up! An hour ago he had been -drifting on a sea of apathy, and had had his fill of life. An hour ago -he had had but one desire, and that was to die fighting, and he had even -pictured to himself a struggle in this narrow cell where he would compel -them to kill him, and so in any case let him escape the rope. Now he was -suddenly brought face to face with the great central issue of his -life, and the end, whatever that end might be, could not be the same in -meaning, though it might be the same concretely. If he elected to let -things be, then Bignold would die out there in the Gulch, starved, -anguished, and alone. If he went, he could save his own life by saving -Bignold, if Bignold was alive; or he could go--and not save Bignold's -life or his own! What would he do? - -The Governor watched him with a face controlled to quietness, but with -an anxiety which made him pale in spite of himself. - -"What will you do, Grassette?" he said at last in a low voice, and with -a step forwards to him. "Will you not help to clear your conscience by -doing this thing? You don't want to try and spite the world by not -doing it. You can make a lot of your life yet, if you are set free. Give -yourself, and give the world a chance. You haven't used it right. Try -again." - -Grassette imagined that the Governor did not remember who Bignold was, -and that this was an appeal against his despair, and against revenging -himself on the community which had applauded his sentence. If he went -to the Gulch, no one would know or could suspect the true situation, -everyone would be unprepared for that moment when Bignold and he would -face each other--and all that would happen then. - -Where was Marcile? Only Bignold knew. Alive or dead? Only Bignold knew. - -"Bien, I will do it, m'sieu'," he said to the Governor. "I am to go -alone--eh?" - -The Sheriff shook his head. "No, two warders will go with you--and -myself." - -A strange look passed over Grassette's face. He seemed to hesitate for a -moment, then he said again: "Bon, I will go." - -"Then there is, of course, the doctor," said the Sheriff. - -"Bon," said Grassette. "What time is it?" "Twelve o'clock," answered the -Sheriff, and made a motion to the warder to open the door of the cell. - -"By sundown!" Grassette said, and he turned with a determined gesture to -leave the cell. - -At the gate of the prison, a fresh, sweet air caught his face. -Involuntarily he drew in a great draught of it, and his eyes seemed -to gaze out, almost wonderingly, over the grass and the trees to -the boundless horizon. Then he became aware of the shouts of the -crowd--shouts of welcome. This same crowd had greeted him with shouts of -execration when he had left the Court House after his sentence. He -stood still for a moment and looked at them, as it were only half -comprehending that they were cheering him now, and that voices were -saying, "Bravo, Grassette! Save him, and we'll save you." - -Cheer upon cheer, but he took no notice. He walked like one in a dream, -a long, strong step. He turned neither to left nor right, not even when -the friendly voice of one who had worked with him bade him: "Cheer up, -and do the trick." He was busy working out a problem which no one but -himself could solve. He was only half conscious of his surroundings; he -was moving in a kind of detached world of his own, where the warders -and the Sheriff and those who followed were almost abstract and unreal -figures. He was living with a past which had been everlasting distant, -and had now become a vivid and buffeting present. He returned no answers -to the questions addressed to him, and would not talk, save when for a -little while they dismounted from their horses, and sat under the -shade of a great ash-tree for a few moments, and snatched a mouthful of -luncheon. Then he spoke a little and asked some questions, but lapsed -into a moody silence afterwards. His life and nature were being passed -through a fiery crucible. In all the years that had gone, he had had -an ungovernable desire to kill both Bignold and Marcile if he ever met -them, a primitive, savage desire to blot them out of life and being. His -fingers had ached for Marcile's neck, that neck in which he had lain his -face so often in the transient, unforgettable days of their happiness. -If she was alive now--if she was still alive! Her story was hidden there -in Keeley's Gulch with Bignold, and he was galloping hard to reach his -foe. As he went, by some strange alchemy of human experience, by that -new birth of his brain, the world seemed different from what it had ever -been before, at least since the day when he had found an empty home and -a shamed hearthstone. He got a new feeling toward it, and life appealed -to him as a thing that might have been so well worth living. But -since that was not to be, then he would see what he could do to get -compensation for all that he had lost, to take toll for the thing that -had spoiled him, and given him a savage nature and a raging temper, -which had driven him at last to kill a man who, in no real sense, had -injured him. - -Mile after mile they journeyed, a troop of interested people coming -after, the sun and the clear sweet air, the waving grass, the occasional -clearings where settlers had driven in the tent-pegs of home, the forest -now and then swallowing them, the mountains rising above them like a -blank wall, and then suddenly opening out before them; and the rustle -and scamper of squirrels and coyotes; and over their heads the whistle -of birds, the slow beat of wings of great wild-fowl. The tender sap of -youth was in this glowing and alert new world, and, by sudden contrast -with the prison walls which he had just left behind, the earth seemed -recreated, unfamiliar, compelling and companionable. Strange that in all -the years that had been since he had gone back to his abandoned home to -find Marcile gone, the world had had no beauty, no lure for him. In -the splendour of it all, he had only raged and stormed, hating his -fellowman, waiting, however hopelessly, for the day when he should see -Marcile and the man who had taken her from him. And yet now, under the -degradation of his crime and its penalty, and the unmanning influence of -being the helpless victim of the iron power of the law, rigid, ugly and -demoralising--now with the solution of his life's great problem here -before him in the hills, with the man for whom he had waited so long -caverned in the earth, but a hand-reach away, as it were, his wrongs had -taken a new manifestation in him, and the thing that kept crying out in -him every moment was, Where is Marcile? - -It was four o'clock when they reached the pass which only Grassette -knew, the secret way into the Gulch. There was two hours' walking -through the thick, primeval woods, where few had ever been, except the -ancient tribes which had once lorded it here; then came a sudden drop -into the earth, a short travel through a dim cave, and afterward a sheer -wall of stone enclosing a ravine where the rocks on either side nearly -met overhead. - -Here Grassette gave the signal to shout aloud, and the voice of the -Sheriff called out: "Hello, Bignold! - -"Hello! Hello, Bignold! Are you there?--Hello!" His voice rang out clear -and piercing, and then came a silence-a long, anxious silence. Again the -voice rang out: "Hello! Hello-o-o! Bignold! Bigno-o-ld!" - -They strained their ears. Grassette was flat on the ground, his ear -to the earth. Suddenly he got to his feet, his face set, his eyes -glittering. - -"He is there beyon'--I hear him," he said, pointing farther down the -Gulch. "Water--he is near it." - -"We heard nothing," said the Sheriff, "not a sound." "I hear ver' good. -He is alive. I hear him--so," responded Grassette; and his face had a -strange, fixed look which the others interpreted to be agitation at the -thought that he had saved his own life by finding Bignold--and alive; -which would put his own salvation beyond doubt. - -He broke away from them and hurried down the Gulch. The others followed -hard after, the Sheriff and the warders close behind; but he outstripped -them. - -Suddenly he stopped and stood still, looking at something on the ground. -They saw him lean forwards and his hands stretch out with a fierce -gesture. It was the attitude of a wild animal ready to spring. - -They were beside him in an instant, and saw at his feet Bignold worn to -a skeleton, with eyes starting from his head, and fixed on Grassette in -agony and stark fear. - -The Sheriff stooped to lift Bignold up, but Grassette waved them back -with a fierce gesture, standing over the dying man. - -"He spoil my home. He break me--I have my bill to settle here," he said -in a voice hoarse and harsh. "It is so? It is so--eh? Spik!" he said to -Bignold. - -"Yes," came feebly from the shrivelled lips. "Water! Water!" the -wretched man gasped. "I'm dying!" - -A sudden change came over Grassette. "Water--queeck!" he said. - -The Sheriff stooped and held a hatful of water to Bignold's lips, while -another poured brandy from a flask into the water. - -Grassette watched them eagerly. When the dying man had swallowed a -little of the spirit and water, Grassette leaned over him again, and -the others drew away. They realised that these two men had an account to -settle, and there was no need for Grassette to take revenge, for Bignold -was going fast. - -"You stan' far back," said Grassette, and they fell away. - -Then he stooped down to the sunken, ashen face, over which death was -fast drawing its veil. "Marcile--where is Marcile?" he asked. - -The dying man's lips opened. "God forgive me--God save my soul!" he -whispered. He was not concerned for Grassette now. - -"Queeck-queeck, where is Marcile?" Grassette said sharply. "Come back, -Bignold. Listen--where is Marcile?" - -He strained to hear the answer. Bignold was going, but his eyes opened -again, however, for this call seemed to pierce to his soul as it -struggled to be free. - -"Ten years--since--I saw her," he whispered. "Good girl--Marcile. She -loves you, but she--is afraid." He tried to say something more, but his -tongue refused its office. - -"Where is she-spik!" commanded Grassette in a tone of pleading and agony -now. - -Once more the flying spirit came back. A hand made a motion towards his -pocket, then lay still. - -Grassette felt hastily in the dead man's pocket, drew forth a letter, -and with half-blinded eyes read the few lines it contained. It was dated -from a hospital in New York, and was signed: "Nurse Marcile." - -With a moan of relief Grassette stood staring at the dead man. When the -others came to him again, his lips were moving, but they did not hear -what he was saying. They took up the body and moved away with it up the -ravine. - -"It's all right, Grassette. You'll be a freeman," said the Sheriff. - -Grassette did not answer. He was thinking how long it would take him to -get to Marcile, when he was free. - -He had a true vision of beginning life again with Marcile. - - - - -A MAN, A FAMINE, AND A HEATHEN BOY - -Athabasca in the Far North is the scene of this story--Athabasca, one -of the most beautiful countries in the world in summer, but a cold, bare -land in winter. Yet even in winter it is not so bleak and bitter as the -districts south-west of it, for the Chinook winds steal through from the -Pacific and temper the fierceness of the frozen Rockies. Yet forty and -fifty degrees below zero is cold after all, and July strawberries in -this wild North land are hardly compensation for seven months of ice and -snow, no matter how clear and blue the sky, how sweet the sun during its -short journey in the day. Some days, too, the sun may not be seen even -when there is no storm, because of the fine, white, powdered frost in -the air. - -A day like this is called a poudre day; and woe to the man who tempts it -unthinkingly, because the light makes the delicate mist of frost shine -like silver. For that powder bites the skin white in short order, and -sometimes reckless men lose ears, or noses, or hands under its sharp -caress. But when it really storms in that Far North, then neither man -nor beast should be abroad--not even the Eskimo dogs; though times and -seasons can scarcely be chosen when travelling in Athabasca, for a storm -comes unawares. Upon the plains you will see a cloud arising, not in the -sky, but from the ground--a billowy surf of drifting snow; then another -white billow from the sky will sweep down and meet it, and you are -caught between. - -He who went to Athabasca to live a generation ago had to ask himself if -the long winter, spent chiefly indoors, with, maybe, a little trading -with the Indians, meagre sport, and scant sun, savages and half-breeds -the only companions, and out of all touch with the outside world, -letters coming but once a year; with frozen fish and meat, always -the same, as the staple items in a primitive fare; with danger from -starvation and marauding tribes; with endless monotony, in which men -sometimes go mad--he had to ask himself if these were to be cheerfully -endured because, in the short summer, the air is heavenly, the rivers -and lakes are full of fish, the flotilla of canoes of the fur-hunters is -pouring down, and all is gaiety and pleasant turmoil; because there is -good shooting in the autumn, and the smell of the land is like a garden, -and hardy fruits and flowers are at hand. - -That is a question which was asked William Rufus Holly once upon a time. - -William Rufus Holly, often called "Averdoopoy," sometimes "Sleeping -Beauty," always Billy Rufus, had had a good education. He had been to -high school and to college, and he had taken one or two prizes en route -to graduation; but no fame travelled with him, save that he was the -laziest man of any college year for a decade. He loved his little -porringer, which is to say that he ate a good deal; and he loved to read -books, which is not to say that he loved study; he hated getting out of -bed, and he was constantly gated for morning chapel. More than once he -had sweetly gone to sleep over his examination papers. This is not -to say that he failed at his examinations--on the contrary, he always -succeeded; but he only did enough to pass and no more; and he did -not wish to do more than pass. His going to sleep at examinations -was evidence that he was either indifferent or self-indulgent, and it -certainly showed that he was without nervousness. He invariably roused -himself, or his professor roused him, a half-hour before the papers -should be handed in, and, as it were by a mathematical calculation, he -had always done just enough to prevent him being plucked. - -He slept at lectures, he slept in hall, he slept as he waited his turn -to go to the wicket in a cricket match, and he invariably went to sleep -afterwards. He even did so on the day he had made the biggest score, -in the biggest game ever played between his college and the pick of the -country; but he first gorged himself with cake and tea. The day he took -his degree he had to be dragged from a huge grandfather's chair, and -forced along in his ragged gown--"ten holes and twelve tatters"--to the -function in the convocation hall. He looked so fat and shiny, so balmy -and sleepy when he took his degree and was handed his prize for a poem -on Sir John Franklin, that the public laughed, and the college men in -the gallery began singing: - - "Bye O, my baby, - Father will come to you soo-oon!" - -He seemed not to care, but yawned in his hand as he put his prize book -under his arm through one of the holes in his gown, and in two minutes -was back in his room, and in another five was fast asleep. - -It was the general opinion that William Rufus Holly, fat, yellow-haired, -and twenty-four years old, was doomed to failure in life, in spite of -the fact that he had a little income of a thousand dollars a year, and -had made a century in an important game of cricket. Great, therefore, -was the surprise of the college, and afterward of the Province, when, at -the farewell dinner of the graduates, Sleeping Beauty announced, between -his little open-eyed naps, that he was going Far North as a missionary. - -At first it was thought he was joking, but when at last, in his calm and -dreamy look, they saw he meant what he said, they rose and carried him -round the room on a chair, making impromptu songs as they travelled. -They toasted Billy Rufus again and again, some of them laughing till -they cried at the thought of Averdoopoy going to the Arctic regions. But -an uneasy seriousness fell upon these "beautiful, bountiful, brilliant -boys," as Holly called them later, when in a simple, honest, but -indolent speech he said he had applied for ordination. - -Six months later William Rufus Holly, a deacon in holy orders, journeyed -to Athabasca in the Far North. On his long journey there was plenty of -time to think. He was embarked on a career which must for ever keep him -in the wilds; for very seldom indeed does a missionary of the North ever -return to the crowded cities or take a permanent part in civilised life. - -What the loneliness of it would be he began to feel, as for hours and -hours he saw no human being on the plains; in the thrilling stillness -of the night; in fierce storms in the woods, when his half-breed guides -bent their heads to meet the wind and rain, and did not speak for hours; -in the long, adventurous journey on the river by day, in the cry of the -plaintive loon at night; in the scant food for every meal. Yet what the -pleasure would be he felt in the joyous air, the exquisite sunshine, the -flocks of wild-fowl flying North, honking on their course; in the song -of the half-breeds as they ran the rapids. Of course, he did not -think these things quite as they are written here--all at once and all -together; but in little pieces from time to time, feeling them rather -than saying them to himself. - -At least he did understand how serious a thing it was, his going as a -missionary into the Far North. Why did he do it? Was it a whim, or the -excited imagination of youth, or that prompting which the young often -have to make the world better? Or was it a fine spirit of adventure with -a good heart behind it? Perhaps it was a little of all these; but there -was also something more, and it was to his credit. - -Lazy as William Rufus Holly had been at school and college, he had -still thought a good deal, even when he seemed only sleeping; perhaps -he thought more because he slept so much, because he studied little and -read a great deal. He always knew what everybody thought--that he would -never do anything but play cricket till he got too heavy to run, and -then would sink into a slothful, fat, and useless middle and old age; -that his life would be a failure. And he knew that they were right; that -if he stayed where he could live an easy life, a fat and easy life he -would lead; that in a few years he would be good for nothing except to -eat and sleep--no more. One day, waking suddenly from a bad dream of -himself so fat as to be drawn about on a dray by monstrous fat oxen with -rings through their noses, led by monkeys, he began to wonder what he -should do--the hardest thing to do; for only the hardest life could -possibly save him from failure, and, in spite of all, he really did want -to make something of his life. He had been reading the story of Sir John -Franklin's Arctic expedition, and all at once it came home to him that -the only thing for him to do was to go to the Far North and stay there, -coming back about once every ten years to tell the people in the cities -what was being done in the wilds. Then there came the inspiration to -write his poem on Sir John Franklin, and he had done so, winning the -college prize for poetry. But no one had seen any change in him in those -months; and, indeed, there had been little or no change, for he had -an equable and practical, though imaginative, disposition, despite -his avoirdupois, and his new purpose did not stir him yet from his -comfortable sloth. - -And in all the journey West and North he had not been stirred greatly -from his ease of body, for the journey was not much harder than playing -cricket every day, and there were only the thrill of the beautiful air, -the new people, and the new scenes to rouse him. As yet there was no -great responsibility. He scarcely realised what his life must be, until -one particular day. Then Sleeping Beauty waked wide up, and from that -day lost the name. Till then he had looked and borne himself like any -other traveller, unrecognised as a parson or "mikonaree." He had not had -prayers in camp en route, he had not preached, he had held no meetings. -He was as yet William Rufus Holly, the cricketer, the laziest dreamer -of a college decade. His religion was simple and practical; he had never -had any morbid ideas; he had lived a healthy, natural, and honourable -life, until he went for a mikonaree, and if he had no cant, he had not -a clear idea of how many-sided, how responsible, his life must be--until -that one particular day. This is what happened then. - -From Fort O'Call, an abandoned post of the Hudson's Bay Company on -the Peace River, nearly the whole tribe of the Athabasca Indians in -possession of the post now had come up the river, with their chief, -Knife-in-the-Wind, to meet the mikonaree. Factors of the Hudson's Bay -Company, coureurs de bois, and voyageurs had come among them at times, -and once the renowned Father Lacombe, the Jesuit priest, had stayed -with them three months; but never to this day had they seen a Protestant -mikonaree, though once a factor, noted for his furious temper, his -powers of running, and his generosity, had preached to them. These men, -however, were both over fifty years old. The Athabascas did not hunger -for the Christian religion, but a courier from Edmonton had brought them -word that a mikonaree was coming to their country to stay, and they put -off their stoical manner and allowed themselves the luxury of curiosity. -That was why even the squaws and papooses came up the river with the -braves, all wondering if the stranger had brought gifts with him, all -eager for their shares; for it had been said by the courier of the tribe -that "Oshondonto," their name for the newcomer, was bringing mysterious -loads of well-wrapped bales and skins. Upon a point below the first -rapids of the Little Manitou they waited with their camp-fires burning -and their pipe of peace. - -When the canoes bearing Oshondonto and his voyageurs shot the rapids to -the song of the river, - - "En roulant, ma boule roulant, - En roulant, ma boule!" - -with the shrill voices of the boatmen rising to meet the cry of the -startled water-fowl, the Athabascas crowded to the high banks. They -grunted "How!" in greeting, as the foremost canoe made for the shore. - -But if surprise could have changed the countenances of Indians, these -Athabascas would not have known one another when the missionary stepped -out upon the shore. They had looked to see a grey-bearded man like -the chief factor who quarrelled and prayed; but they found instead a -round-faced, clean-shaven youth, with big, good-natured eyes, yellow -hair, and a roundness of body like that of a month-old bear's cub. They -expected to find a man who, like the factor, could speak their language, -and they found a cherub sort of youth who talked only English, French, -and Chinook--that common language of the North--and a few words of their -own language which he had learned on the way. - -Besides, Oshondonto was so absent-minded at the moment, so absorbed in -admiration of the garish scene before him, that he addressed the chief -in French, of which Knife-in-the-Wind knew but the one word cache, which -all the North knows. - -But presently William Rufus Holly recovered himself, and in stumbling -Chinook made himself understood. Opening a bale, he brought out beads -and tobacco and some bright red flannel, and two hundred Indians sat -round him and grunted "How!" and received his gifts with little comment. -Then the pipe of peace went round, and Oshondonto smoked it becomingly. - -But he saw that the Indians despised him for his youth, his fatness, his -yellow hair as soft as a girl's, his cherub face, browned though it was -by the sun and weather. - -As he handed the pipe to Knife-in-the-Wind, an Indian called Silver -Tassel, with a cruel face, said grimly: - -"Why does Oshondonto travel to us?" - -William Rufus Holly's eyes steadied on those of the Indian as he -replied in Chinook: "To teach the way to Manitou the Mighty, to tell the -Athabascas of the Great Chief who died to save the world." - -"The story is told in many ways; which is right? There was the factor, -Word of Thunder. There is the song they sing at Edmonton--I have heard." - -"The Great Chief is the same Chief," answered the missionary. "If you -tell of Fort O'Call, and Knife-in-the-Wind tells of Fort O'Call, he and -you will speak different words, and one will put in one thing and one -will leave out another; men's tongues are different. But Fort O'Call is -the-same, and the Great Chief is the same." - -"It was a long time ago," said Knife-in-the-Wind sourly, "many thousand -moons, as the pebbles in the river, the years." - -"It is the same world, and it is the same Chief, and it was to save us," -answered William Rufus Holly, smiling, yet with a fluttering heart, for -the first test of his life had come. - -In anger Knife-in-the-Wind thrust an arrow into the ground and said: - -"How can the white man who died thousands of moons ago in a far country -save the red man to-day?" - -"A strong man should bear so weak a tale," broke in Silver Tassel -ruthlessly. "Are we children that the Great Chief sends a child as -messenger?" - -For a moment Billy Rufus did not know how to reply, and in the pause -Knife-in-the-Wind broke in two pieces the arrow he had thrust in the -ground in token of displeasure. - -Suddenly, as Oshondonto was about to speak, Silver Tassel sprang to -his feet, seized in his arms a lad of twelve who was standing near, and -running to the bank, dropped him into the swift current. - -"If Oshondonto be not a child, let him save the lad," said Silver -Tassel, standing on the brink. - -Instantly William Rufus Holly was on his feet. His coat was off before -Silver Tassel's words were out of his mouth, and crying, "In the name of -the Great White Chief!" he jumped into the rushing current. "In the name -of your Manitou, come on, Silver Tassel!" he called up from the water, -and struck out for the lad. - -Not pausing an instant, Silver Tassel sprang into the flood, into the -whirling eddies and dangerous current below the first rapids and above -the second. - -Then came the struggle for Wingo of the Cree tribe, a waif among -the Athabascas, whose father had been slain as they travelled, by a -wandering tribe of Blackfeet. Never was there a braver rivalry, although -the odds were with the Indian-in lightness, in brutal strength. With -the mikonaree, however, were skill, and that sort of strength which -the world calls "moral," the strength of a good and desperate purpose. -Oshondonto knew that on the issue of this shameless business--this cruel -sport of Silver Tassel--would depend his future on the Peace River. As -he shot forward with strong strokes in the whirling torrent after the -helpless lad, who, only able to keep himself afloat, was being swept -down towards the rapids below, he glanced up to the bank along which the -Athabascas were running. He saw the garish colours of their dresses; -he saw the ignorant medicine man, with his mysterious bag, making -incantations; he saw the tepee of the chief, with its barbarous pennant -above; he saw the idle, naked children tearing at the entrails of -a calf; and he realised that this was a deadly tournament between -civilisation and barbarism. - -Silver Tassel was gaining on him, they were both overhauling the boy; it -was now to see which should reach Wingo first, which should take him to -shore. That is, if both were not carried under before they reached him; -that is, if, having reached him, they and he would ever get to shore; -for, lower down, before it reached the rapids, the current ran horribly -smooth and strong, and here and there were jagged rocks just beneath the -surface. - -Still Silver Tassel gained on him, as they both gained on the boy. -Oshondonto swam strong and hard, but he swam with his eye on the -struggle for the shore also; he was not putting forth his utmost -strength, for he knew it would be bitterly needed, perhaps to save his -own life by a last effort. - -Silver Tassel passed him when they were about fifty feet from the boy. -Shooting by on his side, with a long stroke and the plunge of his body -like a projectile, the dark face with the long black hair plastering it -turned towards his own, in fierce triumph Silver Tassel cried "How!" in -derision. - -Billy Rufus set his teeth and lay down to his work like a sportsman. His -face had lost its roses, and it was set and determined, but there was no -look of fear upon it, nor did his heart sink when a cry of triumph went -up from the crowd on the banks. The white man knew by old experience in -the cricket-field and in many a boat-race that it is well not to -halloo till you are out of the woods. His mettle was up, he was not the -Reverend William Rufus Holly, missionary, but Billy Rufus, the champion -cricketer, the sportsman playing a long game. - -Silver Tassel reached the boy, who was bruised and bleeding and at his -last gasp, and throwing an arm round him, struck out for the shore. The -current was very strong, and he battled fiercely as Billy Rufus, not far -above, moved down toward them at an angle. For a few yards Silver Tassel -was going strong, then his pace slackened, he seemed to sink lower in -the water, and his stroke became splashing and irregular. Suddenly he -struck a rock, which bruised him badly, and, swerving from his course, -he lost his stroke and let go the boy. - -By this time the mikonaree had swept beyond them, and he caught the -boy by his long hair as he was being swept below. Striking out for the -shore, he swam with bold, strong strokes, his judgment guiding him well -past rocks beneath the surface. Ten feet from shore he heard a cry of -alarm from above. It concerned Silver Tassel, he knew, but he could not -look round yet. - -In another moment the boy was dragged up the bank by strong hands, and -Billy Rufus swung round in the water towards Silver Tassel, who, in his -confused energy, had struck another rock, and, exhausted now, was being -swept towards the rapids. Silver Tassel's shoulder scarcely showed, his -strength was gone. In a flash Billy Rufus saw there was but one thing to -do. He must run the rapids with Silver Tassel-there was no other way. It -would be a fight through the jaws of death; but no Indian's eyes had a -better sense for river-life than William Rufus Holly's. - -How he reached Silver Tassel, and drew the Indian's arm over his own -shoulder; how they drove down into the boiling flood; how Billy Rufus's -fat body was battered and torn and ran red with blood from twenty flesh -wounds; but how by luck beyond the telling he brought Silver Tassel -through safely into the quiet water a quarter of a mile below the -rapids, and was hauled out, both more dead than alive, is a tale still -told by the Athabascas around their camp-fire. The rapids are known -to-day as the Mikonaree Rapids. - -The end of this beginning of the young man's career was that Silver -Tassel gave him the word of eternal friendship, Knife-in-the-Wind took -him into the tribe, and the boy Wingo became his very own, to share his -home, and his travels, no longer a waif among the Athabascas. - -After three days' feasting, at the end of which the missionary held his -first service and preached his first sermon, to the accompaniment of -grunts of satisfaction from the whole tribe of Athabascas, William Rufus -Holly began his work in the Far North. - -The journey to Fort O'Call was a procession of triumph, for, as it was -summer, there was plenty of food, the missionary had been a success, and -he had distributed many gifts of beads and flannel. - -All went well for many moons, although converts were uncertain and -baptisms few, and the work was hard and the loneliness at times -terrible. But at last came dark days. - -One summer and autumn there had been poor fishing and shooting, the -caches of meat were fewer on the plains, and almost nothing had come -up to Fort O'Call from Edmonton, far below. The yearly supplies for the -missionary, paid for out of his private income--the bacon, beans, tea, -coffee and flour--had been raided by a band of hostile Indians, and he -viewed with deep concern the progress of the severe winter. Although -three years of hard, frugal life had made his muscles like iron, they -had only mellowed his temper, increased his flesh and rounded his face; -nor did he look an hour older than on the day when he had won Wingo for -his willing slave and devoted friend. - -He never resented the frequent ingratitude of the Indians; he said -little when they quarrelled over the small comforts his little income -brought them yearly from the South. He had been doctor, lawyer, judge -among them, although he interfered little in the larger disputes, and -was forced to shut his eyes to intertribal enmities. He had no deep -faith that he could quite civilise them; he knew that their conversion -was only on the surface, and he fell back on his personal influence with -them. By this he could check even the excesses of the worst man in the -tribe, his old enemy, Silver Tassel of the bad heart, who yet was ready -always to give a tooth for a tooth, and accepted the fact that he owed -Oshondonto his life. - -When famine crawled across the plains to the doors of the settlement and -housed itself at Fort O'Call, Silver Tassel acted badly, however, and -sowed fault-finding among the thoughtless of the tribe. - -"What manner of Great Spirit is it who lets the food of his chief -Oshondonto fall into the hands of the Blackfeet?" he said. "Oshondonto -says the Great Spirit hears. What has the Great Spirit to say? Let -Oshondonto ask." - -Again, when they all were hungrier, he went among them with complaining -words. "If the white man's Great Spirit can do all things, let him give -Oshondonto and the Athabascas food." - -The missionary did not know of Silver Tassel's foolish words, but he saw -the downcast face of Knife-in-the-Wind, the sullen looks of the people; -and he unpacked the box he had reserved jealously for the darkest days -that might come. For meal after meal he divided these delicacies among -them--morsels of biscuit, and tinned meats, and dried fruits. But his -eyes meanwhile were turned again and again to the storm raging without, -as it had raged for this the longest week he had ever spent. If it would -but slacken, a boat could go out to the nets set in the lake near by -some days before, when the sun of spring had melted the ice. From the -hour the nets had been set the storm had raged. On the day when the last -morsel of meat and biscuit had been given away the storm had not abated, -and he saw with misgiving the gloomy, stolid faces of the Indians round -him. One man, two children, and three women had died in a fortnight. -He dreaded to think what might happen, his heart ached at the looks of -gaunt suffering in the faces of all; he saw, for the first time, how -black and bitter Knife-in-the-Wind looked as Silver Tassel whispered to -him. - -With the colour all gone from his cheeks, he left the post and made his -way to the edge of the lake where his canoe was kept. Making it ready -for the launch, he came back to the Fort. Assembling the Indians, -who had watched his movements closely, he told them that he was going -through the storm to the nets on the lake, and asked for a volunteer to -go with him. - -No one replied. He pleaded-for the sake of the women and children. - -Then Knife-in-the-Wind spoke. "Oshondonto will die if he goes. It is a -fool's journey--does the wolverine walk into an empty trap?" - -Billy Rufus spoke passionately now. His genial spirit fled; he -reproached them. - -Silver Tassel spoke up loudly. "Let Oshondonto's Great Spirit carry him -to the nets alone, and back again with fish for the heathen the Great -Chief died to save." - -"You have a wicked heart, Silver Tassel. You know well that one man -can't handle the boat and the nets also. Is there no one of you--?" - -A figure shot forwards from a corner. "I will go with Oshondonto," came -the voice of Wingo, the waif of the Crees. - -The eye of the mikonaree flashed round in contempt on the tribe. Then -suddenly it softened, and he said to the lad: "We will go together, -Wingo." - -Taking the boy by the hand, he ran with him through the rough wind to -the shore, launched the canoe on the tossing lake, and paddled away -through the tempest. - -The bitter winds of an angry spring, the sleet and wet snow of a belated -winter, the floating blocks of ice crushing against the side of the -boat, the black water swishing over man and boy, the harsh, inclement -world near and far.... The passage made at last to the nets; the brave -Wingo steadying the canoe--a skilful hand sufficing where the strength -of a Samson would not have availed; the nets half full, and the breaking -cry of joy from the lips of the waif-a cry that pierced the storm and -brought back an answering cry from the crowd of Indians on the far -shore... The quarter-hour of danger in the tossing canoe; the nets too -heavy to be dragged, and fastened to the thwarts instead; the canoe -going shoreward jerkily, a cork on the waves with an anchor behind; -heavier seas and winds roaring down on them as they slowly near the -shore; and at last, in one awful moment, the canoe upset, and the man -and the boy in the water. ... Then both clinging to the upturned canoe -as it is driven nearer and nearer shore.... The boy washed off once, -twice, and the man with his arm round clinging-clinging, as the -shrieking storm answers to the calling of the Athabascas on the shore, -and drives craft and fish and man and boy down upon the banks; no savage -bold enough to plunge in to their rescue. ... At last a rope thrown, a -drowning man's wrists wound round it, his teeth set in it--and now, at -last, a man and a heathen boy, both insensible, being carried to the -mikonaree's but and laid upon two beds, one on either side of the small -room, as the red sun goes slowly down. ... The two still bodies on -bearskins in the hut, and a hundred superstitious Indians flying from -the face of death.... The two alone in the light of the flickering fire; -the many gone to feast on fish, the price of lives. - -But the price was not yet paid, for the man waked from -insensibility--waked to see himself with the body of the boy beside him -in the red light of the fires. - -For a moment his heart stopped beating, he turned sick and faint. -Deserted by those for whom he risked his life!... How long had he lain -there? What time was it? When was it that he had fought his way to the -nets and back again-hours maybe? And the dead boy there, Wingo, who had -risked his life, also dead--how long? His heart leaped--ah! not -hours, only minutes maybe. It was sundown as unconsciousness came on -him--Indians would not stay with the dead after sundown. Maybe it was -only ten minutes-five minutes--one minute ago since they left him!... - -His watch! Shaking fingers drew it out, wild eyes scanned it. It was -not stopped. Then it could have only been minutes ago. Trembling to his -feet, he staggered over to Wingo, he felt the body, he held a mirror to -the lips. Yes, surely there was light moisture on the glass. - -Then began another fight with death--William Rufus Holly struggling to -bring to life again Wingo, the waif of the Crees. - -The blood came back to his own heart with a rush as the mad desire to -save this life came on him. He talked to the dumb face, he prayed in -a kind of delirium, as he moved the arms up and down, as he tilted the -body, as he rubbed, chafed and strove. He forgot he was a missionary, -he almost cursed himself. "For them--for cowards, I risked his life, the -brave lad with no home. Oh, God! give him back to me!" he sobbed. "What -right had I to risk his life for theirs? I should have shot the first -man that refused to go.... Wingo, speak! Wake up! Come back!" - -The sweat poured from him in his desperation and weakness. He said to -himself that he had put this young life into the hazard without -cause. Had he, then, saved the lad from the rapids and Silver Tassel's -brutality only to have him drag fish out of the jaws of death for Silver -Tassel's meal? - -It seemed to him that he had been working for hours, though it was -in fact only a short time, when the eyes of the lad slowly opened and -closed again, and he began to breathe spasmodically. A cry of joy came -from the lips of the missionary, and he worked harder still. At last -the eyes opened wide, stayed open, saw the figure bent over him, and the -lips whispered, "Oshondonto--my master," as a cup of brandy was held to -his lips. - -He had conquered the Athabascas for ever. Even Silver Tassel -acknowledged his power, and he as industriously spread abroad the -report that the mikonaree had raised Wingo from the dead, as he had sown -dissension during the famine. But the result was that the missionary -had power in the land, and the belief in him was so great, that, when -Knife-in-the-Wind died, the tribe came to ask him to raise their chief -from the dead. They never quite believed that he could not--not even -Silver Tassel, who now rules the Athabascas and is ruled by William -Rufus Holly: which is a very good thing for the Athabascas. - -Billy Rufus the cricketer had won the game, and somehow the Reverend -William Rufus Holly the missionary never repented the strong language -he used against the Athabascas, as he was bringing Wingo back to life, -though it was not what is called "strictly canonical." - - - - -THE HEALING SPRINGS AND THE PIONEERS - -He came out of the mysterious South one summer day, driving before him a -few sheep, a cow, and a long-eared mule which carried his tent and other -necessaries, and camped outside the town on a knoll, at the base of -which was a thicket of close shrub. During the first day no one in -Jansen thought anything of it, for it was a land of pilgrimage, and -hundreds came and went on their journeys in search of free homesteads -and good water and pasturage. But when, after three days, he was -still there, Nicolle Terasse, who had little to do, and an insatiable -curiosity, went out to see him. He found a new sensation for Jansen. -This is what he said when he came back: - -"You want know 'bout him, bagosh! Dat is somet'ing to see, dat -man--Ingles is his name. Sooch hair--mooch long an' brown, and a leetla -beard not so brown, an' a leather sole onto his feet, and a grey coat to -his ankles--yes, so like dat. An' his voice--voila, it is like water in -a cave. He is a great man--I dunno not; but he spik at me like dis, 'Is -dere sick, and cripple, and stay in-bed people here dat can't get up?' -he say. An' I say, 'Not plenty, but some-bagosh! Dere is dat Miss Greet, -an' ole Ma'am Drouchy, an' dat young Pete Hayes--an' so on.' 'Well, -if they have faith I will heal them,' he spik at me. 'From de Healing -Springs dey shall rise to walk,' he say. Bagosh, you not t'ink dat true? -Den you go see." - -So Jansen turned out to see, and besides the man they found a curious -thing. At the foot of the knoll, in a space which he had cleared, was -a hot spring that bubbled and rose and sank, and drained away into the -thirsty ground. Luck had been with Ingles the Faith Healer. Whether he -knew of the existence of this spring, or whether he chanced upon it, he -did not say; but while he held Jansen in the palm of his hand, in the -feverish days that followed, there were many who attached mysterious -significance to it, who claimed for it supernatural origin. In any case, -the one man who had known of the existence of this spring was far away -from Jansen, and he did not return till a day of reckoning came for the -Faith Healer. - -Meanwhile Jansen made pilgrimage to the Springs of Healing, and at -unexpected times Ingles suddenly appeared in the town, and stood at -street corners; and in his "Patmian voice," as Flood Rawley the lawyer -called it, warned the people to flee their sins, and purifying their -hearts, learn to cure all ills of mind and body, the weaknesses of the -sinful flesh and the "ancient evil" in their souls, by faith that saves. - -"'Is not the life more than meat'" he asked them. "And if, peradventure, -there be those among you who have true belief in hearts all purged of -evil, and yet are maimed, or sick of body, come to me, and I will lay my -hands upon you, and I will heal you." Thus he cried. - -There were those so wrought upon by his strange eloquence and spiritual -passion, so hypnotised by his physical and mental exaltation, that they -rose up from the hand-laying and the prayer eased of their ailments. -Others he called upon to lie in the hot spring at the foot of the hill -for varying periods, before the laying on of hands, and these also, -crippled, or rigid with troubles' of the bone, announced that they were -healed. - -People flocked from other towns, and though, to some who had been cured, -their pains and sickness returned, there were a few who bore perfect -evidence to his teaching and healing, and followed him, "converted and -consecrated," as though he were a new Messiah. In this corner of the -West was such a revival as none could remember--not even those who -had been to camp meetings in the East in their youth, and had seen the -Spirit descend upon hundreds and draw them to the anxious seat. - -Then came the great sensation--the Faith Healer converted Laura Sloly. -Upon which Jansen drew its breath painfully; for, while it was willing -to bend to the inspiration of the moment, and to be swept on a tide of -excitement into that enchanted field called Imagination, it wanted -to preserve its institutions--and Laura Sloly had come to be an -institution. Jansen had always plumed itself, and smiled, when she -passed; and even now the most sentimentally religious of them inwardly -anticipated the time when the town would return to its normal condition; -and that condition would not be normal if there were any change in -Laura Sloly. It mattered little whether most people were changed or not -because one state of their minds could not be less or more interesting -than another; but a change in Laura. Sloly could not be for the better. - -Her father had come to the West in the early days, and had prospered -by degrees until a town grew up beside his ranch; and though he did not -acquire as much permanent wealth from this golden chance as might have -been expected, and lost much he did make by speculation, still he had -his rich ranch left, and it, and he, and Laura were part of the history -of Jansen. Laura had been born at Jansen before even it had a name. -Next to her father she was the oldest inhabitant, and she had a prestige -which was given to no one else. - -Everything had conspired to make her a figure of moment and interest. -She was handsome in almost a mannish sort of way, being of such height -and straightness, and her brown eyes had a depth and fire in which -more than a few men had drowned themselves. Also, once she had saved -a settlement by riding ahead of a marauding Indian band to warn their -intended victims, and had averted another tragedy of pioneer life. -Pioneers proudly told strangers to Jansen of the girl of thirteen -who rode a hundred and twenty miles without food, and sank inside the -palisade of the Hudson's Bay Company's fort, as the gates closed -upon the settlers taking refuge, the victim of brain fever at last. -Cerebrospinal meningitis, the doctor from Winnipeg called it, and the -memory of that time when men and women would not sleep till her crisis -was past, was still fresh on the tongues of all. - -Then she had married at seventeen, and, within a year, had lost both her -husband and her baby, a child bereaved of her Playmates--for her -husband had been but twenty years old and was younger far than she -in everything. And since then, twelve years before, she had seen -generations of lovers pass into the land they thought delectable; and -their children flocked to her, hung about her, were carried off by her -to the ranch, and kept for days, against the laughing protests of their -parents. Flood Rawley called her the Pied Piper of Jansen, and indeed -she had a voice that fluted and piped, and yet had so whimsical a note, -that the hardest faces softened at the sound of it; and she did not keep -its best notes for the few. She was impartial, almost impersonal; no -woman was her enemy, and every man was her friend--and nothing more. She -had never had an accepted lover since the day her Playmates left her. -Every man except one had given up hope that he might win her; and though -he had been gone from Jansen for two years, and had loved her since the -days before the Playmates came and went, he never gave up hope, and was -now to return and say again what he had mutely said for years--what she -understood, and he knew she understood. - -Tim Denton had been a wild sort in his brief day. He was a rough -diamond, but he was a diamond, and was typical of the West--its -heart, its courage, its freedom, and its force; capable of exquisite -gentleness, strenuous to exaggeration, with a very primitive religion; -and the only religion Tim knew was that of human nature. Jansen did not -think Tim good enough--not within a comet shot--for Laura Sloly; but -they thought him better than any one else. - -But now Laura was a convert to the prophet of the Healing Springs, -and those people who still retain their heads in the eddy of religious -emotion were in despair. They dreaded to meet Laura; they kept away from -the "protracted meetings," but were eager to hear about her and what -she said and did. What they heard allayed their worst fears. She still -smiled, and seemed as cheerful as before, they heard, and she neither -spoke nor prayed in public, but she led the singing always. Now the -anxious and the sceptical and the reactionary ventured out to see and -hear; and seeing and hearing gave them a satisfaction they hardly dared -express. She was more handsome than ever, and if her eyes glistened -with a light they had never seen before, and awed them, her lips -still smiled, and the old laugh came when she spoke to them. Their awe -increased. This was "getting religion" with a difference. - -But presently they received a shock. A whisper grew that Laura was in -love with the Faith Healer. Some woman's instinct drove straight to the -centre of a disconcerting possibility, and in consternation she told her -husband; and Jansen husbands had a freemasonry of gossip. An hour, and -all Jansen knew, or thought they knew; and the "saved" rejoiced; and the -rest of the population, represented by Nicolle Terasse at one end and -Flood Rawley at the other, flew to arms. No vigilance committee was -ever more determined and secret and organised than the unconverted -civic patriots, who were determined to restore Jansen to its old-time -condition. They pointed out cold-bloodedly that the Faith Healer had -failed three times where he had succeeded once; and that, admitting the -successes, there was no proof that his religion was their cause. There -were such things as hypnotism and magnetism and will-power, and abnormal -mental stimulus on the part of the healed--to say nothing of the Healing -Springs. - -Carefully laying their plans, they quietly spread the rumour that -Ingles had promised to restore to health old Mary Jewell, who had been -bedridden ten years, and had sent word and prayed to have him lay his -hands upon her--Catholic though she was. The Faith Healer, face to face -with this supreme and definite test, would have retreated from it but -for Laura Sloly. She expected him to do it, believed that he could, said -that he would, herself arranged the day and the hour, and sang so much -exaltation into him, that at last a spurious power seemed to possess -him. He felt that there had entered into him something that could be -depended on, not the mere flow of natural magnetism fed by an outdoor -life and a temperament of great emotional force, and chance, and -suggestion--and other things. If, at first, he had influenced Laura, -some ill-controlled, latent idealism in him, working on a latent poetry -and spirituality in her, somehow bringing her into nearer touch with her -lost Playmates than she had been in the long years that had passed; she, -in turn, had made his unrationalised brain reel; had caught him up into -a higher air, on no wings of his own; had added another lover to her -company of lovers--and the first impostor she had ever had. She who -had known only honest men as friends, in one blind moment lost her -perspicuous sense; her instinct seemed asleep. She believed in the man -and in his healing. Was there anything more than that? - -The day of the great test came, hot, brilliant, vivid. The air was of -a delicate sharpness, and, as it came toward evening, the glamour of an -August when the reapers reap was upon Jansen; and its people gathered -round the house of Mary Jewell to await the miracle of faith. Apart -from the emotional many who sang hymns and spiritual songs were a few -determined men, bent on doing justice to Jansen though the heavens -might fall. Whether or no Laura Sloly was in love with the Faith -Healer, Jansen must look to its own honour--and hers. In any case, this -peripatetic saint at Sloly's Ranch--the idea was intolerable; women must -be saved in spite of themselves. - -Laura was now in the house by the side of the bedridden Mary Jewell, -waiting, confident, smiling, as she held the wasted hand on the -coverlet. With her was a minister of the Baptist persuasion, who -was swimming with the tide, and who approved of the Faith Healer's -immersions in the hot Healing Springs; also a medical student who had -pretended belief in Ingles, and two women weeping with unnecessary -remorse for human failings of no dire kind. The windows were open, and -those outside could see. Presently, in a lull of the singing, there was -a stir in the crowd, and then, sudden loud greetings: - -"My, if it ain't Tim Denton! Jerusalem! You back, Tim!" - -These and other phrases caught the ear of Laura Sloly in the sick-room. -A strange look flashed across her face, and the depth of her eyes was -troubled for a moment, as to the face of the old comes a tremor at the -note of some long-forgotten song. Then she steadied herself and waited, -catching bits of the loud talk which still floated towards her from -without. - -"What's up? Some one getting married--or a legacy, or a saw-off? Why, -what a lot of Sunday-go-to-meeting folks to be sure!" Tim laughed -loudly. - -After which the quick tongue of Nicolle Terasse: "You want know? Tiens, -be quiet; here he come. He cure you body and soul, ver' queeck--yes." - -The crowd swayed and parted, and slowly, bare head uplifted, face -looking to neither right nor left, the Faith Healer made his way to the -door of the little house. The crowd hushed. Some were awed, some were -overpoweringly interested, some were cruelly patient. Nicolle Terasse -and others were whispering loudly to Tim Denton. That was the only -sound, until the Healer got to the door. Then, on the steps, he turned -to the multitude. - -"Peace be to you all, and upon this house," he said and stepped through -the doorway. - -Tim Denton, who had been staring at the face of the Healer, stood for -an instant like one with all his senses arrested. Then he gasped, and -exclaimed, "Well, I'm eternally--" and broke off with a low laugh, which -was at first mirthful, and then became ominous and hard. - -"Oh, magnificent--magnificent--jerickety!" he said into the sky above -him. - -His friends who were not "saved," closed in on him to find the meaning -of his words, but he pulled himself together, looked blankly at them, -and asked them questions. They told him so much more than he cared to -hear, that his face flushed a deep red--the bronze of it most like the -colour of Laura Sloly's hair; then he turned pale. Men saw that he was -roused beyond any feeling in themselves. - -"'Sh!" he said. "Let's see what he can do." With the many who were -silently praying, as they had been, bidden to do, the invincible ones -leant forwards, watching the little room where healing--or tragedy--was -afoot. As in a picture, framed by the window, they saw the kneeling -figures, the Healer standing with outstretched arms. They heard his -voice, sonorous and appealing, then commanding--and yet Mary Jewell did -not rise from her bed and walk. Again, and yet again, the voice rang -out, and still the woman lay motionless. Then he laid his hands upon -her, and again he commanded her to rise. - -There was a faint movement, a desperate struggle to obey, but Nature and -Time and Disease had their way. Yet again there was the call. An agony -stirred the bed. Then another great Healer came between, and mercifully -dealt the sufferer a blow--Death has a gentle hand sometimes. Mary -Jewell was bedridden still--and for ever. - -Like a wind from the mountains the chill knowledge of death wailed -through the window, and over the heads of the crowd. All the figures -were upright now in the little room. Then those outside saw Laura Sloly -lean over and close the sightless eyes. This done, she came to the -door and opened it, and motioned for the Healer to leave. He hesitated, -hearing the harsh murmur from the outskirts of the crowd. Once again she -motioned, and he came. With a face deadly pale she surveyed the people -before her silently for a moment, her eyes all huge and staring. - -Presently she turned to Ingles and spoke to him quickly in a low voice; -then, descending the steps, passed out through the lane made for her by -the crowd, he following with shaking limbs and bowed bead. - -Warning words had passed among the few invincible ones who waited where -the Healer must pass into the open, and there was absolute stillness as -Laura advanced. Their work was to come--quiet and swift and sure; but -not yet. - -Only one face Laura saw, as she led the way to the moment's safety--Tim -Denton's; and it was as stricken as her own. She passed, then turned, -and looked at him again. He understood; she wanted him. - -He waited till she sprang into her waggon, after the Healer had mounted -his mule and ridden away with ever-quickening pace into the prairie. -Then he turned to the set, fierce men beside him. - -"Leave him alone," he said, "leave him to me. I know him. You hear? -Ain't I no rights? I tell you I knew him--South. You leave him to me." - -They nodded, and he sprang into his saddle and rode away. They watched -the figure of the Healer growing smaller in the dusty distance. - -"Tim'll go to her," one said, "and perhaps they'll let the snake get -off. Hadn't we best make sure?" - -"Perhaps you'd better let him vamoose," said Flood Rawley anxiously. -"Jansen is a law-abiding place!" The reply was decisive. Jansen had -its honour to keep. It was the home of the Pioneers--Laura Sloly was a -Pioneer. - -Tim Denton was a Pioneer, with all the comradeship which lay in the -word, and he was that sort of lover who has seen one woman, and can -never see another--not the product of the most modern civilisation. -Before Laura had had Playmates he had given all he had to give; he had -waited and hoped ever since; and when the ruthless gossips had said -to him before Mary Jewell's house that she was in love with the Faith -Healer, nothing changed in him. For the man, for Ingles, Tim belonged -to a primitive breed, and love was not in his heart. As he rode out to -Sloly's Ranch, he ground his teeth in rage. But Laura had called him to -her, and: "Well, what you say goes, Laura," he muttered at the end of a -long hour of human passion and its repression. "If he's to go scot-free, -then he's got to go; but the boys yonder'll drop on me, if he gets away. -Can't you see what a swab he is, Laura?" - -The brown eyes of the girl looked at him gently. The struggle between -them was over; she had had her way--to save the preacher, impostor -though he was; and now she felt, as she had never felt before in the -same fashion, that this man was a man of men. - -"Tim, you do not understand," she urged. "You say he was a landsharp in -the South, and that he had to leave-" - -"He had to vamoose, or take tar and feathers." - -"But he had to leave. And he came here preaching and healing; and he is -a hypocrite and a fraud--I know that now, my eyes are opened. He didn't -do what he said he could do, and it killed Mary Jewell--the shock; and -there were other things he said he could do, and he didn't do them. -Perhaps he is all bad, as you say--I don't think so. But he did some -good things, and through him I've felt as I've never felt before about -God and life, and about Walt and the baby--as though I'll see them -again, sure. I've never felt that before. It was all as if they were -lost in the hills, and no trail home, or out to where they are. Like as -not God was working in him all the time, Tim; and he failed because he -counted too much on the little he had, and made up for what he hadn't by -what he pretended." - -"He can pretend to himself, or God Almighty, or that lot down there"--he -jerked a finger towards the town--"but to you, a girl, and a Pioneer--" - -A flash of humour shot into her eyes at his last words, then they -filled with tears, through which the smile shone. To pretend to "a -Pioneer"--the splendid vanity and egotism of the West! - -"He didn't pretend to me, Tim. People don't usually have to pretend to -like me." - -"You know what I'm driving at." - -"Yes, yes, I know. And whatever he is, you've said that you will -save him. I'm straight, you know that. Somehow, what I felt from his -preaching--well, everything got sort of mixed up with him, and he -was--was different. It was like the long dream of Walt and the baby, and -he a part of it. I don't know what I felt, or what I might have felt -for him. I'm a woman--I can't understand. But I know what I feel now. -I never want to see him again on earth--or in Heaven. It needn't be -necessary even in Heaven; but what happened between God and me through -him stays, Tim; and so you must help him get away safe. It's in your -hands--you say they left it to you." - -"I don't trust that too much." - -Suddenly he pointed out of the window towards the town. "See, I'm right; -there they are, a dozen of 'em mounted. They're off, to run him down." - -Her face paled; she glanced towards the Hill of Healing. "He's got an -hour's start," she said; "he'll get into the mountains and be safe." - -"If they don't catch him 'fore that." - -"Or if you don't get to him first," she said, with nervous insistence. - -He turned to her with a hard look; then, as he met her soft, fearless, -beautiful eyes, his own grew gentle. "It takes a lot of doing. Yet I'll -do it for you, Laura," he said. "But it's hard on the Pioneers." Once -more her humour flashed, and it seemed to him that "getting religion" -was not so depressing after all--wouldn't be, anyhow, when this nasty -job was over. "The Pioneers will get over it, Tim," she rejoined. -"They've swallowed a lot in their time. Heaven's gate will have to be -pretty wide to let in a real Pioneer," she added. "He takes up so much -room--ah, Timothy Denton!" she added, with an outburst of whimsical -merriment. - -"It hasn't spoiled you--being converted, has it?" he said, and gave a -quick little laugh, which somehow did more for his ancient cause with -her than all he had ever said or done. Then he stepped outside and swung -into his saddle. - -It had been a hard and anxious ride, but Tim had won, and was keeping -his promise. The night had fallen before he got to the mountains, which -he and the Pioneers had seen the Faith Healer enter. They had had four -miles' start of Tim, and had ridden fiercely, and they entered the gulch -into which the refugee had disappeared still two miles ahead. - -The invincibles had seen Tim coming, but they had determined to make a -sure thing of it, and would themselves do what was necessary with the -impostor, and take no chances. So they pressed their horses, and he saw -them swallowed by the trees, as darkness gathered. Changing his course, -he entered the familiar hills, which he knew better than any pioneer of -Jansen, and rode a diagonal course over the trail they would take. -But night fell suddenly, and there was nothing to do but to wait till -morning. There was comfort in this--the others must also wait, and the -refugee could not go far. In any case, he must make for settlement or -perish, since he had left behind his sheep and his cow. - -It fell out better than Tim hoped. The Pioneers were as good hunters as -was he, their instinct was as sure, their scouts and trackers were many, -and he was but one. They found the Faith Healer by a little stream, -eating bread and honey, and, like an ancient woodlander drinking from -a horn--relics of his rank imposture. He made no resistance. They tried -him formally, if perfunctorily; he admitted his imposture, and begged -for his life. Then they stripped him naked, tied a bit of canvas round -his waist, fastened him to a tree, and were about to complete his -punishment when Tim Denton burst upon them. - -Whether the rage Tim showed was all real or not; whether his accusations -of bad faith came from so deeply wounded a spirit as he would have them -believe, he was not likely to tell; but he claimed the prisoner as his -own, and declined to say what he meant to do. - -When, however, they saw the abject terror of the Faith Healer as he -begged not to be left alone with Tim--for they had not meant death, -and Ingles thought he read death in Tim's ferocious eyes--they laughed -cynically, and left it to Tim to uphold the honour of Jansen and the -Pioneers. - -As they disappeared, the last thing they saw was Tim with his back to -them, his hands on his hips, and a knife clasped in his fingers. - -"He'll lift his scalp and make a monk of him," chuckled the oldest and -hardest of them. - -"Dat Tim will cut his heart out, I t'ink-bagosh!" said Nicolle Terasse, -and took a drink of white-whiskey. For a long time Tim stood looking at -the other, until no sound came from the woods, whither the Pioneers -had gone. Then at last, slowly, and with no roughness, as the -terror-stricken impostor shrank and withered, he cut the cords. - -"Dress yourself," he said shortly, and sat down beside the stream, and -washed his face and hands, as though to cleanse them from contamination. -He appeared to take no notice of the other, though his ears keenly noted -every movement. - -The impostor dressed nervously, yet slowly; he scarce comprehended -anything, except that he was not in immediate danger. When he had -finished, he stood looking at Tim, who was still seated on a log plunged -in meditation. - -It seemed hours before Tim turned round, and now his face was quiet, -if set and determined. He walked slowly over, and stood looking at his -victim for some time without speaking. The other's eyes dropped, and -a greyness stole over his features. This steely calm was even more -frightening than the ferocity which had previously been in his captor's -face. At length the tense silence was broken. - -"Wasn't the old game good enough? Was it played out? Why did you take to -this? Why did you do it, Scranton?" - -The voice quavered a little in reply. "I don't know. Something sort of -pushed me into it." - -"How did you come to start it?" - -There was a long silence, then the husky reply came. "I got a sickener -last time--" - -"Yes, I remember, at Waywing." - -"I got into the desert, and had hard times--awful for a while. I hadn't -enough to eat, and I didn't know whether I'd die by hunger, or fever, or -Indians--or snakes." - -"Oh, you were seeing snakes!" said Tim grimly. - -"Not the kind you mean; I hadn't anything to drink--" - -"No, you never did drink, I remember--just was crooked, and slopped over -women. Well, about the snakes?" - -"I caught them to eat, and they were poison-snakes often. And I wasn't -quick at first to get them safe by the neck--they're quick, too." - -Tim laughed inwardly. "Getting your food by the sweat of your brow--and -a snake in it, same as Adam! Well, was it in the desert you got your -taste for honey, too, same as John the Baptist--that was his name, if I -recomember?" He looked at the tin of honey on the ground. - -"Not in the desert, but when I got to the grass-country." - -"How long were you in the desert?" - -"Close to a year." - -Tim's eyes opened wider. He saw that the man was speaking the truth. - -"Got to thinking in the desert, and sort of willing things to come to -pass, and mooning along, you, and the sky, and the vultures, and the hot -hills, and the snakes, and the flowers--eh?" - -"There weren't any flowers till I got to the grass-country." - -"Oh, cuss me, if you ain't simple for your kind! I know all about that. -And when you got to the grass-country, you just picked up the honey, and -the flowers, and a calf, and a lamb, and a mule here and there, 'without -money and without price,' and walked on--that it?" - -The other shrank before the steel in the voice, and nodded his head. - -"But you kept thinking in the grass-country of what you'd felt and said -and done--and willed, in the desert, I suppose?" - -Again the other nodded. - -"It seemed to you in the desert, as if you'd saved your own life a -hundred times, as if you'd just willed food and drink and safety to -come; as if Providence had been at your elbow?" - -"It was like a dream, and it stayed with me. I had to think in the -desert things I'd never thought before," was the half-abstracted answer. - -"You felt good in the desert?" The other hung his head in shame. - -"Makes you seem pretty small, doesn't it? You didn't stay long enough, -I guess, to get what you were feeling for; you started in on the new -racket too soon. You never got really possessed that you was a sinner. I -expect that's it." - -The other made no reply. - -"Well, I don't know much about such things. I was loose brought up; but -I've a friend"--Laura was before his eyes--"that says religion's all -right, and long ago as I can remember my mother used to pray three times -a day--with grace at meals, too. I know there's a lot in it for them -that need it; and there seems to be a lot of folks needing it, if I'm -to judge by folks down there at Jansen, specially when there's the -laying-on of hands and the Healing Springs. Oh, that was a pigsty game, -Scranton, that about God giving you the Healing Springs, like Moses and -the rock! Why, I discovered them springs myself two years ago, before I -went South, and I guess God wasn't helping me any--not after I've kept -out of His way as I have. But, anyhow, religion's real; that's my sense -of it; and you can get it, I bet, if you try. I've seen it got. A friend -of mine got it--got it under your preaching; not from you; but you -was the accident that brought it about, I expect. It's funny--it's -merakilous, but it's so. Kneel down!" he added, with peremptory -suddenness. "Kneel, Scranton!" - -In fear the other knelt. - -"You're going to get religion now--here. You're going to pray for what -you didn't get--and almost got--in the desert. You're going to ask -forgiveness for all your damn tricks, and pray like a fanning-mill for -the spirit to come down. You ain't a scoundrel at heart--a friend of -mine says so. You're a weak vessel, cracked, perhaps. You've got to -be saved, and start right over again--and 'Praise God from whom all -blessings flow!' Pray--pray, Scranton, and tell the whole truth, and -get it--get religion. Pray like blazes. You go on, and pray out loud. -Remember the desert, and Mary Jewell, and your mother--did you have a -mother, Scranton--say, did you have a mother, lad?" - -Tim's voice suddenly lowered before the last word, for the Faith Healer -had broken down in a torrent of tears. - -"Oh, my mother--O God!" he groaned. - -"Say, that's right--that's right--go on," said the other, and drew back -a little, and sat down on a log. The man on his knees was convulsed with -misery. Denton, the world, disappeared. He prayed in agony. Presently -Tim moved uneasily, then got up and walked about; and at last, with a -strange, awed look, when an hour was past, he stole back into the shadow -of the trees, while still the wounded soul poured out its misery and -repentance. - -Time moved on. A curious shyness possessed Tim now, a thing which he -had never felt in his life. He moved about self-consciously, awkwardly, -until at last there was a sudden silence over by the brook. - -Tim looked, and saw the face of the kneeling man cleared, and quiet and -shining. He hesitated, then stepped out, and came over. - -"Have you got it?" he asked quietly. "It's noon now." - -"May God help me to redeem my past," answered the other in a new voice. - -"You've got it--sure?" Tim's voice was meditative. "God has spoken to -me," was the simple answer. "I've got a friend'll be glad to hear that," -he said; and once more, in imagination, he saw Laura Sloly standing at -the door of her home, with a light in her eyes he had never seen before. - -"You'll want some money for your journey?" Tim asked. - -"I want nothing but to go away--far away," was the low reply. - -"Well, you've lived in the desert--I guess you can live in the -grass-country," came the dry response. "Good-bye-and good luck, -Scranton." - -Tim turned to go, moved on a few steps, then looked back. - -"Don't be afraid--they'll not follow," he said. "I'll fix it for you all -right." - -But the man appeared not to hear; he was still on his knees. - -Tim faced the woods once more. - -He was about to mount his horse when he heard a step behind him. He -turned sharply--and faced Laura. "I couldn't rest. I came out this -morning. I've seen everything," she said. - -"You didn't trust me," he said heavily. - -"I never did anything else," she answered. - -He gazed half-fearfully into her eyes. "Well?" he asked. "I've done my -best, as I said I would." - -"Tim," she said, and slipped a hand in his, "would you mind the -religion--if you had me?" - - - - -THE LITTLE WIDOW OF JANSEN - -Her advent to Jansen was propitious. Smallpox in its most virulent form -had broken out in the French-Canadian portion of the town, and, coming -with some professional nurses from the East, herself an amateur, to -attend the sufferers, she worked with such skill and devotion that the -official thanks of the Corporation were offered her, together with a -tiny gold watch, the gift of grateful citizens. But she still remained -on at Jansen, saying always, however, that she was "going East in the -spring." - -Five years had passed, and still she had not gone East, but remained -perched in the rooms she had first taken, over the Imperial Bank, while -the town grew up swiftly round her. And even when the young bank -manager married, and wished to take over the rooms, she sent him to the -right-about from his own premises in her gay, masterful way. The young -manager behaved well in the circumstances, because he had asked her to -marry him, and she had dismissed him with a warning against challenging -his own happiness--that was the way she had put it. Perhaps he was -galled the less because others had striven for the same prize, and had -been thrust back, with an almost tender misgiving as to their sense of -self-preservation and sanity. Some of them were eligible enough, and all -were of some position in the West. Yet she smiled them firmly away, to -the wonder of Jansen, and to its satisfaction, for was it not a tribute -to all that she would distinguish no particular unit by her permanent -favour? But for one so sprightly and almost frivolous in manner at -times, the self-denial seemed incongruous. She was unconventional enough -to sit on the side-walk with a half-dozen children round her -blowing bubbles, or to romp in any garden, or in the street, playing -Puss-in-the-ring; yet this only made her more popular. Jansen's -admiration was at its highest, however, when she rode in the annual -steeplechase with the best horsemen of the province. She had the gift of -doing as well as of being. - -"'Tis the light heart she has, and slippin' in and out of things like a -humming-bird, no easier to ketch, and no longer to stay," said Finden, -the rich Irish landbroker, suggestively to Father Bourassa, the huge -French-Canadian priest who had worked with her through all the dark -weeks of the smallpox epidemic, and who knew what lay beneath the outer -gaiety. She had been buoyant of spirit beside the beds of the sick, and -her words were full of raillery and humour, yet there was ever a gentle -note behind all; and the priest had seen her eyes shining with tears, as -she bent over some stricken sufferer bound upon an interminable journey. - -"Bedad! as bright a little spark as ever struck off the steel," added -Finden to the priest, with a sidelong, inquisitive look, "but a heart no -bigger than a marrowfat pea-selfishness, all self. Keepin' herself for -herself when there's manny a good man needin' her. Mother o' Moses, how -manny! From Terry O'Ryan, brother of a peer, at Latouche, to Bernard -Bapty, son of a millionaire, at Vancouver, there's a string o' them. All -pride and self; and as fair a lot they've been as ever entered for the -Marriage Cup. Now, isn't that so, father?" - -Finden's brogue did not come from a plebeian origin. It was part of his -commercial equipment, an asset of his boyhood spent among the peasants -on the family estate in Galway. - -Father Bourassa fanned himself with the black broadbrim hat he wore, and -looked benignly but quizzically on the wiry, sharp-faced Irishman. - -"You t'ink her heart is leetla. But perhaps it is your mind not so big -enough to see--hein?" The priest laughed noiselessly, showing -white teeth. "Was it so selfish in Madame to refuse the name of -Finden--n'est-ce pas?" - -Finden flushed, then burst into a laugh. "I'd almost forgotten I was one -of them--the first almost. Blessed be he that expects nothing, for he'll -get it, sure. It was my duty, and I did it. Was she to feel that Jansen -did not price her high? Bedad, father, I rose betimes and did it, before -anny man should say he set me the lead. Before the carpet in the parlour -was down, and with the bare boards soundin' to my words, I offered her -the name of Finden." - -"And so--the first of the long line! Bien, it is an honour." The priest -paused a moment, looked at Finden with a curious reflective look, and -then said: "And so you t'ink there is no one; that she will say yes not -at all--no?" - -They were sitting on Father Bourassa's veranda, on the outskirts of -the town, above the great river, along which had travelled millions of -bygone people, fighting, roaming, hunting, trapping; and they could hear -it rushing past, see the swirling eddies, the impetuous currents, the -occasional rafts moving majestically down the stream. They were facing -the wild North, where civilisation was hacking and hewing and ploughing -its way to newer and newer cities, in an empire ever spreading to the -Pole. - -Finden's glance loitered on this scene before he replied. At length, -screwing up one eye, and with a suggestive smile, he answered: "Sure, -it's all a matter of time, to the selfishest woman. 'Tis not the same -with women as with men; you see, they don't get younger--that's a point. -But"--he gave a meaning glance at the priest--"but perhaps she's not -going to wait for that, after all. And there he rides, a fine figure of -a man, too, if I have to say it!" - -"M'sieu' Varley?" the priest responded, and watched a galloping horseman -to whom Finden had pointed, till he rounded the corner of a little wood. - -"Varley, the great London surgeon, sure! Say, father, it's a hundred to -one she'd take him, if--" - -There was a curious look in Father Bourassa's face, a cloud in his eyes. -He sighed. "London, it is ver' far away," he remarked obliquely. - -"What's to that? If she is with the right man, near or far is nothing." - -"So far--from home," said the priest reflectively, but his eyes -furtively watched the other's face. - -"But home's where man and wife are." - -The priest now looked him straight in the eyes. "Then, as you say, she -will not marry M'sieu' Varley--hein?" - -The humour died out of Finden's face. His eyes met the priest's eyes -steadily. "Did I say that? Then my tongue wasn't making a fool of me, -after all. How did you guess I knew--everything, father?" - -"A priest knows many t'ings--so." - -There was a moment of gloom, then the Irishman brightened. He came -straight to the heart of the mystery around which they had been -maneuvering. "Have you seen her husband--Meydon--this year? It isn't his -usual time to come yet." - -Father Bourassa's eyes drew those of his friend into, the light of a new -understanding and revelation. They understood and trusted each other. - -"Helas! He is there in the hospital," he answered, and nodded towards -a building not far away, which had been part of an old Hudson's Bay -Company's fort. It had been hastily adapted as a hospital for the -smallpox victims. - -"Oh, it's Meydon, is it, that bad case I heard of to-day?" - -The priest nodded again and 'pointed. "Voila, Madame Meydon, she is -coming. She has seen him--her hoosban'." - -Finden's eyes followed the gesture. The little widow of Jansen was -coming from the hospital, walking slowly towards the river. - -"As purty a woman, too--as purty and as straight bewhiles. What is the -matter with him--with Meydon?" Finden asked, after a moment. - -"An accident in the woods--so. He arrive, it is las' night, from Great -Slave Lake." - -Finden sighed. "Ten years ago he was a man to look at twice--before he -did It and got away. Now his own mother wouldn't know him--bad 'cess -to him! I knew him from the cradle almost. I spotted him here by a -knife-cut I gave him in the hand when we were lads together. A divil of -a timper always both of us had, but the good-nature was with me, and I -didn't drink and gamble and carry a pistol. It's ten years since he did -the killing, down in Quebec, and I don't suppose the police will get -him now. He's been counted dead. I recognised him here the night after I -asked her how she liked the name of Finden. She doesn't know that I -ever knew him. And he didn't recognise me-twenty-five years since we met -before! It would be better if he went under the sod. Is he pretty sick, -father?" - -"He will die unless the surgeon's knife it cure him before twenty-four -hours, and--" - -"And Doctor Brydon is sick, and Doctor Hadley away at Winnipeg, and this -is two hundred miles from nowhere! It looks as if the police'll never -get him, eh?" - -"You have not tell any one--never?" - -Finden laughed. "Though I'm not a priest, I can lock myself up as tight -as anny. There's no tongue that's so tied, when tying's needed, as the -one that babbles most bewhiles. Babbling covers a lot of secrets." - -"So you t'ink it better Meydon should die, as Hadley is away and Brydon -is sick-hein?" - -"Oh, I think--" - -Finden stopped short, for a horse's hoofs sounded on the turf beside -the house, and presently Varley, the great London surgeon, rounded the -corner and stopped his horse in front of the veranda. - -He lifted his hat to the priest. "I hear there's a bad case at the -hospital," he said. - -"It is ver' dangerous," answered Father Bourassa; "but, voila, come in! -There is something cool to drink. Ah yes, he is ver' bad, that man from -the Great Slave Lake." - -Inside the house, with the cooling drinks, Varley pressed his questions, -and presently, much interested, told at some length of singular cases -which had passed through his hands--one a man with his neck broken, who -had lived for six months afterward. - -"Broken as a man's neck is broken by hanging--dislocation, really--the -disjointing of the medulla oblongata, if you don't mind technicalities," -he said. "But I kept him living just the same. Time enough for him -to repent in and get ready to go. A most interesting case. He was a -criminal, too, and wanted to die; but you have to keep life going if you -can, to the last inch of resistance." - -The priest looked thoughtfully out of the window; Finden's eyes were -screwed up in a questioning way, but neither made any response to -Varley's remarks. There was a long minute's silence. They were all three -roused by hearing a light footstep on the veranda. - -Father Bourassa put down his glass and hastened into the hallway. -Finden caught a glimpse of a woman's figure, and, without a word, passed -abruptly from the dining-room where they were, into the priest's study, -leaving Varley alone. Varley turned to look after him, stared, and -shrugged his shoulders. - -"The manners of the West," he said good-humouredly, and turned again to -the hallway, from whence came the sound of the priest's voice. -Presently there was another voice--a woman's. He flushed slightly and -involuntarily straightened himself. - -"Valerie," he murmured. - -An instant afterwards she entered the room with the priest. She was -dressed in a severely simple suit of grey, which set off to advantage -her slim, graceful figure. There seemed no reason why she should have -been called the little widow of Jansen, for she was not small, but -she was very finely and delicately made, and the name had been but an -expression of Jansen's paternal feeling for her. She had always had a -good deal of fresh colour, but to-day she seemed pale, though her eyes -had a strange disturbing light. It was not that they brightened on -seeing this man before her; they had been brighter, burningly bright, -when she left the hospital, where, since it had been built, she had been -the one visitor of authority--Jansen had given her that honour. She had -a gift of smiling, and she smiled now, but it came from grace of mind -rather than from humour. As Finden had said, "She was for ever acting, -and never doin' any harm by it." - -Certainly she was doing no harm by it now; nevertheless, it was acting. -Could it be otherwise, with what was behind her life--a husband who had -ruined her youth, had committed homicide, had escaped capture, but -who had not subsequently died, as the world believed he had done, so -circumstantial was the evidence. He was not man enough to make the -accepted belief in his death a fact. What could she do but act, since -the day she got a letter from the Far North, which took her out to -Jansen, nominally to nurse those stricken with smallpox under Father -Bourassa's care, actually to be where her wretched husband could come to -her once a year, as he had asked with an impossible selfishness? - -Each year she had seen him for an hour or less, giving him money, -speaking to him over a gulf so wide that it seemed sometimes as though -her voice could not be heard across it; each year opening a grave to -look at the embalmed face of one who had long since died in shame, which -only brought back the cruellest of all memories, that which one would -give one's best years to forget. With a fortitude beyond description she -had faced it, gently, quietly, but firmly faced it--firmly, because she -had to be firm in keeping him within those bounds the invasion of -which would have killed her. And after the first struggle with his -unchangeable brutality it had been easier: for into his degenerate brain -there had come a faint understanding of the real situation and of her. -He had kept his side of the gulf, but gloating on this touch between the -old luxurious, indulgent life, with its refined vices, and this present -coarse, hard life, where pleasures were few and gross. The free Northern -life of toil and hardship had not refined him. He greedily hung over -this treasure, which was not for his spending, yet was his own--as -though in a bank he had hoards of money which he might not withdraw. - -So the years had gone on, with their recurrent dreaded anniversaries, -carrying misery almost too great to be borne by this woman mated to the -loathed phantom of a sad, dead life; and when this black day of each -year was over, for a few days afterwards she went nowhere, was seen -by none. Yet, when she did appear again, it was with her old laughing -manner, her cheerful and teasing words, her quick response to the -emotions of others. - -So it had gone till Varley had come to follow the open air life for four -months, after a heavy illness due to blood-poisoning got in his surgical -work in London. She had been able to live her life without too great a -struggle till he came. Other men had flattered her vanity, had given her -a sense of power, had made her understand her possibilities, but nothing -more--nothing of what Varley brought with him. And before three months -had gone, she knew that no man had ever interested her as Varley had -done. Ten years before, she would not have appreciated or understood -him, this intellectual, clean-shaven, rigidly abstemious man, whose -pleasures belonged to the fishing-rod and the gun and the horse, and -who had come to be so great a friend of him who had been her best -friend--Father Bourassa. Father Bourassa had come to know the truth--not -from her, for she had ever been a Protestant, but from her husband, who, -Catholic by birth and a renegade from all religion, had had a moment of -spurious emotion, when he went and confessed to Father Bourassa and -got absolution, pleading for the priest's care of his wife. Afterwards -Father Bourassa made up his mind that the confession had a purpose -behind it other than repentance, and he deeply resented the use to which -he thought he was being put--a kind of spy upon the beautiful woman -whom Jansen loved, and who, in spite of any outward flippancy, was above -reproach. - -In vital things the instinct becomes abnormally acute, and, one day, -when the priest looked at her commiseratingly, she had divined what -moved him. However it was, she drove him into a corner with a question -to which he dare not answer yes, but to which he might not answer no, -and did not; and she realised that he knew the truth, and she was the -better for his knowing, though her secret was no longer a secret. She -was not aware that Finden also knew. Then Varley came, bringing a new -joy and interest in her life, and a new suffering also, for she realised -that if she were free, and Varley asked her to marry him, she would -consent. - -But when he did ask her, she said no with a pang that cut her heart in -two. He had stayed his four months, and it was now six months, and he -was going at last-tomorrow. He had stayed to give her time to learn to -say yes, and to take her back with him to London; and she knew that he -would speak again to-day, and that she must say no again; but she had -kept him from saying the words till now. And the man who had ruined her -life and had poisoned her true spirit was come back broken and battered. -He was hanging between life and death; and now--for he was going -to-morrow--Varley would speak again. - -The half-hour she had just spent in the hospital with Meydon had tried -her cruelly. She had left the building in a vortex of conflicting -emotions, with the call of duty and of honour ringing through a thousand -other voices of temptation and desire, the inner pleadings for a little -happiness while yet she was young. After she married Meydon, there had -only been a few short weeks of joy before her black disillusion came, -and she had realised how bitter must be her martyrdom. - -When she left the hospital, she seemed moving in a dream, as one, -intoxicated by some elixir, might move unheeding among event and -accident and vexing life and roaring multitudes. And all the while the -river flowing through the endless prairies, high-banked, ennobled by -living woods, lipped with green, kept surging in her ears, inviting her, -alluring her--alluring her with a force too deep and powerful for weak -human nature to bear for long. It would ease her pain, it said; it would -still the tumult and the storm; it would solve her problem, it would -give her peace. But as she moved along the river-bank among the trees, -she met the little niece of the priest, who lived in his house, singing -as though she was born but to sing, a song which Finden had written and -Father Bourassa had set to music. Did not the distant West know Father -Bourassa's gift, and did not Protestants attend Mass to hear him play -the organ afterwards? The fresh, clear voice of the child rang through -the trees, stealing the stricken heart away from the lure of the river: - - "Will you come back home, where the young larks are singin'? - The door is open wide, and the bells of Lynn are ringin'; - There's a little lake I know, - And a boat you used to row - To the shore beyond that's quiet--will you come back home? - - Will you come back, darlin'? Never heed the pain and blightin', - Never trouble that you're wounded, that you bear the scars of - fightin'; - Here's the luck o' Heaven to you, - Here's the hand of love will brew you - The cup of peace--ah, darlin', will you come back home?" - -She stood listening for a few moments, and, under the spell of the -fresh, young voice, the homely, heart-searching words, and the intimate -sweetness of the woods, the despairing apathy lifted slowly away. -She started forwards again with a new understanding, her footsteps -quickened. She would go to Father Bourassa. He would understand. She -would tell him all. He would help her to do what now she knew she must -do, ask Leonard Varley to save her husband's life--Leonard Varley to -save her husband's life! - -When she stepped upon the veranda of the priest's house, she did not -know that Varley was inside. She had no time to think. She was ushered -into the room where he was, with the confusing fact of his presence -fresh upon her. She had had but a word or two with the priest, but -enough for him to know what she meant to do, and that it must be done at -once. - -Varley advanced to meet her. She shuddered inwardly to think what a -difference there was between the fallen creature she had left behind -in the hospital and this tall, dark, self-contained man, whose name was -familiar in the surgeries of Europe, who had climbed from being the son -of a clockmaker to his present distinguished place. - -"Have you come for absolution, also?" he asked with a smile; "or is it -to get a bill of excommunication against your only enemy--there couldn't -be more than one?" - -Cheerful as his words were, he was shrewdly observing her, for her -paleness, and the strange light in her eyes, gave him a sense of -anxiety. He wondered what trouble was on her. - -"Excommunication?" he repeated. - -The unintended truth went home. She winced, even as she responded with -that quaint note in her voice which gave humour to her speech. "Yes, -excommunication," she replied; "but why an enemy? Do we not need to -excommunicate our friends sometimes?" - -"That is a hard saying," he answered soberly. Tears sprang to her eyes, -but she mastered herself, and brought the crisis abruptly. - -"I want you to save a man's life," she said, with her eyes looking -straight into his. "Will you do it?" - -His face grew grave and eager. "I want you to save a man's happiness," -he answered. "Will you do it?" - -"That man yonder will die unless your skill saves him," she urged. - -"This man here will go away unhappy and alone, unless your heart -befriends him," he replied, coming closer to her. - -"At sunrise to-morrow he goes." He tried to take her hand. - -"Oh, please, please," she pleaded, with a quick, protesting gesture. -"Sunrise is far off, but the man's fate is near, and you must save him. -You only can do so, for Doctor Hadley is away, and Doctor Brydon is -sick, and in any case Doctor Brydon dare not attempt the operation -alone. It is too critical and difficult, he says." - -"So I have heard," he answered, with a new note in his voice, his -professional instinct roused in spite of himself. "Who is this man? What -interests you in him?" - -"To how many unknown people have you given your skill for nothing--your -skill and all your experience to utter strangers, no matter how low or -poor! Is it not so? Well, I cannot give to strangers what you have given -to so many, but I can help in my own way." - -"You want me to see the man at once?" - -"If you will." - -"What is his name? I know of his accident and the circumstances." - -She hesitated for an instant, then said, "He is called Draper--a trapper -and woodsman." - -"But I was going away to-morrow at sunrise. All my arrangements are -made," he urged, his eyes holding hers, his passion swimming in his eyes -again. - -"But you will not see a man die, if you can save him?" she pleaded, -unable now to meet his look, its mastery and its depth. - -Her heart had almost leaped with joy at the suggestion that he could not -stay; but as suddenly self-reproach and shame filled her mind, and she -had challenged him so. But yet, what right had she to sacrifice this man -she loved to the perverted criminal who had spoiled her youth and taken -away from her every dear illusion of her life and heart? By every right -of justice and humanity she was no more the wife of Henry Meydon than if -she had never seen him. He had forfeited every claim upon her, dragged -in the mire her unspotted life--unspotted, for in all temptation, in her -defenceless position, she had kept the whole commandment; she had, while -at the mercy of her own temperament, fought her way through all, with -a weeping heart and laughing lips. Had she not longed for a little -home with a great love, and a strong, true man? Ah, it had been lonely, -bitterly lonely! Yet she had remained true to the scoundrel, from whom -she could not free herself without putting him in the grasp of the law -to atone for his crime. She was punished for his crimes; she was -denied the exercise of her womanhood in order to shield him. Still she -remembered that once she had loved him, those years ago, when he first -won her heart from those so much better than he, who loved her so much -more honestly; and this memory had helped her in a way. She had tried to -be true to it, that dead, lost thing, of which this man who came once a -year to see her, and now, lying with his life at stake in the hospital, -was the repellent ghost. - -"Ah, you will not see him die?" she urged. - -"It seems to move you greatly what happens to this man," he said, his -determined dark eyes searching hers, for she baffled him. If she could -feel so much for a "casual," why not a little more feeling for him? -Suddenly, as he drew her eyes to him again, there came the conviction -that they were full of feeling for him. They were sending a message, -an appealing, passionate message, which told him more than he had ever -heard from her or seen in her face before. Yes, she was his! Without a -spoken word she had told him so. What, then, held her back? But women -were a race by themselves, and he knew that he must wait till she chose -to have him know what she had unintentionally conveyed but now. - -"Yes, I am moved," she continued slowly. "Who can tell what this man -might do with his life, if it is saved! Don't you think of that? It -isn't the importance of a life that's at stake; it's the importance of -living; and we do not live alone, do we?" - -His mind was made up. "I will not, cannot promise anything till I have -seen him. But I will go and see him, and I'll send you word later what I -can do, or not do. Will that satisfy you? If I cannot do it, I will come -to say good-by." - -Her face was set with suppressed feeling. She held out her hand to him -impulsively, and was about to speak, but suddenly caught the hand away -again from his thrilling grasp and, turning hurriedly, left the room. In -the hall she met Father Bourassa. - -"Go with him to the hospital," she whispered, and disappeared through -the doorway. - -Immediately after she had gone, a man came driving hard to bring Father -Bourassa to visit a dying Catholic in the prairie, and it was Finden who -accompanied Varley to the hospital, waited for him till his examination -of the "casual" was concluded, and met him outside. - -"Can it be done?" he asked of Varley. "I'll take word to Father -Bourassa." - -"It can be done--it will be done," answered Varley absently. "I do not -understand the man. He has been in a different sphere of life. He tried -to hide it, but the speech--occasionally! I wonder." - -"You wonder if he's worth saving?" - -Varley shrugged his shoulders impatiently. "No, that's not what I -meant." - -Finden smiled to himself. "Is it a difficult case?" he asked. - -"Critical and delicate; but it has been my specialty." - -"One of the local doctors couldn't do it, I suppose?" - -"They would be foolish to try." - -"And you are going away at sunrise to-morrow?" - -"Who told you that?" Varley's voice was abrupt, impatient. - -"I heard you say so-everybody knows it.... That's a bad man yonder, -Varley." He jerked his thumb towards the hospital. "A terrible bad man, -he's been. A gentleman once, and fell down--fell down hard. He's done -more harm than most men. He's broken a woman's heart and spoilt her -life, and, if he lives, there's no chance for her, none at all. He -killed a man, and the law wants him; and she can't free herself without -ruining him; and she can't marry the man she loves because of that -villain yonder, crying for his life to be saved. By Josh and by Joan, -but it's a shame, a dirty shame, it is!" - -Suddenly Varley turned and gripped his arm with fingers of steel. - -"His name--his real name?" - -"His name's Meydon--and a dirty shame it is, Varley." - -Varley was white. He had been leading his horse and talking to Finden. -He mounted quickly now, and was about to ride away, but stopped short -again. "Who knows--who knows the truth?" he asked. - -"Father Bourassa and me--no others," he answered. "I knew Meydon thirty -years ago." - -There was a moment's hesitation, then Varley said hoarsely, "Tell -me--tell me all." - -When all was told, he turned his horse towards the wide waste of the -prairie, and galloped away. Finden watched him till he was lost to view -beyond the bluff. - -"Now, a man like that, you can't guess what he'll do," he said -reflectively. "He's a high-stepper, and there's no telling what -foolishness will get hold of him. It'd be safer if he got lost on -the prairie for twenty-four hours. He said that Meydon's only got -twenty-four hours, if the trick isn't done! Well--" - -He took a penny from his pocket. "I'll toss for it. Heads he does it, -and tails he doesn't." - -He tossed. It came down heads. "Well, there's one more fool in the world -than I thought," he said philosophically, as though he had settled the -question; as though the man riding away into the prairie with a dark -problem to be solved had told the penny what he meant to do. - -Mrs. Meydon, Father Bourassa, and Finden stood in the little -waiting-room of the hospital at Jansen, one at each window, and watched -the wild thunderstorm which had broken over the prairie. The white -heliographs of the elements flashed their warnings across the black sky, -and the roaring artillery of the thunder came after, making the circle -of prairie and tree and stream a theatre of anger and conflict. The -streets of Jansen were washed with flood, and the green and gold things -of garden and field and harvest crumbled beneath the sheets of rain. - -The faces at the window of the little room of the hospital, however, -were but half-conscious of the storm; it seemed only an accompaniment of -their thoughts, to typify the elements of tragedy surrounding them. - -For Varley there had been but one thing to do. A life might be saved, -and it was his duty to save it. He had ridden back from the prairie as -the sun was setting the night before, and had made all arrangements at -the hospital, giving orders that Meydon should have no food whatever -till the operation was performed the next afternoon, and nothing to -drink except a little brandy-and-water. - -The operation was performed successfully, and Varley had issued from -the operating-room with the look of a man who had gone through an ordeal -which had taxed his nerve to the utmost, to find Valerie Meydon waiting, -with a piteous, dazed look in her eyes. But this look passed when she -heard him say, "All right!" The words brought a sense of relief, for -if he had failed it would have seemed almost unbearable in the -circumstances--the cup of trembling must be drunk to the dregs. - -Few words had passed between them, and he had gone, while she remained -behind with Father Bourassa, till the patient should wake from the sleep -into which he had fallen when Varley left. - -But within two hours they sent for Varley again, for Meydon was in -evident danger. Varley had come, and had now been with the patient for -some time. - -At last the door opened and Varley came in quickly. He beckoned to Mrs. -Meydon and to Father Bourassa. "He wishes to speak with you," he said to -her. "There is little time." - -Her eyes scarcely saw him, as she left the room and passed to where -Meydon lay nerveless, but with wide-open eyes, waiting for her. The -eyes closed, however, before she reached the bed. Presently they opened -again, but the lids remained fixed. He did not hear what she said. - - ...................... - -In the little waiting-room, Finden said to Varley, "What happened?" - -"Food was absolutely forbidden, but he got it from another patient early -this morning while the nurse was out for a moment. It has killed him." - -"'Twas the least he could do, but no credit's due him. It was to be. I'm -not envying Father Bourassa nor her there with him." - -Varley made no reply. He was watching the receding storm with eyes which -told nothing. - -Finden spoke once more, but Varley did not hear him. Presently the door -opened and Father Bourassa entered. He made a gesture of the hand to -signify that all was over. - -Outside, the sun was breaking through the clouds upon the Western -prairie, and there floated through the evening air the sound of a -child's voice singing beneath the trees that fringed the river: - - "Will you come back, darlin'? Never heed the pain and blightin', - Never trouble that you're wounded, that you bear the scars of - fightin'; - Here's the luck o' Heaven to you, - Here's the hand of love will brew you - The cup of peace-ah, darlin', will you come back home?" - - - - -WATCHING THE RISE OF ORION - -"In all the wide border his steed was the best," and the name and fame -of Terence O'Ryan were known from Strathcona to Qu'appelle. He had -ambition of several kinds, and he had the virtue of not caring who knew -of it. He had no guile, and little money; but never a day's work was -too hard for him, and he took bad luck, when it came, with a jerk of -the shoulder and a good-natured surprise on his clean-shaven face that -suited well his wide grey eyes and large, luxurious mouth. He had an -estate, half ranch, half farm, with a French Canadian manager named -Vigon, an old prospector who viewed every foot of land in the world with -the eye of the discoverer. Gold, coal, iron, oil, he searched for them -everywhere, making sure that sooner or later he would find them. -Once Vigon had found coal. That was when he worked for a man called -Constantine Jopp, and had given him great profit; but he, the -discoverer, had been put off with a horse and a hundred dollars. He was -now as devoted to Terence O'Ryan as he had been faithful to Constantine -Jopp, whom he cursed waking and sleeping. - -In his time O'Ryan had speculated, and lost; he had floated a coal mine, -and "been had"; he had run for the local legislature, had been elected, -and then unseated for bribery committed by an agent; he had run races at -Regina, and won--he had won for three years in succession; and this had -kept him going and restored his finances when they were at their worst. -He was, in truth, the best rider in the country, and, so far, was the -owner also of the best three-year-old that the West had produced. He -achieved popularity without effort. The West laughed at his enterprises -and loved him; he was at once a public moral and a hero. It was a legend -of the West that his forbears had been kings in Ireland like Brian -Borhoime. He did not contradict this; he never contradicted anything. -His challenge to all fun and satire and misrepresentation was, "What'll -be the differ a hundred years from now!" - -He did not use this phrase, however, towards one experience--the -advent of Miss Molly Mackinder, the heiress, and the challenge that -reverberated through the West after her arrival. Philosophy deserted him -then; he fell back on the primary emotions of mankind. - -A month after Miss Mackinder's arrival at La Touche a dramatic -performance was given at the old fort, in which the officers of the -Mounted Police took part, together with many civilians who fancied -themselves. By that time the district had realised that Terry O'Ryan -had surrendered to what they called "the laying on of hands" by Molly -Mackinder. It was not certain, however, that the surrender was complete, -because O'Ryan had been wounded before, and yet had not been taken -captive altogether. His complete surrender seemed now more certain -to the public because the lady had a fortune of two hundred thousand -dollars, and that amount of money would be useful to an ambitious man in -the growing West. It would, as Gow Johnson said, "Let him sit back and -view the landscape o'er, before he puts his ploughshare in the mud." - -There was an outdoor scene in the play produced by the impetuous -amateurs, and dialogue had been interpolated by three "imps of fame" at -the suggestion of Constantine Jopp, one of the three, who bore malice -towards O'Ryan, though this his colleagues did not know distinctly. The -scene was a camp-fire--a starlit night, a colloquy between the three, -upon which the hero of the drama, played by Terry O'Ryan, should break, -after having, unknown to them, but in sight of the audience, overheard -their kind of intentions towards himself. - -The night came. When the curtain rose for the third act there was -exposed a star-sown sky, in which the galaxy of Orion was shown with -distinctness, each star sharply twinkling from the electric power -behind-a pretty scene evoking great applause. O'Ryan had never seen this -back curtain--they had taken care that he should not--and, standing in -the wings awaiting his cue, he was unprepared for the laughter of the -audience, first low and uncertain, then growing, then insistent, and -now a peal of ungovernable mirth, as one by one they understood the -significance of the stars of Orion on the back curtain. - -O'Ryan got his cue, and came on to an outburst of applause which shook -the walls. La Touche rose at him, among them Miss Molly Mackinder in the -front row with the notables. - -He did not see the back curtain, or Orion blazing in the ultramarine -blue. According to the stage directions, he was to steal along the trees -at the wings, and listen to the talk of the men at the fire plotting -against him, who were presently to pretend good comradeship to his face. -It was a vigorous melodrama with some touches of true Western feeling. -After listening for a moment, O'Ryan was to creep up the stage again -towards the back curtain, giving a cue for his appearance. - -When the hilarious applause at his entrance had somewhat subsided, the -three took up their parable, but it was not the parable of the play. -They used dialogue not in the original. It had a significance which the -audience were not slow to appreciate, and went far to turn "The Sunburst -Trail" at this point into a comedy-farce. When this new dialogue began, -O'Ryan could scarcely trust his ears, or realise what was happening. - -"Ah, look," said Dicky Fergus at the fire, "as fine a night as ever I -saw in the West! The sky's a picture. You could almost hand the stars -down, they're so near." - -"What's that clump together on the right--what are they called in -astronomy?" asked Constantine Jopp, with a leer. - -"Orion is the name--a beauty, ain't it?" answered Fergus. - -"I've been watching Orion rise," said the third--Holden was his name. -"Many's the time I've watched Orion rising. Orion's the star for me. -Say, he wipes 'em all out--right out. Watch him rising now." - -By a manipulation of the lights Orion moved up the back curtain slowly, -and blazed with light nearer the zenith. And La Touche had more than the -worth of its money in this opening to the third act of the play. O'Ryan -was a favourite, at whom La Touche loved to jeer, and the parable of the -stars convulsed them. - -At the first words O'Ryan put a hand on himself and tried to grasp the -meaning of it all, but his entrance and the subsequent applause had -confused him. Presently, however, he turned to the back curtain, as -Orion moved slowly up the heavens, and found the key to the situation. -He gasped. Then he listened to the dialogue which had nothing to do with -"The Sunburst Trail." - -"What did Orion do, and why does he rise? Has he got to rise? Why was -the gent called Orion in them far-off days?" asked Holden. - -"He did some hunting in his time--with a club," Fergus replied. "He kept -making hits, he did. Orion was a spoiler. When he took the field there -was no room for the rest of the race. Why does he rise? Because it is a -habit. They could always get a rise out of Orion. The Athens Eirenicon -said that yeast might fail to rise, but touch the button and Orion would -rise like a bird." - -At that instant the galaxy jerked up the back curtain again, and when -the audience could control itself, Constantine Jopp, grinning meanly, -asked: - -"Why does he wear the girdle?" - -"It is not a girdle--it is a belt," was Dicky Fergus's reply. "The -gods gave it to him because he was a favourite. There was a lady called -Artemis--she was the last of them. But he went visiting with Eos, -another lady of previous acquaintance, down at a place called Ortygia, -and Artemis shot him dead with a shaft Apollo had given her; but she -didn't marry Apollo neither. She laid Orion out on the sky, with his -glittering belt, around him. And Orion keeps on rising." - -"Will he ever stop rising?" asked Holden. - -Followed for the conspirators a disconcerting moment; for, when the -laughter had subsided, a lazy voice came from the back of the hall, -"He'll stop long enough to play with Apollo a little, I guess." - -It was Gow Johnson who had spoken, and no man knew Terry O'Ryan better, -or could gauge more truly the course he would take. He had been in many -an enterprise, many a brush with O'Ryan, and his friendship would bear -any strain. - -O'Ryan recovered himself from the moment he saw the back curtain, and -he did not find any fun in the thing. It took a hold on him out of -all proportion to its importance. He realised that he had come to -the parting of the ways in his life. It suddenly came upon him that -something had been lacking in him in the past; and that his want of -success in many things had not been wholly due to bad luck. He had been -eager, enterprising, a genius almost at seeing good things; and yet -others had reaped where he had sown. He had believed too much in his -fellow-man. For the first time in his life he resented the friendly, -almost affectionate satire of his many friends. It was amusing, it -was delightful; but down beneath it all there was a little touch of -ridicule. He had more brains than any of them, and he had known it in -a way; he had led them sometimes, too, as on raids against -cattle-stealers, and in a brush with half-breeds and Indians; as when -he stood for the legislature; but he felt now for the first time that -he had not made the most of himself, that there was something hurting to -self-respect in this prank played upon him. When he came to that point -his resentment went higher. He thought of Molly Mackinder, and he heard -all too acutely the vague veiled references to her in their satire. By -the time Gow Johnson spoke he had mastered himself, however, and had -made up his mind. He stood still for a moment. - -"Now, please, my cue," he said quietly and satirically from the trees -near the wings. - -He was smiling, but Gow Johnson's prognostication was right; and ere -long the audience realised that he was right. There was standing before -them not the Terry O'Ryan they had known, but another. He threw himself -fully into his part--a young rancher made deputy sheriff, who by the -occasional exercise of his duty had incurred the hatred of a small -floating population that lived by fraud, violence, and cattle-stealing. -The conspiracy was to raid his cattle, to lure him to pursuit, to ambush -him, and kill him. Terry now played the part with a naturalness -and force which soon lifted the play away from the farcical element -introduced into it by those who had interpolated the gibes at himself. -They had gone a step too far. - -"He's going large," said Gow Johnson, as the act drew near its close, -and the climax neared, where O'Ryan was to enter upon a physical -struggle with his assailants. "His blood's up. There'll be hell to pay." - -To Gow Johnson the play had instantly become real, and O'Ryan an injured -man at bay, the victim of the act--not of the fictitious characters of -the play, but of the three men, Fergus, Holden, and Constantine Jopp, -who had planned the discomfiture of O'Ryan; and he felt that the -victim's resentment would fall heaviest on Constantine Jopp, the bully, -an old schoolmate of Terry's. - -Jopp was older than O'Ryan by three years, which in men is little, but -in boys, at a certain time of life, is much. It means, generally, weight -and height, an advantage in a scrimmage. Constantine Jopp had been the -plague and tyrant of O'Ryan's boyhood. He was now a big, leering fellow -with much money of his own, got chiefly from the coal discovered on his -place by Vigon, the half-breed French Canadian. He had a sense of dark -and malicious humour, a long horse-like face, with little beady eyes and -a huge frame. - -Again and again had Terry fought him as a boy at school, and often he -had been badly whipped, but he had never refused the challenge of an -insult when he was twelve and Jopp fifteen. The climax to their enmity -at school had come one day when Terry was seized with a cramp while -bathing, and after having gone down twice was rescued by Jopp, who -dragged him out by the hair of the head. He had been restored to -consciousness on the bank and carried to his home, where he lay ill for -days. During the course of the slight fever which followed the accident -his hair was cut close to his head. Impetuous always, his first thought -was to go and thank Constantine Jopp for having saved his life. As soon -as he was able he went forth to find his rescuer, and met him suddenly -on turning a corner of the street. Before he could stammer out the -gratitude that was in his heart, Jopp, eyeing him with a sneering smile, -said drawlingly: - -"If you'd had your hair cut like that I couldn't have got you out, -could I? Holy, what a sight! Next time I'll take you by the scruff, -putty-face--bah!" - -That was enough for Terry. He had swallowed the insult, stuttered his -thanks to the jeering laugh of the lank bully, and had gone home and -cried in shame and rage. - -It was the one real shadow in his life. Ill luck and good luck had been -taken with an equable mind; but the fact that he must, while he lived, -own the supreme debt of his life to a boy and afterwards to a man whom -he hated by instinct was a constant cloud on him. Jopp owned him. For -some years they did not meet, and then at last they again were thrown -together in the West, when Jopp settled at La Touche. It was gall and -wormwood to Terry, but he steeled himself to be friendly, although the -man was as great a bully as the boy, as offensive in mind and character; -but withal acute and able in his way, and with a reputation for -commercial sharpness which would be called by another name in a -different civilisation. They met constantly, and O'Ryan always put -a hand on himself, and forced himself to be friendly. Once when Jopp -became desperately ill there had been--though he fought it down, and -condemned himself in every term of reproach--a sense of relief in the -thought that perhaps his ancient debt would now be cancelled. It had -gone on so long. And Constantine Jopp had never lost an opportunity of -vexing him, of torturing him, of giving veiled thrusts, which he knew -O'Ryan could not resent. It was the constant pin-prick of a mean soul, -who had an advantage of which he could never be dispossessed--unless the -ledger was balanced in some inscrutable way. - -Apparently bent on amusement only, and hiding his hatred from his -colleagues, Jopp had been the instigator and begetter of the huge joke -of the play; but it was the brains of Dick Fergus which had carried it -out, written the dialogue, and planned the electric appliances of the -back curtain--for he was an engineer and electrician. Neither he nor -Holden had known the old antipathy of Terry and Constantine Jopp. There -was only one man who knew the whole truth, and that was Gow Johnson, to -whom Terry had once told all. At the last moment Fergus had interpolated -certain points in the dialogue which were not even included at -rehearsal. These referred to Apollo. He had a shrewd notion that Jopp -had an idea of marrying Molly Mackinder if he could, cousins though they -were; and he was also aware that Jopp, knowing Molly's liking for Terry, -had tried to poison her mind against him, through suggestive gossip -about a little widow at Jansen, thirty miles away. He had in so far -succeeded that, on the very day of the performance, Molly had declined -to be driven home from the race-course by Terry, despite the fact that -Terry had won the chief race and owned the only dog-cart in the West. - -As the day went on Fergus realised, as had Gow Johnson, that Jopp had -raised a demon. The air was electric. The play was drawing near to its -climax--an attempt to capture the deputy sheriff, tie him to a tree, and -leave him bound and gagged alone in the waste. There was a glitter -in Terry's eyes, belying the lips which smiled in keeping with the -character he presented. A look of hardness was stamped on his face, and -the outlines of the temples were as sharp as the chin was set and the -voice slow and penetrating. - -Molly Mackinder's eyes were riveted on him. She sat very still, her -hands clasped in her lap, watching his every move. Instinct told her -that Terry was holding himself in; that some latent fierceness and iron -force in him had emerged into life; and that he meant to have revenge -on Constantine Jopp one way or another, and that soon; for she had heard -the rumour flying through the hall that her cousin was the cause of the -practical joke just played. From hints she had had from Constantine that -very day she knew that the rumour was the truth; and she recalled now -with shrinking dislike the grimace accompanying the suggestion. She -had not resented it then, being herself angry with Terry because of the -little widow at Jansen. - -Presently the silence in the hall became acute; the senses of the -audience were strained to the utmost. The acting before them was more -realistic than anything they had ever seen, or were ever likely to see -again in La Touche. All three conspirators, Fergus, Holden, and Jopp, -realised that O'Ryan's acting had behind it an animal anger which -transformed him. When he looked into their eyes it was with a steely -directness harder and fiercer than was observed by the audience. Once -there was occasion for O'Ryan to catch Fergus by the arm, and Fergus -winced from the grip. When standing in the wings with Terry he ventured -to apologise playfully for the joke, but Terry made no answer; and once -again he had whispered good-naturedly as they stood together on the -stage; but the reply had been a low, scornful laugh. Fergus realised -that a critical moment was at hand. The play provided for some dialogue -between Jopp and Terry, and he observed with anxiety that Terry now -interpolated certain phrases meant to warn Constantine, and to excite -him to anger also. - -The moment came upon them sooner than the text of the play warranted. -O'Ryan deliberately left out several sentences, and gave a later cue, -and the struggle for his capture was precipitated. Terry meant to make -the struggle real. So thrilling had been the scene that to an extent the -audience was prepared for what followed; but they did not grasp the full -reality--that the play was now only a vehicle for a personal issue of a -desperate character. No one had ever seen O'Ryan angry; and now that the -demon of rage was on him, directed by a will suddenly grown to its full -height, they saw not only a powerful character in a powerful melodrama, -but a man of wild force. When the three desperadoes closed in on O'Ryan, -and, with a blow from the shoulder which was not a pretence, he sent -Holden into a far corner gasping for breath and moaning with pain, -the audience broke out into wild cheering. It was superb acting, -they thought. As most of them had never seen the play, they were not -surprised when Holden did not again join the attack on the -deputy sheriff. Those who did know the drama--among them Molly -Mackinder--became dismayed, then anxious. Fergus and Jopp knew well from -the blow O'Ryan had given that, unless they could drag him down, the end -must be disaster to some one. They were struggling with him for personal -safety now. The play was forgotten, though mechanically O'Ryan and -Fergus repeated the exclamations and the few phrases belonging to the -part. Jopp was silent, fighting with a malice which belongs to only -half-breed, or half-bred, natures; and from far back in his own nature -the distant Indian strain in him was working in savage hatred. The two -were desperately hanging on to O'Ryan like pumas on a grizzly, when -suddenly, with a twist he had learned from Ogami the Jap on the Smoky -River, the slim Fergus was slung backward to the ground with the tendons -of his arm strained and the arm itself useless for further work. There -remained now Constantine Jopp, heavier and more powerful than O'Ryan. - -For O'Ryan the theatre, the people, disappeared. He was a boy again on -the village green, with the bully before him who had tortured his young -days. He forgot the old debt to the foe who saved his life; he forgot -everything, except that once again, as of old, Constantine Jopp was -fighting him, with long, strong arms trying to bring him to the ground. -Jopp's superior height gave him an advantage in a close grip; the -strength of his gorilla-like arms was difficult to withstand. Both were -forgetful of the world, and the two other injured men, silent and awed, -were watching the fight, in which one of them, at least, was powerless -to take part. - -The audience was breathless. Most now saw the grim reality of the scene -before them; and when at last O'Ryan's powerful right hand got a grip -upon the throat of Jopp, and they saw the grip tighten, tighten, and -Jopp's face go from red to purple, a hundred people gasped. Excited men -made as though to move toward the stage; but the majority still believed -that it all belonged to the play, and shouted "Sit down!" - -Suddenly the voice of Gow Johnson was heard "Don't kill him--let go, -boy!" - -The voice rang out with sharp anxiety, and pierced the fog of passion -and rage in which O'Ryan was moving. He realised what he was doing, the -real sense of it came upon him. Suddenly he let go the lank throat of -his enemy, and, by a supreme effort, flung him across the stage, where -Jopp lay resting on his hands, his bleared eyes looking at Terry with -the fear and horror still in them which had come with that tightening -grip on his throat. - -Silence fell suddenly on the theatre. The audience was standing. A -woman sobbed somewhere in a far corner, but the rest were dismayed and -speechless. A few steps before them all was Molly Mackinder, white and -frightened, but in her eyes was a look of understanding as she gazed at -Terry. Breathing hard, Terry stood still in the middle of the stage, -the red fog not yet gone out of his eyes, his hands clasped at his side, -vaguely realising the audience again. Behind him was the back curtain in -which the lights of Orion twinkled aggressively. The three men who had -attacked him were still where he had thrown them. - -The silence was intense, the strain oppressive. But now a drawling voice -came from the back of the hall. "Are you watching the rise of Orion?" it -said. It was the voice of Gow Johnson. - -The strain was broken; the audience dissolved in laughter; but it was -not hilarious; it was the nervous laughter of relief, touched off by a -native humour always present in the dweller of the prairie. - -"I beg your pardon," said Terry quietly and abstractedly to the -audience. - -And the scene-shifter bethought himself and let down the curtain. - -The fourth act was not played that night. The people had had more than -the worth of their money. In a few moments the stage was crowded with -people from the audience, but both Jopp and O'Ryan had disappeared. - -Among the visitors to the stage was Molly Mackinder. There was a meaning -smile upon her face as she said to Dicky Fergus: - -"It was quite wonderful, wasn't it--like a scene out of the -classics--the gladiators or something?" - -Fergus gave a wary smile as he answered: "Yes. I felt like saying Ave -Caesar, Ave! and I watched to see Artemis drop her handkerchief." - -"She dropped it, but you were too busy to pick it up. It would have -been a useful sling for your arm," she added with thoughtful malice. -"It seemed so real--you all acted so well, so appropriately. And how you -keep it up!" she added, as he cringed when some one knocked against his -elbow, hurting the injured tendons. - -Fergus looked at her meditatively before he answered. "Oh, I think we'll -likely keep it up for some time," he rejoined ironically. - -"Then the play isn't finished?" she added. "There is another act? Yes, I -thought there was, the programme said four." - -"Oh yes, there's another act," he answered, "but it isn't to be played -now; and I'm not in it." - -"No, I suppose you are not in it. You really weren't in the last act. -Who will be in it?" - -Fergus suddenly laughed outright, as he looked at Holden expostulating -intently to a crowd of people round him. "Well, honour bright, I don't -think there'll be anybody in it except little Conny Jopp and gentle -Terry O'Ryan; and Conny mayn't be in it very long. But he'll be in it -for a while, I guess. You see, the curtain came down in the middle of a -situation, not at the end of it. The curtain has to rise again." - -"Perhaps Orion will rise again--you think so?" She laughed in satire; -for Dicky Fergus had made love to her during the last three months with -unsuppressed activity, and she knew him in his sentimental moments; -which is fatal. It is fatal if, in a duet, one breathes fire and the -other frost. - -"If you want my opinion," he said in a lower voice, as they moved -towards the door, while people tried to listen to them--"if you want -it straight, I think Orion has risen--right up where shines the evening -star--Oh, say, now," he broke off, "haven't you had enough fun out of -me? I tell you, it was touch and go. He nearly broke my arm--would -have done it, if I hadn't gone limp to him; and your cousin Conny Jopp, -little Conny Jopp, was as near Kingdom Come as a man wants at his age. -I saw an elephant go 'must' once in India, and it was as like O'Ryan as -putty is to dough. It isn't all over either, for O'Ryan will forget and -forgive, and Jopp won't. He's your cousin, but he's a sulker. If he has -to sit up nights to do it, he'll try to get back on O'Ryan. He'll sit -up nights, but he'll do it, if he can. And whatever it is, it won't be -pretty." - -Outside the door they met Gow Johnson, excitement in his eyes. He heard -Fergus's last words. - -"He'll see Orion rising if he sits up nights," Gow Johnson said. "The -game is with Terry--at last." Then he called to the dispersing gossiping -crowd: "Hold on--hold on, you people. I've got news for you. Folks, this -is O'Ryan's night. It's his in the starry firmament. Look at him -shine," he cried, stretching out his arm towards the heavens, where the -glittering galaxy hung near the zenith. "Terry O'Ryan, our O'Ryan--he's -struck oil--on his ranch it's been struck. Old Vigon found it. Terry's -got his own at last. O'Ryan's in it--in it alone. Now, let's hear the -prairie-whisper," he shouted, in a great raucous voice. "Let's hear the -prairie-whisper. What is it?" - -The crowd responded in a hoarse shout for O'Ryan and his fortune. Even -the women shouted--all except Molly Mackinder. She was wondering if -O'Ryan risen would be the same to her as O'Ryan rising. She got into her -carriage with a sigh, though she said to the few friends with her: - -"If it's true, it's splendid. He deserves it too. Oh, I'm glad--I'm so -glad." She laughed; but the laugh was a little hysterical. - -She was both glad and sorry. Yet as she drove home over the prairie she -was silent. Far off in the east was a bright light. It was a bonfire -built on O'Ryan's ranch, near where he had struck oil--struck it rich. -The light grew and grew, and the prairie was alive with people hurrying -towards it. La Touche should have had the news hours earlier, but the -half-breed French-Canadian, Vigon, who had made the discovery, and had -started for La Touche with the news, went suddenly off his head with -excitement, and had ridden away into the prairie fiercely shouting -his joy to an invisible world. The news had been brought in later by a -farmhand. - -Terry O'Ryan had really struck oil, and his ranch was a scene of decent -revelry, of which Gow Johnson was master. But the central figure of -it all, the man who had, in truth, risen like a star, had become to La -Touche all at once its notoriety as well as its favourite, its great -man as well as its friend, he was nowhere to be found. He had been seen -riding full speed into the prairie towards the Kourmash Wood, and the -starlit night had swallowed him. Constantine Jopp had also disappeared; -but at first no one gave that thought or consideration. - -As the night went on, however, a feeling began to stir which it is not -good to rouse in frontier lands. It is sure to exhibit itself in forms -more objective than are found in great populations where methods of -punishment are various, and even when deadly are often refined. But -society in new places has only limited resources, and is thrown back -on primary ways and means. La Touche was no exception, and the keener -spirits, to whom O'Ryan had ever been "a white man," and who so rejoiced -in his good luck now that they drank his health a hundred times in his -own whiskey and cider, were simmering with desire for a public reproval -of Constantine Jopp's conduct. Though it was pointed out to them by -the astute Gow Johnson that Fergus and Holden had participated in the -colossal joke of the play, they had learned indirectly also the whole -truth concerning the past of the two men. They realised that Fergus and -Holden had been duped by Jopp into the escapade. Their primitive sense -of justice exonerated the humourists and arraigned the one malicious -man. As the night wore on they decided on the punishment to be meted out -by La Touche to the man who had not "acted on the square." - -Gow Johnson saw, too late, that he had roused a spirit as hard to -appease as the demon roused in O'Ryan earlier in the evening. He would -have enjoyed the battue of punishment under ordinary circumstances; but -he knew that Miss Molly Mackinder would be humiliated and indignant -at the half-savage penalty they meant to exact. He had determined that -O'Ryan should marry her; and this might be an obstruction in the path. -It was true that O'Ryan now would be a rich man--one of the richest in -the West, unless all signs failed; but meanwhile a union of fortunes -would only be an added benefit. Besides, he had seen that O'Ryan was in -earnest, and what O'Ryan wanted he himself wanted even more strongly. -He was not concerned greatly for O'Ryan's absence. He guessed that Terry -had ridden away into the night to work off the dark spirit that was on -him, to have it out with himself. Gow Johnson was a philosopher. He was -twenty years older than O'Ryan, and he had studied his friend as a pious -monk his missal. - -He was right in his judgment. When Terry left the theatre he was like -one in a dream, every nerve in his body at tension, his head aflame, -his pulses throbbing. For miles he rode away into the waste along the -northern trail, ever away from La Touche and his own home. He did not -know of the great good fortune that had come to him; and if, in this -hour, he had known, he would not have cared. As he rode on and on -remorse drew him into its grasp. Shame seized him that he had let -passion be his master, that he had lost his self-control, had taken a -revenge out of all proportion to the injury and insult to himself. It -did not ease his mind that he knew Constantine Jopp had done the thing -out of meanness and malice; for he was alive to-night in the light of -the stars, with the sweet crisp air blowing in his face, because of an -act of courage on the part of his schooldays' foe. He remembered now -that, when he was drowning, he had clung to Jopp with frenzied arms and -had endangered the bully's life also. The long torture of owing -this debt to so mean a soul was on him still, was rooted in him; but -suddenly, in the silent searching night, some spirit whispered in his -ear that this was the price which he must pay for his life saved to the -world, a compromise with the Inexorable Thing. On the verge of oblivion -and the end, he had been snatched back by relenting Fate, which requires -something for something given, when laws are overridden and doom -defeated. Yes, the price he was meant to pay was gratitude to one of -shrivelled soul and innate antipathy; and he had not been man enough -to see the trial through to the end! With a little increased strain put -upon his vanity and pride he had run amuck. Like some heathen gladiator -he had ravaged in the ring. He had gone down into the basements of human -life and there made a cockpit for his animal rage, till, in the contest, -brain and intellect had been saturated by the fumes and sweat of fleshly -fury. - -How quiet the night was, how soothing to the fevered mind and body, how -the cool air laved the heated head and flushed the lungs of the rheum of -passion! He rode on and on, farther and farther away from home, his -back upon the scenes where his daily deeds were done. It was long past -midnight before he turned his horse's head again homeward. - -Buried in his thoughts, now calm and determined, with a new life grown -up in him, a new strength different from the mastering force which gave -him a strength in the theatre like one in delirium, he noticed nothing. -He was only conscious of the omniscient night and its warm penetrating -friendliness; as, in a great trouble, when no words can be spoken, a -cool kind palm steals into the trembling hand of misery and stills it, -gives it strength and life and an even pulse. He was now master in the -house of his soul, and had no fear or doubt as to the future, or as to -his course. - -His first duty was to go to Constantine Jopp, and speak his regret like -a man. And after that it would be his duty to carry a double debt his -life long for the life saved, for the wrong done. He owed an apology to -La Touche, and he was scarcely aware that the native gentlemanliness in -him had said through his fever of passion over the footlights: "I beg -your pardon." In his heart he felt that he had offered a mean affront -to every person present, to the town where his interests lay, where his -heart lay. - -Where his heart lay--Molly Mackinder! He knew now that vanity had -something to do, if not all to do, with his violent acts, and though -there suddenly shot through his mind, as he rode back, a savage thrill -at the remembrance of how he had handled the three, it was only a -passing emotion. He was bent on putting himself right with Jopp and with -La Touche. With the former his way was clear; he did not yet see his way -as to La Touche. How would he be able to make the amende honorable to La -Touche? - -By and by he became somewhat less absorbed and enveloped by the -comforting night. He saw the glimmer of red light afar, and vaguely -wondered what it was. It was in the direction of O'Ryan's Ranch, but -he thought nothing of it, because it burned steadily. It was probably a -fire lighted by settlers trailing to the farther north. While the night -wore on he rode as slowly back to the town as he had galloped from it -like a centaur with a captive. - -Again and again Molly Mackinder's face came before him; but he -resolutely shut it out of his thoughts. He felt that he had no right -to think of her until he had "done the right thing" by Jopp and by La -Touche. Yet the look in her face as the curtain came down, it was not -that of one indifferent to him or to what he did. He neared the town -half-way between midnight and morning. Almost unconsciously avoiding the -main streets, he rode a roundabout way towards the little house where -Constantine Jopp lived. He could hear loud noises in the streets, -singing, and hoarse shouts. Then silence came, then shouts, and silence -again. It was all quiet as he rode up to Jopp's house, standing on the -outskirts of the town. There was a bright light in the window of a room. - -Jopp, then, was still up. He would not wait till tomorrow. He would do -the right thing now. He would put things straight with his foe before -he slept; he would do it at any sacrifice to his pride. He had conquered -his pride. - -He dismounted, threw the bridle over a post, and, going into the garden, -knocked gently at the door. There was no response. He knocked again, and -listened intently. Now he heard a sound-like a smothered cry or groan. -He opened the door quickly and entered. It was dark. In another room -beyond was a light. From it came the same sound he had heard before, but -louder; also there was a shuffling footstep. Springing forward to the -half-open door, he pushed it wide, and met the terror-stricken eyes of -Constantine Jopp--the same look that he had seen at the theatre when his -hands were on Jopp's throat, but more ghastly. - -Jopp was bound to a chair by a lasso. Both arms were fastened to the -chair-arm, and beneath them, on the floor, were bowls into which blood -dripped from his punctured wrists. - -He had hardly taken it all in--the work of an instant--when he saw -crouched in a corner, madness in his eyes, his half-breed Vigon. He -grasped the situation in a flash. Vigon had gone mad, had lain in wait -in Jopp's house, and when the man he hated had seated himself in the -chair, had lassoed him, bound him, and was slowly bleeding him to death. - -He had no time to think. Before he could act Vigon was upon him also, -frenzy in his eyes, a knife clutched in his hand. Reason had fled, and -he only saw in O'Ryan the frustrator of his revenge. He had watched the -drip, drip from his victim's wrists with a dreadful joy. - -They were man and man, but O'Ryan found in this grisly contest a vaster -trial of strength than in the fight upon the stage a few hours ago. The -first lunge that Vigon made struck him on the tip of the shoulder, and -drew blood; but he caught the hand holding the knife in an iron grasp, -while the half-breed, with superhuman strength, tried in vain for -the long brown throat of the man for whom he had struck oil. As they -struggled and twisted, the eyes of the victim in the chair watched them -with agonised emotions. For him it was life or death. He could not cry -out--his mouth was gagged; but to O'Ryan his groans were like a distant -echo of his own hoarse gasps as he fought his desperate fight. Terry -was as one in an awful dream battling with vague impersonal powers which -slowly strangled his life, yet held him back in torture from the final -surrender. - -For minutes they struggled. At last O'Ryan's strength came to the point -of breaking, for Vigon was a powerful man, and to this was added a -madman's energy. He felt that the end was coming. But all at once, -through the groans of the victim in the chair, Terry became conscious of -noises outside--such noises as he had heard before he entered the house, -only nearer and louder. At the same time he heard a horse's hoofs, then -a knock at the door, and a voice calling: "Jopp! Jopp!" - -He made a last desperate struggle, and shouted hoarsely. - -An instant later there were footsteps in the room, followed by a cry of -fright and amazement. - -It was Gow Johnson. He had come to warn Constantine Jopp that a crowd -were come to tar and feather him, and to get him away on his own horse. - -Now he sprang to the front door, called to the approaching crowd for -help, then ran back to help O'Ryan. A moment later a dozen men had Vigon -secure, and had released Constantine Jopp, now almost dead from loss of -blood. - -As they took the gag from his mouth and tied their handkerchiefs round -his bleeding wrists, Jopp sobbed aloud. His eyes were fixed on Terry -O'Ryan. Terry met the look, and grasped the limp hand lying on the -chair-arm. - -"I'm sorry, O'Ryan, I'm sorry for all I've done to you," Jopp sobbed. "I -was a sneak, but I want to own it. I want to be square now. You can tar -and feather me, if you like. I deserve it." He looked at the others. "I -deserve it," he repeated. - -"That's what the boys had thought would be appropriate," said Gow -Johnson with a dry chuckle, and the crowd looked at each other and -winked. The wink was kindly, however. "To own up and take your gruel" -was the easiest way to touch the men of the prairie. - -A half-hour later the roisterers, who had meant to carry Constantine -Jopp on a rail, carried Terry O'Ryan on their shoulders through the -town, against his will. As they passed the house where Miss Mackinder -lived some one shouted: - -"Are you watching the rise of Orion?" - -Many a time thereafter Terry O'Ryan and Molly Mackinder looked at the -galaxy in the evening sky with laughter and with pride. It had played -its part with Fate against Constantine Jopp and the little widow at -Jansen. It had never shone so brightly as on the night when Vigon struck -oil on O'Ryan's ranch. But Vigon had no memory of that. Such is the -irony of life. - - - - -THE ERROR OF THE DAY - -The "Error of the Day" may be defined as "The difference between the -distance or range which must be put upon the sights in order to hit the -target and the actual distance from the gun to the target."--Admiralty -Note. - -A great naval gun never fires twice alike. It varies from day to day, -and expert allowance has to be made in sighting every time it is fired. -Variations in atmosphere, condition of ammunition, and the wear of the -gun are the contributory causes to the ever-varying "Error of the Day." - - ......................... - -"Say, ain't he pretty?" - -"A Jim-dandy-oh, my!" - -"What's his price in the open market?" - -"Thirty millions-I think not." - -Then was heard the voice of Billy Goat--his name was William Goatry - - "Out in the cold world, out in the street; - Nothing to wear, and nothing to eat, - Fatherless, motherless, sadly I roam, - Child of misfortune, I'm driven from home." - -A loud laugh followed, for Billy Goat was a popular person at Kowatin in -the Saskatchewan country. He had an inimitable drollery, heightened by -a cast in his eye, a very large mouth, and a round, good-humoured face; -also he had a hand and arm like iron, and was altogether a great man on -a "spree." - -There had been a two days' spree at Kowatin, for no other reason than -that there had been great excitement over the capture and the subsequent -escape of a prairie-rover, who had robbed the contractor's money-chest -at the rail-head on the Canadian Pacific Railroad. Forty miles from -Kowatin he had been caught by, and escaped from, the tall, brown-eyed -man with the hard-bitten face who leaned against the open window of the -tavern, looking indifferently at the jeering crowd before him. For a -police officer he was not unpopular with them, but he had been a failure -for once, and, as Billy Goat had said: "It tickled us to death to see a -rider of the plains off his trolley--on the cold, cold ground, same as -you and me." - -They did not undervalue him. If he had been less a man than he was, -they would not have taken the trouble to cover him with their drunken -ribaldry. He had scored off them in the past in just such sprees as -this, when he had the power to do so, and used the power good-naturedly -and quietly--but used it. - -Then, he was Sergeant Foyle of the Royal North-West Mounted Police, on -duty in a district as large as the United Kingdom. And he had no greater -admirer than Billy Goat, who now reviled him. Not without cause, in -a way, for he had reviled himself to this extent, that when the -prairie-rover, Halbeck, escaped on the way to Prince Albert, after six -months' hunt for him and a final capture in the Kowatin district, Foyle -resigned the Force before the Commissioner could reproach him or call -him to account. Usually so exact, so certain of his target, some care -had not been taken, he had miscalculated, and there had been the Error -of the Day. Whatever it was, it had seemed to him fatal; and he had -turned his face from the barrack yard. - -Then he had made his way to the Happy Land Hotel at Kowatin, to begin -life as "a free and independent gent on the loose," as Billy Goat had -said. To resign had seemed extreme; because, though the Commissioner was -vexed at Halbeck's escape, Foyle was the best non-commissioned officer -in the Force. He had frightened horse thieves and bogus land-agents and -speculators out of the country; had fearlessly tracked down a criminal -or a band of criminals when the odds were heavy against him. He carried -on his cheek the scars of two bullets, and there was one white lock in -his brown hair, where an arrow had torn the scalp away as, alone, he -drove into the Post a score of Indians, fresh from raiding the cattle of -an immigrant trailing north. - -Now he was out of work, or so it seemed; he had stepped down from -his scarlet-coated dignity, from the place of guardian and guide of -civilisation, into the idleness of a tavern stoop. - -As the little group swayed round him, and Billy Goat started another -song, Foyle roused himself as though to move away--he was waiting for -the mail-stage to take him south: - - "Oh, father, dear father, come home with me now, - The clock in the steeple strikes one; - You said you were coming right home from the shop - As soon as your day's work was done. - Come home--come home--" - -The song arrested him, and he leaned back against the window again. A -curious look came into his eyes, a look that had nothing to do with the -acts of the people before him. It was searching into a scene beyond this -bright sunlight and the far green-brown grass, and the little oasis -of trees in the distance marking a homestead and the dust of the -wagon-wheels, out on the trail beyond the grain-elevator-beyond the blue -horizon's rim, quivering in the heat, and into regions where this crisp, -clear, life-giving, life-saving air never blew. - - "You said you were coming right home from the shop - As soon as your day's work was done. - Come home--come home--" - -He remembered when he had first heard this song in a play called 'Ten -Nights in a Bar-room', many years before, and how it had wrenched his -heart and soul, and covered him with a sudden cloud of shame and anger. -For his father had been a drunkard, and his brother had grown up a -drunkard, that brother whom he had not seen for ten years until--until-- - -He shuddered, closed his eyes, as though to shut out something that the -mind saw. He had had a rough life, he had become inured to the seamy -side of things--there was a seamy side even in this clean, free, wide -land; and he had no sentimentality; though something seemed to hurt and -shame him now. - - "As soon as your day's work was done. - Come home--come home--" - -The crowd was uproarious. The exhilaration had become a kind of -delirium. Men were losing their heads; there was an element of -irresponsibility in the new outbreak likely to breed some violent act, -which every man of them would lament when sober again. - -Nettlewood Foyle watched the dust rising from the wheels of the stage, -which had passed the elevator and was nearing the Prairie Home Hotel far -down the street. He would soon leave behind him this noisy ribaldry of -which he was the centre. He tossed his cheroot away. Suddenly he heard a -low voice behind him. - -"Why don't you hit out, sergeant?" it said. - -He started almost violently, and turned round. Then his face flushed, -his eyes blurred with feeling and deep surprise, and his lips parted in -a whispered exclamation and greeting. - -A girl's face from the shade of the sitting-room was looking out at him, -half-smiling, but with heightened colour and a suppressed agitation. The -girl was not more than twenty-five, graceful, supple, and strong. Her -chin was dimpled; across her right temple was a slight scar. She had -eyes of a wonderful deep blue; they seemed to swim with light. As Foyle -gazed at her for a moment dumfounded, with a quizzical suggestion and -smiling still a little more, she said: - -"You used to be a little quicker, Nett." The voice appeared to attempt -unconcern; but it quivered from a force of feeling underneath. It was so -long since she had seen him. - -He was about to reply, but, at the instant, a reveller pushed him with -a foot behind the knees so that they were sprung forward. The crowd -laughed--all save Billy Goat, who knew his man. - -Like lightning, and with cold fury in his eyes, Foyle caught the tall -cattleman by the forearm, and, with a swift, dexterous twist, had the -fellow in his power. - -"Down--down, to your knees, you skunk," he said in a low, fierce voice. - -The knees of the big man bent,--Foyle had not taken lessons of Ogami, -the Jap, for nothing--they bent, and the cattleman squealed, so intense -was the pain. It was break or bend; and he bent--to the ground and lay -there. Foyle stood over him for a moment, a hard light in his eyes, and -then, as if bethinking himself, he looked at the other roisterers, and -said: - -"There's a limit, and he reached it. Your mouths are your own, and you -can blow off to suit your fancy, but if any one thinks I'm a tame coyote -to be poked with a stick--!" He broke off, stooped over, and helped -the man before him to his feet. The arm had been strained, and the big -fellow nursed it. - -"Hell, but you're a twister!" the cattleman said with a grimace of pain. - -Billy Goat was a gentleman, after his kind, and he liked Sergeant Foyle -with a great liking. He turned to the crowd and spoke. - -"Say, boys, this mine's worked out. Let's leave the Happy Land to Foyle. -Boys, what is he--what--is he? What--is--Sergeant Foyle--boys?" - -The roar of the song they all knew came in reply, as Billy Goat waved -his arms about like the wild leader of a wild orchestra: - - "Sergeant Foyle, oh, he's a knocker from the West, - He's a chase-me-Charley, come-and-kiss-me tiger from the zoo; - He's a dandy on the pinch, and he's got a double cinch - On the gent that's going careless, and he'll soon cinch you: - And he'll soon--and he'll soon--cinch you!" - -Foyle watched them go, dancing, stumbling, calling back at him, as they -moved towards the Prairie Home Hotel: - - "And he'll soon-and he'll soon-cinch you!" - -His under lip came out, his eyes half-closed, as he watched them. "I've -done my last cinch. I've done my last cinch," he murmured. - -Then, suddenly, the look in his face changed, the eyes swam as they -had done a minute before at the sight of the girl in the room behind. -Whatever his trouble was, that face had obscured it in a flash, and -the pools of feeling far down in the depths of a lonely nature had been -stirred. Recognition, memory, tenderness, desire swam in his face, made -generous and kind the hard lines of the strong mouth. In an instant he -had swung himself over the window-sill. The girl had drawn away now into -a more shaded corner of the room, and she regarded him with a mingled -anxiety and eagerness. Was she afraid of something? Did she fear -that--she knew not quite what, but it had to do with a long ago. - -"It was time you hit out, Nett," she said, half shyly. "You're more -patient than you used to be, but you're surer. My, that was a twist you -gave him, Nett. Aren't you glad to see me?" she added hastily, and with -an effort to hide her agitation. - -He reached out and took her hand with a strange shyness, and a -self-consciousness which was alien to his nature. The touch of her hand -thrilled him. Their eyes met. She dropped hers. Then he gathered him -self together. "Glad to see you? Of course, of course, I'm glad. You -stunned me, Jo. Why, do you know where you are? You're a thousand miles -from home. I can't get it through my head, not really. What brings -you here? It's ten years--ten years since I saw you, and you were only -fifteen, but a fifteen that was as good as twenty." - -He scanned her face closely. "What's that scar on your forehead, Jo? You -hadn't that--then." - -"I ran up against something," she said evasively, her eyes glittering, -"and it left that scar. Does it look so bad?" - -"No, you'd never notice it, if you weren't looking close as I am. You -see, I knew your face so well ten years ago." - -He shook his head with a forced kind of smile. It became him, however, -for he smiled rarely; and the smile was like a lantern turned on his -face; it gave light and warmth to its quiet strength-or hardness. - -"You were always quizzing," she said with an attempt at a laugh--"always -trying to find out things. That's why you made them reckon with you out -here. You always could see behind things; always would have your own -way; always were meant to be a success." - -She was beginning to get control of herself again, was trying hard to -keep things on the surface. "You were meant to succeed--you had to," she -added. - -"I've been a failure--a dead failure," he answered slowly. "So they say. -So they said. You heard them, Jo." - -He jerked his head towards the open window. - -"Oh, those drunken fools!" she exclaimed indignantly, and her face -hardened. "How I hate drink! It spoils everything." - -There was silence for a moment. They were both thinking of the same -thing--of the same man. He repeated a question. - -"What brings you out here, Jo?" he asked gently. "Dorland," she -answered, her face setting into determination and anxiety. - -His face became pinched. "Dorl!" he said heavily. "What for, Jo? What do -you want with Dorl?" - -"When Cynthy died she left her five hundred dollars a year to the baby, -and--" - -"Yes, yes, I know. Well, Jo?" - -"Well, it was all right for five years--Dorland paid it in; but for five -years he hasn't paid anything. He's taken it, stolen it from his own -child by his own honest wife. I've come to get it--anyway, to stop him -from doing it any more. His own child--it puts murder in my heart, Nett! -I could kill him." - -He nodded grimly. "That's likely. And you've kept, Dorl's child with -your own money all these years?" - -"I've got four hundred dollars a year, Nett, you know; and I've been -dressmaking--they say I've got taste," she added, with a whimsical -smile. - -Nett nodded his head. "Five years. That's twenty-five hundred dollars -he's stolen from his own child. It's eight years old now, isn't it?" - -"Bobby is eight and a half," she answered. - -"And his schooling, and his clothing, and everything; and you have to -pay for it all?" - -"Oh, I don't mind, Nett, it isn't that. Bobby is Cynthy's child; and I -love him--love him; but I want him to have his rights. Dorl must give up -his hold on that money--or--" - -He nodded gravely. "Or you'll set the law on him?" - -"It's one thing or the other. Better to do it now when Bobby is young -and can't understand." - -"Or read the newspapers," he commented thoughtfully. - -"I don't think I've a hard heart," she continued, "but I'd like to -punish him, if it wasn't that he's your brother, Nett; and if it wasn't -for Bobby. Dorland was dreadfully cruel, even to Cynthy." - -"How did you know he was up here?" he asked. "From the lawyer that pays -over the money. Dorland has had it sent out here to Kowatin this two -years. And he sent word to the lawyer a month ago that he wanted it to -get here as usual. The letter left the same day as I did, and it got -here yesterday with me, I suppose. He'll be after it-perhaps to-day. He -wouldn't let it wait long, Dorl wouldn't." - -Foyle started. "To-day--to-day--" - -There was a gleam in his eyes, a setting of the lips, a line sinking -into the forehead between the eyes. - -"I've been watching for him all day, and I'll watch till he comes. I'm -going to say some things to him that he won't forget. I'm going to get -Bobby's money, or have the law do it--unless you think I'm a brute, -Nett." She looked at him wistfully. - -"That's all right. Don't worry about me, Jo. He's my brother, but I know -him--I know him through and through. He's done everything that a man can -do and not be hanged. A thief, a drunkard, and a brute--and he killed a -man out here," he added hoarsely. "I found it out myself--myself. It was -murder." - -Suddenly, as he looked at her, an idea seemed to flash into his mind. -He came very near and looked at her closely. Then he reached over and -almost touched the scar on her forehead. - -"Did he do that, Jo?" - -For an instant she was silent and looked down at the floor. Presently -she raised her eyes, her face suffused. Once or twice she tried to -speak, but failed. At last she gained courage and said: - -"After Cynthy's death I kept house for him for a year, taking care -of little Bobby. I loved Bobby so--he has Cynthy's eyes. One day -Dorland--oh, Nett, of course I oughtn't to have stayed there, I know it -now; but I was only sixteen, and what did I understand! And my mother -was dead. One day--oh, please, Nett, you can guess. He said something to -me. I made him leave the house. Before I could make plans what to do, he -came back mad with drink. I went for Bobby, to get out of the house, but -he caught hold of me. I struck him in the face, and he threw me against -the edge of the open door. It made the scar." - -Foyle's face was white. "Why did you never write and tell me that, Jo? -You know that I--" He stopped suddenly. - -"You had gone out of our lives down there. I didn't know where you were -for a long time; and then--then it was all right about Bobby and me, -except that Bobby didn't get the money that was his. But now--" - -Foyle's voice was hoarse and low. "He made that scar, and he--and you -only sixteen--Oh, my God!" Suddenly his face reddened, and he choked -with shame and anger. "And he's my brother!" was all that he could say. - -"Do you see him up here ever?" she asked pityingly. - -"I never saw him till a week ago." A moment, then he added: "The letter -wasn't to be sent here in his own name, was it?" - -She nodded. "Yes, in his own name, Dorland W. Foyle. Didn't he go by -that name when you saw him?" - -There was an oppressive silence, in which she saw that something moved -him strangely, and then he answered: "No, he was going by the name of -Halbeck--Hiram Halbeck." - -The girl gasped. Then the whole thing burst upon her. "Hiram Halbeck! -Hiram Halbeck, the thief--I read it all in the papers--the thief that -you caught, and that got away. And you've left the Mounted Police -because of it--oh, Nett!" Her eyes were full of tears, her face was -drawn and grey. - -He nodded. "I didn't know who he was till I arrested him," he said. -"Then, afterward, I thought of his child, and let him get away; and for -my poor old mother's sake. She never knew how bad he was even as a -boy. But I remember how he used to steal and drink the brandy from her -bedside, when she had the fever. She never knew the worst of him. But -I let him away in the night, Jo, and I resigned, and they thought that -Halbeck had beaten me, had escaped. Of course I couldn't stay in the -Force, having done that. But, by the heaven above us, if I had him here -now, I'd do the thing--do it, so help me God!" - -"Why should you ruin your life for him?" she said, with an outburst -of indignation. All that was in her heart welled up in her eyes at the -thought of what Foyle was. "You must not do it. You shall not do it. He -must pay for his wickedness, not you. It would be a sin. You and what -becomes of you mean so much." Suddenly with a flash of purpose she -added: "He will come for that letter, Nett. He would run any kind of -risk to get a dollar. He will come here for that letter--perhaps today." - -He shook his head moodily, oppressed by the trouble that was on him. -"He's not likely to venture here, after what's happened." - -"You don't know him as well as I do, Nett. He is so vain he'd do it, -just to show that he could. He'd' probably come in the evening. Does any -one know him here? So many people pass through Kowatin every day. Has -any one seen him?" - -"Only Billy Goatry," he answered, working his way to a solution of the -dark problem. "Only Billy Goatry knows him. The fellow that led the -singing--that was Goatry." - -"There he is now," he added, as Billy Goat passed the window. - -She came and laid a hand on his arm. "We've got to settle things with -him," she said. "If Dorl comes, Nett--" - -There was silence for a moment, then he caught her hand in his and held -it. "If he comes, leave him to me, Jo. You will leave him to me?" he -added anxiously. - -"Yes," she answered. "You'll do what's right-by Bobby?" - -"And by Dorl, too," he replied strangely. There were loud footsteps -without. - -"It's Goatry," said Foyle. "You stay here. I'll tell him everything. -He's all right; he's a true friend. He'll not interfere." - -The handle of the door turned slowly. "You keep watch on the -post-office, Jo," he added. - -Goatry came round the opening door with a grin. "Hope I don't intrude," -he said, stealing a half-leering look at the girl. As soon as he saw her -face, however, he straightened himself up and took on different manners. -He had not been so intoxicated as he had made, out, and he seemed only -"mellow" as he stood before them, with his corrugated face and queer, -quaint look, the eye with the cast in it blinking faster than the other. - -"It's all right, Goatry," said Foyle. "This lady is, one of my family -from the East." - -"Goin' on by stage?" Goatry said vaguely, as they shook hands. - -She did not reply, for she was looking down the street, and presently -she started as she gazed. She laid a hand suddenly on Foyle's arm. - -"See--he's come," she said in a whisper, and as though not realising -Goatry's presence. "He's come." - -Goatry looked as well as Foyle. "Halbeck--the devil!" he said. - -Foyle turned to him. "Stand by, Goatry. I want you to keep a shut mouth. -I've work to do." - -Goatry held out his hand. "I'm with you. If you get him this time, clamp -him, clamp him like a tooth in a harrow." - -Halbeck had stopped his horse at the post-office door. Dismounting he -looked quickly round, then drew the reins over the horse's head, letting -them trail, as is the custom of the West. - -A few swift words passed between Goatry and Foyle. "I'll do this myself, -Jo," he whispered to the girl presently. "Go into another room. I'll -bring him here." - -In another minute Goatry was leading the horse away from the -post-office, while Foyle stood waiting quietly at the door. The -departing footsteps of the horse brought Halbeck swiftly to the doorway, -with a letter in his hand. - -"Hi, there, you damned sucker!" he called after Goatry, and then saw -Foyle waiting. - -"What the hell--!" he said fiercely, his hand on something in his hip -pocket. - -"Keep quiet, Dorl. I want to have a little talk with you. Take your hand -away from that gun--take it away," he added with a meaning not to be -misunderstood. - -Halbeck knew that one shout would have the town on him, and he did not -know what card his brother was going to play. He let his arm drop to his -side. "What's your game? What do you want?" he asked surlily. - -"Come over to the Happy Land Hotel," Foyle answered, and in the light of -what was in his mind his words had a grim irony. - -With a snarl Halbeck stepped out. Goatry, who had handed the horse over -to the hostler, watched them coming. - -"Why did I never notice the likeness before?" Goatry said to himself. -"But, gosh! what a difference in the men. Foyle's going to double cinch -him this time, I guess." - -He followed them inside the hall of the Happy Land. When they stepped -into the sitting-room, he stood at the door waiting. The hotel was -entirely empty, the roisterers at the Prairie Home having drawn off -the idlers and spectators. The barman was nodding behind the bar, the -proprietor was moving about in the backyard inspecting a horse. There -was a cheerful warmth everywhere, the air was like an elixir, the -pungent smell of a pine-tree at the door gave a kind of medicament to -the indrawn breath. And to Billy Goat, who sometimes sang in the choir -of a church not a hundred miles away--for people agreed to forget his -occasional sprees--there came, he knew not why, the words of a hymn he -had sung only the preceding Sunday: - - "As pants the hart for cooling streams, - When heated in the chase--" - -The words kept ringing in his ears as he listened to the conversation -inside the room--the partition was thin, the door thinner, and he heard -much. Foyle had asked him not to intervene, but only to stand by and -await the issue of this final conference. He meant, however, to take a -hand in, if he thought he was needed, and he kept his ear glued to the -door. If he thought Foyle needed him--his fingers were on the handle of -the door. - -"Now, hurry up! What do you want with me?" asked Halbeck of his brother. - -"Take your time," said ex-Sergeant Foyle, as he drew the blind -three-quarters down, so that they could not be seen from the street. - -"I'm in a hurry, I tell you. I've got my plans. I'm going South. I've -only just time to catch the Canadian Pacific three days from now, riding -hard." - -"You're not going South, Dorl." - -"Where am I going, then?" was the sneering reply. "Not farther than the -Happy Land." - -"What the devil's all this? You don't mean you're trying to arrest me -again, after letting me go?" - -"You don't need to ask. You're my prisoner. You're my prisoner," he said -in a louder voice--"until you free yourself." - -"I'll do that damn quick, then," said the other, his hand flying to his -hip. - -"Sit down," was the sharp rejoinder, and a pistol was in his face before -he could draw his own weapon. "Put your gun on the table," Foyle said -quietly. Halbeck did so. There was no other way. - -Foyle drew it over to himself. His brother made a motion to rise. - -"Sit still, Dorl," came the warning voice. - -White with rage, the freebooter sat still, his dissipated face and heavy -angry lips looking like a debauched and villainous caricature of his -brother before him. - -"Yes, I suppose you'd have potted me, Dorl," said the ex-sergeant. - -"You'd have thought no more of doing that than you did of killing -Linley, the ranchman; than you did of trying to ruin Jo Byndon, your -wife's sister, when she was sixteen years old, when she was caring for -your child--giving her life for the child you brought into the world." - -"What in the name of hell--it's a lie!" - -"Don't bluster. I know the truth." - -"Who told you-the truth?" - -"She did--to-day--an hour ago." - -"She here--out here?" There was a new cowed note in the voice. - -"She is in the next room." - -"What did she come here for?" - -"To make you do right by your own child. I wonder what a jury of decent -men would think about a man who robbed his child for five years, and -let that child be fed and clothed and cared for by the girl he tried to -destroy, the girl he taught what sin there was in the world." - -"She put you up to this. She was always in love with you, and you know -it." - -There was a dangerous look in Foyle's eyes, and his jaw set hard. "There -would be no shame in a decent woman caring for me, even if it was -true. I haven't put myself outside the boundary as you have. You're -my brother, but you're the worst scoundrel in the country--the worst -unhanged. Put on the table there the letter in your pocket. It holds -five hundred dollars belonging to your child. There's twenty-five -hundred dollars more to be accounted for." - -The other hesitated, then with an oath threw the letter on the table. -"I'll pay the rest as soon as I can, if you'll stop this damned -tomfoolery," he said sullenly, for he saw that he was in a hole. - -"You'll pay it, I suppose, out of what you stole from the C.P.R. -contractor's chest. No, I don't think that will do." - -"You want me to go to prison, then?" - -"I think not. The truth would come out at the trial--the whole -truth--the murder, and all. There's your child Bobby. You've done him -enough wrong already. Do you want him--but it doesn't matter whether -you do or not--do you want him to carry through life the fact that his -father was a jail-bird and a murderer, just as Jo Byndon carries the -scar you made when you threw her against the door?" - -"What do you want with me, then?" The man sank slowly and heavily back -into the chair. - -"There is a way--have you never thought of it? When you threatened -others as you did me, and life seemed such a little thing in -others--can't you think?" - -Bewildered, the man looked around helplessly. In the silence which -followed Foyle's words his brain was struggling to see a way out. -Foyle's further words seemed to come from a great distance. - -"It's not too late to do the decent thing. You'll never repent of all -you've done; you'll never do different." - -The old reckless, irresponsible spirit revived in the man; he had both -courage and bravado, he was not hopeless yet of finding an escape from -the net. He would not beg, he would struggle. - -"I've lived as I meant to, and I'm not going to snivel or repent now. -It's all a rotten business, anyhow," he rejoined. - -With a sudden resolution the ex-sergeant put his own pistol in his -pocket, then pushed Halbeck's pistol over towards him on the table. -Halbeck's eyes lighted eagerly, grew red with excitement, then a change -passed over them. They now settled on the pistol, and stayed. He heard -Foyle's voice. "It's with you to do what you ought to do. Of course -you can kill me. My pistol's in my pocket. But I don't think you will. -You've murdered one man. You won't load your soul up with another. -Besides, if you kill me, you will never get away from Kowatin alive. But -it's with you--take your choice. It's me or you." - -Halbeck's fingers crept out and found the pistol. "Do your duty, Dorl," -said the ex-sergeant as he turned his back on his brother. - -The door of the room opened, and Goatry stepped inside softly. He had -work to do, if need be, and his face showed it. Halbeck did not see him. - -There was a demon in Halbeck's eyes, as his brother stood, his back -turned, taking his chances. A large mirror hung on the wall opposite -Halbeck. Goatry was watching Halbeck's face in the glass, and saw the -danger. He measured his distance. - -All at once Halbeck caught Goatry's face in the mirror. The dark devilry -faded out of his eyes. His lips moved in a whispered oath. Every way was -blocked. - -With a sudden wild resolution he raised the pistol to his head. It -cracked, and he fell back heavily in the chair. There was a red trickle -at the temple. - -He had chosen the best way out. - -"He had the pluck," said Goatry, as Foyle swung round with a face of -misery. - -A moment afterward came a rush of people. Goatry kept them back. - -"Sergeant Foyle arrested Halbeck, and Halbeck's shot himself," Goatry -explained to them. - -A white-faced girl with a scar on her temple made her way into the room. - -"Come away-come away, Jo," said the voice of the man she loved; and he -did not let her see the lifeless figure in the chair. - -Three days later the plains swallowed them, as they made their way with -Billy Goatry to the headquarters of the Riders of the Plains, where -Sergeant Foyle was asked to reconsider his resignation: which he did. - - - - -THE WHISPERER - - "And thou shalt be brought down and shalt speak out of the ground, - and thy speech shall be low out of the dust, and thy voice shall be - as of one that hath a familiar spirit out of the ground, and thy - speech shall whisper out of the dust." - -The harvest was all in, and, as far as eye could observe nothing -remained of the golden sea of wheat which had covered the wide prairie -save the yellow stubble, the bed of an ocean of wealth which had been -gathered. Here, the yellow level was broken by a dark patch of fallow -land, there, by a covert of trees also tinged with yellow, or deepening -to crimson and mauve--the harbinger of autumn. The sun had not the -insistent and intensive strength of more southerly climes; it was -buoyant, confident and heartening, and it shone in a turquoise vault -which covered and endeared the wide, even world beneath. Now and then -a flock of wild ducks whirred past, making for the marshes or the -innumerable lakes that vitalised the expanse, or buzzards hunched -heavily along, frightened from some far resort by eager sportsmen. - -That was above; but beneath, on a level with the unlifted eye, were -houses here and there, looking in the vastness like dolls' habitations. -Many of the houses stood blank and staring in the expanse, but some -had trees, and others little oases of green. Everywhere prosperity, -everywhere the strings of life pulled taut, signs that energy had been -straining on the leash. - -Yet there was one spot where it seemed that deadness made encampment. It -could not be seen in the sweep of the eye, you must have travelled and -looked vigilantly to find it; but it was there--a lake shimmering in the -eager sun, washing against a reedy shore, a little river running into -the reedy lake at one end and out at, the other, a small, dilapidated -house half hid in a wood that stretched for half a mile or so upon a -rising ground. In front of the house, not far from the lake, a man was -lying asleep upon the ground, a rough felt hat drawn over his eyes. - -Like the house, the man seemed dilapidated also: a slovenly, -ill-dressed, demoralised figure he looked, even with his face covered. -He seemed in a deep sleep. Wild ducks settled on the lake not far from -him with a swish and flutter; a coyote ran past, veering as it saw the -recumbent figure; a prairie hen rustled by with a shrill cluck, but he -seemed oblivious to all. If asleep, he was evidently dreaming, for now -and then he started, or his body twitched, and a muttering came from -beneath the hat. - -The battered house, the absence of barn or stable or garden, or any -token of thrift or energy, marked the man as an excrescence in this -theatre of hope and fruitful toil. It all belonged to some degenerate -land, some exhausted civilisation, not to this field of vigour where -life rang like silver. - -So the man lay for hour upon hour. He slept as though he had been upon a -long journey in which the body was worn to helplessness. Or was it that -sleep of the worn-out spirit which, tortured by remembrance and -remorse, at last sinks into the depths where the conscious vexes the -unconscious--a little of fire, a little of ice, and now and then the -turn of the screw? - -The day marched nobly on towards evening, growing out of its blue and -silver into a pervasive golden gleam; the bare, greyish houses on the -prairie were transformed into miniature palaces of light. Presently a -girl came out of the woods behind, looking at the neglected house with a -half-pitying curiosity. She carried in one hand a fishing rod which -had been telescoped till it was no bigger than a cane; in the other she -carried a small fishing basket. Her father's shooting and fishing camp -was a few miles away by a lake of greater size than this which she -approached. She had tired of the gay company in camp, brought up for -sport from beyond the American border where she also belonged, and she -had come to explore the river running into this reedy lake. She turned -from the house and came nearer to the lake, shaking her head, as though -compassionating the poor, folk who lived there. She was beautiful. Her -hair was brown, going to tawny, but in this soft light which enwrapped -her, she was in a sort of topaz flame. As she came on, suddenly she -stopped as though transfixed. She saw the man--and saw also a tragedy -afoot. - -The man stirred violently in his sleep, cried out, and started up. As -he did so, a snake, disturbed in its travel past him, suddenly raised -itself in anger. Startled out of sleep by some inner torture, the man -heard the sinister rattle he knew so well, and gazed paralysed. - -The girl had been but a few feet away when she first saw the man and -his angry foe. An instant, then, with the instinct of the woods and the -plains, and the courage that has habitation everywhere, dropping her -basket she sprang forward noiselessly. The short, telescoped fishing rod -she carried swung round her head and completed its next half-circle at -the head of the reptile, even as it was about to strike. The blow was -sure, and with half-severed head the snake fell dead upon the ground -beside the man. - -He was like one who has been projected from one world to another, dazed, -stricken, fearful. Presently the look of agonised dismay gave way to -such an expression of relief as might come upon the face of a reprieved -victim about to be given to the fire, or to the knife that flays. The -place of dreams from which he had emerged was like hell, and this was -some world of peace that he had not known these many years. Always one -had been at his elbow--"a familiar spirit out of the ground"--whispering -in his ear. He had been down in the abysses of life. - -He glanced again at the girl, and realised what she had done: she had -saved his life. Whether it had been worth saving was another question; -but he had been near to the brink, had looked in, and the animal in -him had shrunk back from the precipice in a confused agony of fear. He -staggered to his feet. - -"Where do you come from?" he said, pulling his coat closer to hide the -ragged waistcoat underneath, and adjusting his worn and dirty hat--in -his youth he had been vain and ambitious and good-looking also. - -He asked his question in no impertinent tone, but in the low voice of -one who "shall whisper out of the dust." He had not yet recovered from -the first impression of his awakening, that the world in which he now -stood was not a real world. - -She understood, and half in pity and half in conquered repugnance said: - -"I come from a camp beyond"--she indicated the direction by a -gesture. "I had been fishing"--she took up the basket--"and chanced on -you--then." She glanced at the snake significantly. - -"You killed it in the nick of time," he said, in a voice that still -spoke of the ground, but with a note of half-shamed gratitude. "I want -to thank you," he added. "You were brave. It would have turned on you -if you had missed. I know them. I've killed five." He spoke very slowly, -huskily. - -"Well, you are safe--that is the chief thing," she rejoined, making -as though to depart. But presently she turned back. "Why are you so -dreadfully poor--and everything?" she asked gently. - -His eye wandered over the lake and back again before he answered her, -in a dull, heavy tone: "I've had bad luck, and, when you get down, there -are plenty to kick you farther." - -"You weren't always poor as you are now--I mean long ago, when you were -young." - -"I'm not so old," he rejoined sluggishly--"only thirty-four." - -She could not suppress her astonishment. She looked at the hair already -grey, the hard, pinched face, the lustreless eyes. - -"Yet it must seem long to you," she said with meaning. Now he laughed--a -laugh sodden and mirthless. He was thinking of his boyhood. Everything, -save one or two spots all fire or all darkness, was dim in his -debilitated mind. - -"Too far to go back," he said, with a gleam of the intelligence which -had been strong in him once. - -She caught the gleam. She had wisdom beyond her years. It was the -greater because her mother was dead, and she had had so much wealth to -dispense, for her father was rich beyond counting, and she controlled -his household, and helped to regulate his charities. She saw that he was -not of the labouring classes, that he had known better days; his speech, -if abrupt and cheerless, was grammatical. - -"If you cannot go back, you can go forwards," she said firmly. "Why -should you be the only man in this beautiful land who lives like this, -who is idle when there is so much to do, who sleeps in the daytime when -there is so much time to sleep at night?" - -A faint flush came on the greyish, colourless face. "I don't sleep at -night," he returned moodily. - -"Why don't you sleep?" she asked. - -He did not answer, but stirred the body of the snake with his foot. The -tail moved; he stamped upon the head with almost frenzied violence, out -of keeping with his sluggishness. - -She turned away, yet looked back once more--she felt tragedy around her. -"It is never too late to mend," she said, and moved on, but stopped; for -a young man came running from the woods towards her. - -"I've had a hunt--such a hunt for you," the young man said eagerly, -then stopped short when he saw to whom she had been talking. A look of -disgust came upon his face as he drew her away, his hand on her arm. - -"In Heaven's name, why did you talk to that man?" he said. "You ought -not to have trusted yourself near him." - -"What has he done?" she asked. "Is he so bad?" - -"I've heard about him. I inquired the other day. He was once in a better -position as a ranchman--ten years ago; but he came into some money one -day, and he changed at once. He never had a good character; even -before he got his money he used to gamble, and was getting a bad name. -Afterwards he began drinking, and he took to gambling harder than ever. -Presently his money all went and he had to work; but his bad habits had -fastened on him, and now he lives from hand to mouth, sometimes working -for a month, sometimes idle for months. There's something sinister about -him, there's some mystery; for poverty or drink even--and he doesn't -drink much now--couldn't make him what he is. He doesn't seek company, -and he walks sometimes endless miles talking to himself, going as hard -as he can. How did you come to speak to him, Grace?" - -She told him all, with a curious abstraction in her voice, for she was -thinking of the man from a standpoint which her companion could not -realise. She was also trying to verify something in her memory. Ten -years ago, so her lover had just said, the poor wretch behind them had -been a different man; and there had shot into her mind the face of a -ranchman she had seen with her father, the railway king, one evening -when his "special" had stopped at a railway station on his tour through -Montana--ten years ago. Why did the face of the ranchman which had fixed -itself on her memory then, because he had come on the evening of her -birthday and had spoiled it for her, having taken her father away from -her for an hour--why did his face come to her now? What had it to do -with the face of this outcast she had just left? - -"What is his name?" she asked at last. - -"Roger Lygon," he answered. - -"Roger Lygon," she repeated mechanically. Something in the man chained -her thought--his face that moment when her hand saved him and the awful -fear left him, and a glimmer of light came into his eyes. - -But her lover beside her broke into song. He was happy with her. -Everything was before him, her beauty, her wealth, herself. He could not -dwell upon dismal things; his voice rang out on the sharp sweet evening -air: - - "'Oh, where did you get them, the bonny, bonny roses - That blossom in your cheeks, and the morning in your eyes?' - 'I got them on the North Trail, the road that never closes, - That widens to the seven gold gates of paradise.' - 'O come, let us camp in the North Trail together, - With the night-fires lit and the tent-pegs down.'" - -Left alone, the man by the reedy lake stood watching them until they -were out of view. The song came back to him, echoing across the waters: - - "O come, let us camp on the North Trail together, - With the night-fires lit and the tent-pegs down." - -The sunset glow, the girl's presence, had given him a moment's illusion, -had absorbed him for a moment, acting on his deadened nature like a -narcotic at once soothing and stimulating. As some wild animal in -a forgotten land, coming upon ruins of a vast civilisation, towers, -temples, and palaces, in the golden glow of an Eastern evening, stands -abashed and vaguely wondering, having neither reason to understand, nor -feeling to enjoy, yet is arrested and abashed, so he stood. He had lived -the last three years so much alone, had been cut off so completely from -his kind--had lived so much alone. Yet to-night, at last, he would not -be alone. - -Some one was coming to-night, some one whom he had not seen for a long -time. Letters had passed, the object of the visit had been defined, and -he had spent the intervening days since the last letter had arrived, now -agitated, now apathetic and sullen, now struggling with some invisible -being that kept whispering in his ear, saying to him, "It was the price -of fire, and blood, and shame. You did it--you--you--you! You are down, -and you will never get up. You can only go lower still--fire, and blood, -and shame!" - -Criminal as he was he had never become hardened, he had only become -degraded. Crime was not his vocation. He had no gift for it; still the -crime he had committed had never been discovered--the crime that he -did with others. There were himself and Dupont and another. Dupont was -coming to-night--Dupont who had profited by the crime, and had not spent -his profits, but had built upon them to further profit; for Dupont was -avaricious and prudent, and a born criminal. Dupont had never had any -compunctions or remorse, had never lost a night's sleep because of what -they two had done, instigated thereto by the other, who had paid them so -well for the dark thing. - -The other was Henderley, the financier. He was worse perhaps than -Dupont, for he was in a different sphere of life, was rich beyond -counting, and had been early nurtured in quiet Christian surroundings. -The spirit of ambition, rivalry, and the methods of a degenerate and -cruel finance had seized him, mastered him; so that, under the cloak -of power--as a toreador hides the blade under the red cloth before his -enemy the toro--he held a sword of capital which did cruel and vicious -things, at last becoming criminal also. Henderley had incited and paid; -the others, Dupont and Lygon, had acted and received. Henderley had had -no remorse, none at any rate that weighed upon him; for he had got used -to ruining rivals, and seeing strong men go down, and those who had -fought him come to beg or borrow of him in the end. He had seen more -than one commit suicide, and those they loved go down and farther down, -and he had helped these up a little, but not enough to put them near his -own plane again; and he could not see--it never occurred to him--that he -had done any evil to them. Dupont thought upon his crimes now and then, -and his heart hardened, for he had no moral feeling; Henderley did -not think at all. It was left to the man of the reedy lake to pay the -penalty of apprehension, to suffer the effects of crime upon a nature -not naturally criminal. - -Again and again, how many hundreds of times, had Roger Lygon seen in -his sleep--had even seen awake so did hallucination possess him--the new -cattle trail he had fired for scores of miles. The fire had destroyed -the grass over millions of acres, two houses had been burned and three -people had lost their lives; all to satisfy the savage desire of one -man, to destroy the chance of a cattle trade over a great section of -country for the railway which was to compete with his own--an act which, -in the end, was futile, failed of its purpose. Dupont and Lygon had been -paid their price, and had disappeared, and been forgotten--they were but -pawns in his game--and there was no proof against Henderley. Henderley -had forgotten. Lygon wished to forget, but Dupont remembered, and meant -now to reap fresh profit by the remembrance. - -Dupont was coming to-night, and the hatchet of crime was to be dug up -again. So it had been planned. As the shadows fell, Lygon roused himself -from his trance with a shiver. It was not cold, but in him there was a -nervous agitation, making him cold from head to foot; his body seemed -as impoverished as his mind. Looking with heavy-lidded eyes across the -prairie, he saw in the distance the barracks of the Riders of the Plains -and the jail near by, and his shuddering ceased. There was where he -belonged, within four stone walls; yet here he was free to go where he -willed, to live as he willed, with no eye upon him. With no eye upon -him? There was no eye, but there was the Whisperer whom he could never -drive away. Morning and night he heard the words, "You--you--you! Fire, -and blood, and shame!" He had snatched sleep when he could find it, -after long, long hours of tramping over the plains, ostensibly to shoot -wild fowl, but in truth to bring on a great bodily fatigue--and sleep. -His sleep only came then in the first watches of the night. As the night -wore on the Whisperer began again, as the cloud of weariness lifted a -little from him, and the senses were released from the heavy sedative of -unnatural exertion. - - ......................... - -The dusk deepened. The moon slowly rose. He cooked his scanty meal, and -took a deep draught from a horn of whiskey from beneath a board in the -flooring. He had not the courage to face Dupont without it, nor yet -to forget what he must forget, if he was to do the work Dupont came -to arrange--he must forget the girl who had saved his life and the -influence of those strange moments in which she had spoken down to him, -in the abyss where he had been lying. - -He sat in the doorway, a fire gleaming behind him; he drank in the good -air as though his lungs were thirsty for it, and saw the silver glitter -of the moon upon the water. Not a breath of wind stirred, and the -shining path the moon made upon the reedy lake fascinated his eye. -Everything was so still except that whisper louder in his ear than it -had ever been before. - -Suddenly, upon the silver path upon the lake there shot a silent canoe, -with a figure as silently paddling towards him. He gazed for a moment -dismayed, and then got to his feet with a jerk. - -"Dupont," he said mechanically. - -The canoe swished among the reeds and rushes, scraped on the shore, and -a tall, burly figure sprang from it, and stood still, looking at the -house. - -"Qui reste la--Lygon?" he asked. - -"Dupont," was the nervous, hesitating reply. Dupont came forwards -quickly. "Ah, ben, here we are again--so," he grunted cheerily. - -Entering the house they sat before the fire, holding their hands to the -warmth from force of habit, though the night was not cold. - -"Ben, you will do it to-night--then?" Dupont said. "Sacre, it is time!" - -"Do what?" rejoined the other heavily. - -An angry light leapt into Dupont's eyes. "You not unnerstan' my -letters-bah! You know it all right, so queeck." - -The other remained silent, staring into the fire with wide, searching -eyes. - -Dupont put a hand on him. "You ketch my idee queeck. We mus' have more -money from that Henderley--certainlee. It is ten years, and he t'ink -it is all right. He t'ink we come no more becos' he give five t'ousan' -dollars to us each. That was to do the t'ing, to fire the country. -Now we want another ten t'ousan' to us each, to forget we do it for -him--hein?" - -Still there was no reply. Dupont went on, watching the other furtively, -for he did not like this silence. But he would not resent it till he was -sure there was good cause. - -"It comes to suit us. He is over there at the Old Man Lak', where you -can get at him easy, not like in the city where he lif'. Over in the -States, he laugh mebbe, becos' he is at home, an' can buy off the law. -But here--it is Canadaw, an' they not care eef he have hunder' meellion -dollar. He know that--sure. Eef you say you not care a dam to go to -jail, so you can put him there, too, becos' you have not'ing, an' so dam -seeck of everyt'ing, he will t'ink ten t'ousan' dollar same as one cent -to Nic Dupont--ben sur!" - -Lygon nodded his head, still holding his hands to the blaze. With ten -thousand dollars he could get away into--into another world somewhere, -some world where he could forget; as he forgot for a moment this -afternoon when the girl said to him, "It is never too late to mend." - -Now as he thought of her, he pulled his coat together, and arranged the -rough scarf at his neck involuntarily. Ten thousand dollars--but ten -thousand dollars by blackmail, hush-money, the reward of fire, and -blood, and shame! Was it to go on? Was he to commit a new crime? - -He stirred, as though to shake off the net that he felt twisting round -him, in the hands of the robust and powerful Dupont, on whom crime -sat so lightly, who had flourished while he, Lygon, had gone lower and -lower. Ten years ago he had been the better man, had taken the lead, was -the master, Dupont the obedient confederate, the tool. Now, Dupont, once -the rough river-driver, grown prosperous in a large way for him--who -might yet be mayor of his town in Quebec--he held the rod of rule. Lygon -was conscious that the fifty dollars sent him every New Year for five -years by Dupont had been sent with a purpose, and that he was now -Dupont's tool. Debilitated, demoralised, how could he, even if he -wished, struggle against this powerful confederate, as powerful in will -as in body? Yet if he had his own way he would not go to Henderley. He -had lived with "a familiar spirit" so long, he feared the issue of this -next excursion into the fens of crime. - -Dupont was on his feet now. "He will be here only three days more--I haf -find it so. To-night it mus' be done. As we go I will tell you what -to say. I will wait at the Forks, an' we will come back togedder. His -cheque will do. Eef he gif at all, the cheque is all right. He will -not stop it. Eef he haf the money, it is better--sacre--yes. Eef he not -gif--well, I will tell you, there is the other railway man he try -to hurt, how would he like--But I will tell you on the river. -Main'enant--queeck, we go." - -Without a word Lygon took down another coat and put it on. Doing so he -concealed a weapon quickly as Dupont stooped to pick a coal for his pipe -from the blaze. Lygon had no fixed purpose in taking a weapon with him; -it was only a vague instinct of caution that moved him. - -In the canoe on the river, in an almost speechless apathy, he heard -Dupont's voice giving him instructions. - - ....................... - -Henderley, the financier, had just finished his game of whist and -dismissed his friends--it was equivalent to dismissal, rough yet genial -as he seemed to be, so did immense wealth and its accompanying power -affect his relations with those about him. In everything he was -"considered." He was in good humour, for he had won all the evening, and -with a smile he rubbed his hands among the notes--three thousand dollars -it was. It was like a man with a pocket full of money, chuckling over -a coin he has found in the street. Presently he heard a rustle of the -inner tent-curtain and swung round. He faced the man from the reedy -lake. - -Instinctively he glanced round for a weapon, mechanically his hands -firmly grasped the chair in front of him. - -He had been in danger of his life many times, and he had no fear. He had -been threatened with assassination more than once, and he had got used -to the idea of danger; life to him was only a game. - -He kept his nerve; he did not call out; he looked his visitor in the -eyes. - -"What are you doing here? Who are you?" he said. - -"Don't you know me?" answered Lygon, gazing intently at him. - -Face to face with the man who had tempted him to crime, Lygon had a new -sense of boldness, a sudden feeling of reprisal, a rushing desire to put -the screw upon him. At sight of this millionaire with the pile of notes -before him there vanished the sickening hesitation of the afternoon, of -the journey with Dupont. The look of the robust, healthy financier was -like acid in a wound; it maddened him. - -"You will know me better soon," Lygon added, his head twitching with -excitement. - -Henderley recognised him now. He gripped the armchair spasmodically, -but presently regained a complete composure. He knew the game that was -forward here; and he also thought that if once he yielded to blackmail -there would never be an end to it. He made no pretence, but came -straight to the point. - -"You can do nothing; there is no proof," he said with firm assurance. - -"There is Dupont," answered Lygon doggedly. - -"Who is Dupont?" - -"The French Canadian who helped me--I divided with him." - -"You said the man who helped you died. You wrote that to me. I suppose -you are lying now." - -Henderley coolly straightened the notes on the table, smoothing out -the wrinkles, arranging them according to their denominations with an -apparently interested eye; yet he was vigilantly watching the outcast -before him. To yield to blackmail would be fatal; not to yield to it--he -could not see his way. He had long ago forgotten the fire, and blood, -and shame. No Whisperer reminded him of that black page in the history -of his life; he had been immune of conscience. He could not understand -this man before him. It was as bad a case of human degradation as ever -he had seen--he remembered the stalwart, if dissipated, ranchman who had -acted on his instigation. He knew now that he had made a foolish blunder -then, that the scheme had been one of his failures; but he had never -looked on it as with eyes reproving crime. As a hundred thoughts tending -towards the solution of the problem by which he was faced, flashed -through his mind, and he rejected them all, he repeated mechanically the -phrase, "I suppose you are lying now." - -"Dupont is here--not a mile away," was the reply. "He will give proof. -He would go to jail or to the gallows to put you there, if you do not -pay. He is a devil--Dupont." - -Still the great man could not see his way out. He must temporise for a -little longer, for rashness might bring scandal or noise; and near by -was his daughter, the apple of his eye. - -"What do you want? How much did you figure you could get out of me, if I -let you bleed me?" he asked sneeringly and coolly. "Come now, how much?" - -Lygon, in whom a blind hatred of the man still raged, was about to -reply, when he heard a voice calling, "Daddy, Daddy!" - -Suddenly the red, half-insane light died down in Lygon's eyes. He saw -the snake upon the ground by the reedy lake, the girl standing over -it--the girl with the tawny hair. This was her voice. - -Henderley had made a step towards a curtain opening into another room -of the great tent, but before he could reach it the curtain was pushed -back, and the girl entered with a smile. - -"May I come in?" she said; then stood still astonished; seeing Lygon. - -"Oh!" she exclaimed. "Oh--you!" - -All at once a look came into her face which stirred it as a flying -insect stirs the water of a pool. On the instant she remembered that she -had seen the man before. - -It was ten years ago in Montana on the night of her birthday. Her father -had been called away to talk with this man, and she had seen him from -the steps of the "special." It was only the caricature of the once -strong, erect ranchman that she saw, but there was no mistake, she -recognised him now. - -Lygon, dumfounded, looked from her to her father, and he saw now in -Henderley's eyes a fear that was not to be misunderstood. - -Here was where Henderley could be smitten, could be brought to his -knees. It was the vulnerable part of him. Lygon could see that he was -stunned. The great financier was in his power. He looked back again to -the girl, and her face was full of trouble. - -A sharp suspicion was in her heart that somehow or other her father was -responsible for this man's degradation and ruin. She looked Lygon in the -eyes. - -"Did you want to see me?" she asked. - -She scarcely knew why she said it; but she was sensible of trouble, -maybe of tragedy, somewhere; and she had a vague dread of she knew not -what, for hide it, avoid it, as she had done so often, there was in her -heart an unhappy doubt concerning her father. - -A great change had come over Lygon. Her presence had altered him. He was -again where she had left him in the afternoon. - -He heard her say to her father, "This was the man I told you of--at the -reedy lake. Did you come to see me?" she repeated. - -"I did not know you were here," he answered. "I came"--he was conscious -of Henderley's staring eyes fixed upon him helplessly--"I came to ask -your father if he would not buy my shack. There is good shooting at the -lake; the ducks come plenty, sometimes. I want to get away, to start -again somewhere. I've been a failure. I want to get away, right away -south. If he would buy it I could start again. I've had no luck." He had -invented it on the moment, but the girl understood better than Lygon or -Henderley could have dreamed. She had seen the change pass over Lygon. -Henderley had a hand on himself again, and the startled look went out of -his eyes. - -"What do you want for your shack and the lake?" he asked with restored -confidence. The fellow no doubt was grateful that his daughter had saved -his life, he thought. - -"Five hundred dollars," answered Lygon quickly. Henderley would have -handed over all that lay on the table before him but that he thought it -better not to do so. "I'll buy it," he said. "You seem to have been hit -hard. Here is the money. Bring me the deed to-morrow--to-morrow." - -"I'll not take the money till I give you the deed," said Lygon. "It will -do to-morrow. It's doing me a good turn. I'll get away and start again -somewhere. I've done no good up here. Thank you, sir--thank you." Before -they realised it, the tent-curtain rose and fell, and he was gone into -the night. - -The trouble was still deep in the girl's eyes as she kissed her father, -and he, with an overdone cheerfulness, wished her a good night. - -The man of iron had been changed into a man of straw once at least in -his lifetime. - -Lygon found Dupont at the Forks. - -"Eh ben, it is all right--yes?" Dupont asked eagerly as Lygon joined -him. - -"Yes, it is all right," answered Lygon. - -With an exulting laugh and an obscene oath, Dupont pushed out the -canoe, and they got away into the moonlight. No word was spoken for some -distance, but Dupont kept giving grunts of satisfaction. - -"You got the ten t'ousan' each--in cash or cheque, eh? The cheque or the -money-hein?" - -"I've got nothing," answered Lygon. Dupont dropped his paddle with a -curse. - -"You got not'ing! You said eet was all right," he growled. - -"It is all right. I got nothing. I asked for nothing. I have had enough. -I have finished." - -With a roar of rage Dupont sprang on him, and caught him by the throat -as the canoe swayed and dipped. He was blind with fury. - -Lygon tried with one hand for his knife, and got it, but the pressure on -his throat was growing terrible. For minutes the struggle continued, for -Lygon was fighting with the desperation of one who makes his last awful -onset against fate and doom. - -Dupont also had his knife at work. At last it drank blood, but as he got -it home, he suddenly reeled blindly, lost his balance, and lurched into -the water with a groan. - -Lygon, weapon in hand, and bleeding freely, waited for him to rise and -make for the canoe again. - -Ten, twenty, fifty seconds passed. Dupont did not rise. A minute went -by, and still there was no stir, no sign. Dupont would never rise again. -In his wild rage he had burst a blood vessel on the brain. - -Lygon bound up his reeking wound as best he could. He did--it calmly, -whispering to himself the while. - -"I must do it. I must get there if I can. I will not be afraid to die -then," he muttered to himself. Presently he grasped an oar and paddled -feebly. - -A slight wind had risen, and, as he turned the boat in to face the Forks -again, it helped to carry the canoe to the landing-place. - -Lygon dragged himself out. He did not try to draw the canoe up, but -began this journey of a mile back to the tent he had left so recently. -First, step by step, leaning against trees, drawing himself forwards, -a journey as long to his determined mind as from youth to age. Would it -never end? It seemed a terrible climbing up the sides of a cliff, and, -as he struggled fainting on, all sorts of sounds were in his ears, but -he realised that the Whisperer was no longer there. The sounds he heard -did not torture, they helped his stumbling feet. They were like the -murmur of waters, like the sounds of the forest and soft, booming bells. -But the bells were only the beatings of his heart-so loud, so swift. - -He was on his knees now crawling on-on-on. At last there came a light, -suddenly bursting on him from a tent, he was so near. Then he called, -and called again, and fell forwards on his face. But now he heard a -voice above him. It was her voice. He had blindly struggled on to die -near her, near where she was, she was so pitiful and good. - -He had accomplished his journey, and her voice was speaking above him. -There were other voices, but it was only hers that he heard. - -"God help him--oh, God help him!" she was saying. He drew a long quiet -breath. "I will sleep now," he said clearly. - -He would hear the Whisperer no more. - - - - -AS DEEP AS THE SEA - -"What can I do, Dan? I'm broke, too. My last dollar went to pay my last -debt to-day. I've nothing but what I stand in. I've got prospects, but -I can't discount prospects at the banks." The speaker laughed bitterly. -"I've reaped and I'm sowing, the same as you, Dan." - -The other made a nervous motion of protest. "No; not the same as me, -Flood--not the same. It's sink or swim with me, and if you can't help -me--oh, I'd take my gruel without whining, if it wasn't for Di! It's -that knocks me over. It's the shame to her. Oh, what a cursed ass and -fool--and thief, I've been!" - -"Thief-thief?" - -Flood Rawley dropped the flaming match with which he was about to light -a cheroot, and stood staring, his dark-blue eyes growing wider, his -worn, handsome face becoming drawn, as swift conviction mastered him. He -felt that the black words which had fallen from his friend's lips--from -the lips of Diana Welldon's brother--were the truth. He looked at -the plump face, the full amiable eyes, now misty with fright, at the -characterless hand nervously feeling the golden moustache, at the -well-fed, inert body; and he knew that whatever the trouble or the -peril, Dan Welldon could not surmount it alone. - -"What is it?" Rawley asked rather sharply, his fingers running through -his slightly grizzled, black hair, but not excitedly, for he wanted -no scenes; and if this thing could hurt Di Welldon, and action was -necessary, he must remain cool. What she was to him, Heaven and he only -knew; what she had done for him, perhaps neither understood fully as -yet. "What is it--quick?" he added, and his words were like a sharp grip -upon Dan Welldon's shoulder. "Racing--cards?" - -Dan nodded. "Yes, over at Askatoon; five hundred on Jibway, the -favourite--he fell at the last fence; five hundred at poker with Nick -Fison; and a thousand in land speculation at Edmonton, on margin. -Everything went wrong." - -"And so you put your hand in the railway company's money-chest?" - -"It seemed such a dead certainty--Jibway; and the Edmonton -corner-blocks, too. I'd had luck with Nick before; but--well, there it -is, Flood." - -"They know--the railway people--Shaughnessy knows?" - -"Yes, the president knows. He's at Calgary now. They telegraphed him, -and he wired to give me till midnight to pay up, or go to jail. They're -watching me now. I can't stir. There's no escape, and there's no one I -can ask for help but you. That's why I've come, Flood." - -"Lord, what a fool! Couldn't you see what the end would be, if your -plunging didn't come off? You--you oughtn't to bet, or speculate, or -play cards, you're not clever enough. You've got blind rashness, and -so you think you're bold. And Di--oh, you idiot! And on a salary of a -thousand dollars a year!" - -"I suppose Di would help me; but I couldn't explain." The weak face -puckered, a lifeless kind of tear gathered in the ox-like eyes. - -"Yes, she probably would help you. She'd probably give you all she's -saved to go to Europe with and study, saved from her pictures sold at -twenty per cent of their value; and she'd mortgage the little income -she's got to keep her brother out of jail. Of course she would, and of -course you ought to be ashamed of yourself for thinking of it." Rawley -lighted his cigar and smoked fiercely. - -"It would be better for her than my going to jail," stubbornly replied -the other. "But I don't want to tell her, or to ask her for money. -That's why I've come to you. You needn't be so hard, Flood; you've not -been a saint; and Di knows it." - -Rawley took the cheroot from his mouth, threw back his head, and laughed -mirthlessly, ironically. Then suddenly he stopped and looked round the -room till his eyes rested on a portrait-drawing which hung on the wall -opposite the window, through which the sun poured. It was the face of a -girl with beautiful bronzed hair, and full, fine, beautifully modelled -face, with brown eyes deep and brooding, which seemed to have time and -space behind them--not before them. The lips were delicate and full, and -had the look suggesting a smile which the inward thought has stayed. It -was like one of the Titian women--like a Titian that hangs on the wall -of the Gallery at Munich. The head and neck, the whole personality, -had an air of distinction and destiny. The drawing had been done by a -wandering duchess who had seen the girl sketching in the foothills, -when on a visit to that "Wild West" which has such power to refine -and inspire minds not superior to Nature. Its replica was carried to a -castle in Scotland. It had been the gift of Diana Welldon on a certain -day not long ago, when Flood Rawley had made a pledge to her, which was -as vital to him and to his future as two thousand dollars were vital to -Dan Welldon now. - -"You've not been a saint, and Di knows it," repeated the weak brother -of a girl whose fame belonged to the West; whose name was a signal for -cheerful looks; whose buoyant humour and impartial friendliness gained -her innumerable friends; and whose talent, understood by few, gave her -a certain protection, lifting her a little away from the outwardly crude -and provincial life around her. - -When Rawley spoke, it was with quiet deliberation, and even gentleness. -"I haven't been a saint, and she knows it, as you say, Dan; but the law -is on my side as yet, and it isn't on yours. There's the difference." - -"You used to gamble yourself; you were pretty tough, and you oughtn't to -walk up my back with hobnailed boots." - -"Yes, I gambled, Dan, and I drank, and I raised a dust out here. My -record was writ pretty big. But I didn't lay my hands on the ark of the -social covenant, whose inscription is, Thou shalt not steal; and that's -why I'm poor but proud, and no one's watching for me round the corner, -same as you." - -Welldon's half-defiant petulance disappeared. "What's done can't be -undone." Then, with a sudden burst of anguish: "Oh, get me out of this -somehow!" - -"How? I've got no money. By speaking to your sister?" - -The other was silent. - -"Shall I do it?" Rawley peered anxiously into the other's face, and he -knew that there was no real security against the shameful trouble being -laid bare to her. - -"I want a chance to start straight again." - -The voice was fluttered, almost whining; it carried no conviction; but -the words had in them a reminder of words that Rawley himself had said -to Diana Welldon but a few months ago, and a new spirit stirred in him. -He stepped forwards and, gripping Dan's shoulder with a hand of steel, -said fiercely: - -"No, Dan. I'd rather take you to her in your coffin. She's never known -you, never seen what most of us have seen, that all you have--or nearly -all--is your lovely looks, and what they call a kind heart. There's only -you two in your family, and she's got to live with you--awhile, anyhow. -She couldn't stand this business. She mustn't stand it. She's had enough -to put up with in me; but at the worst she could pass me by on the other -side, and there would be an end. It would have been said that Flood -Rawley had got his deserts. It's different with you." His voice changed, -softened. "Dan, I made a pledge to her that I'd never play cards again -for money while I lived, and it wasn't a thing to take on without some -cogitation. But I cogitated, and took it on, and started life over -again--me! Began practising law again--barrister, solicitor, notary -public--at forty. And at last I've got my chance in a big case against -the Canadian Pacific. It'll make me or break me, Dan.... There, I wanted -you to see where I stand with Di; and now I want you to promise me that -you'll not leave these rooms till I see you again. I'll get you clear; -I'll save you, Dan." - -"Flood! Oh, my God, Flood!" The voice was broken. - -"You've got to stay here, and you're to remember not to get the funk, -even if I don't come before midnight. I'll be here then, if I'm alive. -If you don't keep your word--but, there, you will." Both hands gripped -the graceful shoulders of the miscreant like a vice. - -"So help me, Flood," was the frightened, whispered reply, "I'll make it -up to you somehow, some day. I'll pay you back." - -Rawley caught up his cap from the table. "Steady--steady. Don't go at -a fence till you're sure of your seat, Dan," he said. Then with a long -look at the portrait on the wall, and an exclamation which the other did -not hear, he left the room with a set, determined face. - - ...................... - -"Who told you? What brought you, Flood?" the girl asked, her chin in her -long, white hands, her head turned from the easel to him, a book in -her lap, the sun breaking through the leaves upon her hat, touching the -Titian hair with splendour. - -"Fate brought me, and didn't tell me," he answered, with a whimsical -quirk of the mouth, and his trouble lurking behind the sea-deep eyes. - -"Wouldn't you have come if you knew I was here?" she urged archly. - -"Not for two thousand dollars," he answered, the look of trouble -deepening in his eyes, but his lips were smiling. He had a quaint sense -of humour, and at his last gasp would have noted the ridiculous thing. -And surely it was a droll malignity of Fate to bring him here to her -whom, in this moment of all moments in his life, he wished far away. -Fate meant to try him to the uttermost. This hurdle of trial was high -indeed. - -"Two thousand dollars--nothing less?" she inquired gaily. "You are too -specific for a real lover." - -"Fate fixed the amount," he added drily. "Fate--you talk so much of -Fate," she replied gravely, and her eyes looked into the distance. "You -make me think of it too, and I don't want to do so. I don't want to feel -helpless, to be the child of Accident and Destiny." - -"Oh, you get the same thing in the 'fore-ordination' that old Minister -M'Gregor preaches every Sunday. 'Be elect or be damned,' he says to us -all. Names aren't important; but, anyhow, it was Fate that led me here." - -"Are you sure it wasn't me?" she asked softly. "Are you sure I wasn't -calling you, and you had to come?" - -"Well, it was en route, anyhow; and you are always calling, if I must -tell you," he laughed. Suddenly he became grave. "I hear you call me in -the night sometimes, and I start up and say 'Yes, Di!' out of my sleep. -It's a queer hallucination. I've got you on the brain, certainly." - -"It seems to vex you--certainly," she said, opening the book that lay in -her lap, "and your eyes trouble me to-day. They've got a look that used -to be in them, Flood, before--before you promised; and another look -I don't understand and don't like. I suppose it's always so. The real -business of life is trying to understand each other." - -"You have wonderful thoughts for one that's had so little chance," he -said. "That's because you're a genius, I suppose. Teaching can't give -that sort of thing--the insight." - -"What is the matter, Flood?" she asked suddenly again, her breast -heaving, her delicate, rounded fingers interlacing. "I heard a man say -once that you were 'as deep as the sea.' He did not mean it kindly, but -I do. You are in trouble, and I want to share it if I can. Where were -you going when you came across me here?" - -"To see old Busby, the quack-doctor up there," he answered, nodding -towards a shrubbed and wooded hillock behind them. - -"Old Busby!" she rejoined in amazement. "What do you want with him--not -medicine of that old quack, that dreadful man?" - -"He cures people sometimes. A good many out here owe him more than -they'll ever pay him." - -"Is he as rich an old miser as they say?" - -"He doesn't look rich, does he?" was the enigmatical answer. - -"Does any one know his real history? He didn't come from nowhere. He -must have had friends once. Some one must once have cared for him, -though he seems such a monster now." - -"Yet he cures people sometimes," he rejoined abstractedly. "Probably -there's some good underneath. I'm going to try and see." - -"What is it. What is your business with him? Won't you tell me? Is it so -secret?" - -"I want him to help me in a case I've got in hand. A client of mine is -in trouble--you mustn't ask about it; and he can help, I think--I think -so." He got to his feet. "I must be going, Di," he added. Suddenly a -flush swept over his face, and he reached out and took both her hands. -"Oh, you are a million times too good for me!" he said. "But if all goes -well, I'll do my best to make you forget it." - -"Wait--wait one moment," she answered. "Before you go, I want you to -hear what I've been reading over and over to myself just now. It is from -a book I got from Quebec, called 'When Time Shall Pass'. It is a story -of two like you and me. The man is writing to the woman, and it has -things that you have said to me--in a different way." - -"No, I don't talk like a book, but I know a star in a dark night when I -see it," he answered, with a catch in his throat. - -"Hush," she said, catching his hand in hers, as she read, while all -around them the sounds of summer--the distant clack of a reaper, the -crack of a whip, the locusts droning, the whir of a young partridge, the -squeak of a chipmunk--were tuned to the harmony of the moment and her -voice: - - "'Night and the sombre silence, oh, my love, and one star shining! - First, warm, velvety sleep, and then this quick, quiet waking to - your voice which seems to call me. Is it--is it you that calls? - Do you sometimes, even in your dreams, speak to me? Far beneath - unconsciousness is there the summons of your spirit to me?... - I like to think so. I like to think that this thing which has come - to us is deeper, greater than we are. Sometimes day and night there - flash before my eyes--my mind's eyes--pictures of you and me in - places unfamiliar, landscapes never before seen, activities - uncomprehended and unknown, bright, alluring glimpses of some second - being, some possible, maybe never-to-be-realised future, alas! Yet - these swift-moving shutters of the soul, or imagination, or reality - --who shall say which?--give me a joy never before felt in life. If - I am not a better man for this love of mine for you, I am more than - I was, and shall be more than I am. Much of my life in the past was - mean and small, so much that I have said and done has been unworthy - --my love for you is too sharp a light for my gross imperfections of - the past! Come what will, be what must, I stake my life, my heart, - my soul on you--that beautiful, beloved face; those deep eyes in - which my being is drowned; those lucid, perfect hands that have - bound me to the mast of your destiny. I cannot go back, I must go - forwards: now I must keep on loving you or be shipwrecked. I did - not know that this was in me, this tide of love, this current of - devotion. Destiny plays me beyond my ken, beyond my dreams. - O Cithaeron! Turn from me now--or never, O my love! Loose me - from the mast, and let the storm and wave wash me out into the sea - of your forgetfulness now--or never!... But keep me, keep me, - if your love is great enough, if I bring you any light or joy; for I - am yours to my uttermost note of life.'" - -"He knew--he knew!" Rawley said, catching her wrists in his hands and -drawing her to him. "If I could write, that's what I should have said to -you, beautiful and beloved. How mean and small and ugly my life was till -you made me over. I was a bad lot." - -"So much hung on one little promise," she said, and drew closer to -him. "You were never bad," she added; then, with an arm sweeping the -universe, "Oh, isn't it all good, and isn't it all worth living?" - -His face lost its glow. Over in the town her brother faced a ruined -life, and the girl beside him, a dark humiliation and a shame which -would poison her life hereafter, unless--his look turned to the little -house where the quack-doctor lived. He loosed her hands. - -"Now for Caliban," he said. - -"I shall be Ariel and follow you-in my heart," she said. "Be sure and -make him tell you the story of his life," she added with a laugh, as his -lips swept the hair behind her ears. - -As he moved swiftly away, watching his long strides, she said proudly, -"As deep as the sea." - -After a moment she added: "And he was once a gambler, until, until--" -she glanced at the open book, then with sweet mockery looked at her -hands--"until 'those lucid, perfect hands bound me to the mast of -your destiny.' O vain Diana! But they are rather beautiful," she added -softly, "and I am rather happy." There was something like a gay little -chuckle in her throat. - -"O vain Diana!" she repeated. - - ....................... - -Rawley entered the door of the but on the hill without ceremony. There -was no need for courtesy, and the work he had come to do could be easier -done without it. - -Old Busby was crouched over a table, his mouth lapping milk from a -full bowl on the table. He scarcely raised his head when Rawley -entered--through the open door he had seen his visitor coming. He sipped -on, his straggling beard dripping. There was silence for a time. - -"What do you want?" he growled at last. - -"Finish your swill, and then we can talk," said Rawley carelessly. He -took a chair near the door, lighted a cheroot and smoked, watching the -old man, as he tipped the great bowl towards his face, as though it -were some wild animal feeding. The clothes were patched and worn, the -coat-front was spattered with stains of all kinds, the hair and beard -were unkempt and long, giving him what would have been the look of a -mangy lion, but that the face had the expression of some beast less -honourable. The eyes, however, were malignantly intelligent, the hands, -ill-cared for, were long, well-shaped and capable, but of a hateful -yellow colour like the face. And through all was a sense of power, dark -and almost mediaeval. Secret, evilly wise and inhuman, he looked a being -apart, whom men might seek for help in dark purposes. - -"What do you want--medicine?" he muttered at last, wiping his beard and -mouth with the palm of his hand, and the palm on his knees. - -Rawley looked at the ominous-looking bottles on the shelves above the -old man's head; at the forceps, knives, and other surgical instruments -on the walls--they at least were bright and clean--and, taking the -cheroot slowly from his mouth, he said: - -"Shin-plasters are what I want. A friend of mine has caught his leg in a -trap." - -The old man gave an evil chuckle at the joke, for a "shin-plaster" was a -money-note worth a quarter of a dollar. - -"I've got some," he growled in reply, "but they cost twenty-five cents -each. You can have them for your friend at the price." - -"I want eight thousand of them from you. He's hurt pretty bad," was the -dogged, dry answer. - -The shaggy eyebrows of the quack drew together, and the eyes peered out -sharply through half-closed lids. "There's plenty of wanting and not -much getting in this world," he rejoined, with a leer of contempt, -and spat on the floor, while yet the furtive watchfulness of the eyes -indicated a mind ill at ease. - -Smoke came in placid puffs from the cheroot--Rawley was smoking very -hard, but with a judicial meditation, as it seemed. - -"Yes, but if you want a thing so bad that, to get it, you'll face the -devil or the Beast of Revelations, it's likely to come to you." - -"You call me a beast?" The reddish-brown face grew black like that of a -Bedouin in his rage. - -"I said the Beast of Revelations--don't you know the Scriptures?" - -"I know that a fool is to be answered according to his folly," was the -hoarse reply, and the great head wagged to and fro in its smarting rage. - -"Well, I'm doing my best; and perhaps when the folly is all out, we'll -come to the revelations of the Beast." There was a silence, in which the -gross impostor shifted heavily in his seat, while a hand twitched across -the mouth, and then caught at the breast of the threadbare black coat -abstractedly. - -Rawley leaned forward, one elbow on a knee, the cheroot in his fingers. -He spoke almost confidentially, as to some ignorant and misguided -savage--as he had talked to Indian chiefs in his time, when searching -for the truth regarding some crime: - -"I've had a lot of revelations in my time. A lawyer and a doctor always -do. And though there are folks who say I'm no lawyer, as there are those -who say with greater truth that you're no doctor, speaking technically, -we've both had 'revelations.' You've seen a lot that's seamy, and so -have I. You're pretty seamy yourself. In fact, you're as bad a man as -ever saved lives--and lost them. You've had a long tether, and you've -swung on it--swung wide. But you've had a lot of luck that you haven't -swung high, too." - -He paused and flicked away the ash from his cheroot, while the figure -before him swayed animal-like from side to side, muttering. - -"You've got brains, a great lot of brains of a kind--however you came -by them," Rawley continued; "and you've kept a lot of people in the -West from passing in their cheques before their time. You've rooked 'em, -chiselled 'em out of a lot of cash, too. There was old Lamson--fifteen -hundred for the goitre on his neck; and Mrs. Gilligan for the -cancer--two thousand, wasn't it? Tincture of Lebanon leaves you called -the medicine, didn't you? You must have made fifty thousand or so in the -last ten years." - -"What I've made I'll keep," was the guttural answer, and the talon-like -fingers clawed the table. - -"You've made people pay high for curing them, saving them sometimes; but -you haven't paid me high for saving you in the courts; and there's one -case that you haven't paid me for at all. That was when the patient -died--and you didn't." - -The face of the old man became mottled with a sudden fear, but he jerked -it forwards once or twice with an effort at self-control. Presently he -steadied to the ordeal of suspense, while he kept saying to himself, -"What does he know--what--which?" - -"Malpractice resulting in death--that was poor Jimmy Tearle; and -something else resulting in death--that was the switchman's wife. And -the law is hard in the West where a woman's in the case--quick and hard. -Yes, you've swung wide on your tether; look out that you don't swing -high, old man." - -"You can prove nothing; it's bluff;" came the reply in a tone of malice -and of fear. - -"You forget. I was your lawyer in Jimmy Tearle's case, and a letter's -been found written by the switchman's wife to her husband. It reached -me the night he was killed by the avalanche. It was handed over to me by -the post-office, as the lawyer acting for the relatives. I've read it. -I've got it. It gives you away." - -"I wasn't alone." Fear had now disappeared, and the old man was -fighting. - -"No, you weren't alone; and if the switchman and the switchman's wife -weren't dead and out of it all; and if the other man that didn't matter -any more than you wasn't alive and hadn't a family that does matter, I -wouldn't be asking you peaceably for two thousand dollars as my fee for -getting you off two cases that might have sent you to prison for twenty -years, or, maybe, hung you to the nearest tree." - -The heavy body pulled itself together, the hands clinched. -"Blackmail-you think I'll stand it?" - -"Yes, I think you will. I want two thousand dollars to help a friend in -a hole, and I mean to have it, if you think your neck's worth it." - -Teeth, wonderfully white, showed through the shaggy beard. "If I had to -go to prison--or swing, as you say, do you think I'd go with my mouth -shut? I'd not pay up alone. The West would crack--holy Heaven, I know -enough to make it sick. Go on and see! I've got the West in my hand." He -opened and shut his fingers with a grimace of cruelty which shook Rawley -in spite of himself. - -Rawley had trusted to the inspiration of the moment; he had had no -clearly defined plan; he had believed that he could frighten the old -man, and by force of will bend him to his purposes. It had all been -more difficult than he had expected. He kept cool, imperturbable, and -determined, however. He knew that what the old quack said was true--the -West might shake with scandal concerning a few who, no doubt, in remorse -and secret fear, had more than paid the penalty of their offences. But -he thought of Di Welldon and of her criminal brother, and every nerve, -every faculty was screwed to its utmost limit of endurance and capacity. - -Suddenly the old man gave a new turn to the event. He got up and, -rummaging in an old box, drew out a dice-box. Rattling the dice, he -threw them out on the table before him, a strange, excited look crossing -his face. - -"Play for it," he said in a harsh, croaking voice. "Play for the two -thousand. Win it if you can. You want it bad. I want to keep it bad. -It's nice to have; it makes a man feel warm--money does. I'd sleep in -ten-dollar bills, I'd have my clothes made of them, if I could; I'd -have my house papered with them; I'd eat 'em. Oh, I know, I know about -you--and her--Diana Welldon! You've sworn off gambling, and you've -kept your pledge for near a year. Well, it's twenty years since I -gambled--twenty years. I gambled with these then." He shook the dice -in the box. "I gambled everything I had away--more than two thousand -dollars, more than two thousand dollars." He laughed a raw, mirthless -laugh. "Well, you're the greatest gambler in the West. So was I-in the -East. It pulverised me at last, when I'd nothing left--and drink, drink, -drink. I gave up both one night and came out West. - -"I started doctoring here. I've got money, plenty of money--medicine, -mines, land got it for me. I've been lucky. Now you come to bluff -me--me! You don't know old Busby." He spat on the floor. "I'm not to be -bluffed. I know too much. Before they could lynch me I'd talk. But -to play you, the greatest gambler in the West, for two thousand -dollars--yes, I'd like the sting of it again. Twos, fours, -double-sixes--the gentleman's game!" He rattled the dice and threw them -with a flourish out on the table, his evil face lighting up. "Come! You -can't have something for nothing," he growled. - -As he spoke, a change came over Rawley's face. It lost its cool -imperturbability, it grew paler, the veins on the fine forehead stood -out, a new, flaring light came into the eyes. The old gambler's spirit -was alive. But even as it rose, sweeping him into that area of fiery -abstraction where every nerve is strung to a fine tension, and the -surrounding world disappears, he saw the face of Diana Welldon, he -remembered her words to him not an hour before, and the issue of the -conflict, other considerations apart, was without doubt. But there was -her brother and his certain fate, if the two thousand dollars were not -paid in by midnight. He was desperate. It was in reality for Diana's -sake. He approached the table, and his old calm returned. - -"I have no money to play with," he said quietly. With a gasp of -satisfaction, the old man fumbled in the inside of his coat and drew out -layers of ten, fifty, and hundred-dollar bills. It was lined with them. -He passed a pile over to Rawley--two thousand dollars. He placed a -similar pile before himself. - -As Rawley laid his hand on the bills, the thought rushed through his -mind, "You have it--keep it!" but he put it away from him. With a -gentleman he might have done it, with this man before him, it was -impossible. He must take his chances; and it was the only chance in -which he had hope now, unless he appealed for humanity's sake, for the -girl's sake, and told the real truth. It might avail. Well, that would -be the last resort. - -"For small stakes?" said the grimy quack in a gloating voice. - -Rawley nodded and then added, "We stop at eleven o'clock, unless I've -lost or won all before that." - -"And stake what's left on the last throw?" - -"Yes." - -There was silence for a moment, in which Rawley seemed to grow older, -and a set look came to his mouth--a broken pledge, no matter what the -cause, brings heavy penalties to the honest mind. He shut his eyes for -an instant, and, when he opened them, he saw that his fellow-gambler -was watching him with an enigmatical and furtive smile. Did this Caliban -have some understanding of what was at stake in his heart and soul? - -"Play!" Rawley said sharply, and was himself again. For hour after hour -there was scarce a sound, save the rattle of the dice and an occasional -exclamation from the old man as he threw a double-six. As dusk fell, the -door had been shut, and a lighted lantern was hung over their heads. - -Fortune had fluctuated. Once the old man's pile had diminished to two -notes, then the luck had changed and his pile grew larger; then fell -again; but, as the hands of the clock on the wall above the blue -medicine bottles reached a quarter to eleven, it increased steadily -throw after throw. - -Now the player's fever was in Rawley's eyes. His face was deadly pale, -but his hand threw steadily, calmly, almost negligently, as it might -seem. All at once, at eight minutes to eleven, the luck turned in -his favour, and his pile mounted again. Time after time he dropped -double-sixes. It was almost uncanny. He seemed to see the dice in the -box, and his hand threw them out with the precision of a machine. Long -afterwards he had this vivid illusion that he could see the dice in the -box. As the clock was about to strike eleven he had before him three -thousand eight hundred dollars. It was his throw. - -"Two hundred," he said in a whisper, and threw. He won. - -With a gasp of relief, he got to his feet, the money in his hand. He -stepped backward from the table, then staggered, and a faintness passed -over him. He had sat so long without moving that his legs bent under -him. There was a pail of water with a dipper in it on a bench. He caught -up a dipperful of water, drank it empty, and let it fall in the pail -again with a clatter. - -"Dan," he said abstractedly, "Dan, you're all safe now." - -Then he seemed to wake, as from a dream, and looked at the man at the -table. Busby was leaning on it with both hands, and staring at Rawley -like some animal jaded and beaten from pursuit. Rawley walked back to -the table and laid down two thousand dollars. - -"I only wanted two thousand," he said, and put the other two thousand in -his pocket. - -The evil eyes gloated, the long fingers clutched the pile, and swept it -into a great inside pocket. Then the shaggy head bent forwards. - -"You said it was for Dan," he said--"Dan Welldon?" - -Rawley hesitated. "What is that to you?" he replied at last. - -With a sudden impulse the old impostor lurched round, opened a box, drew -out a roll, and threw it on the table. - -"It's got to be known sometime," he said, "and you'll be my lawyer -when I'm put into the ground--you're clever. They call me a quack. -Malpractice--bah! There's my diploma--James Clifton Welldon. Right -enough, isn't it?" - -Rawley was petrified. He knew the forgotten story of James Clifton -Welldon, the specialist, turned gambler, who had almost ruined his own -brother--the father of Dan and Diana--at cards and dice, and had then -ruined himself and disappeared. Here, where his brother had died, he had -come years ago, and practised medicine as a quack. - -"Oh, there's plenty of proof, if it's wanted!" he said. "I've got it -here." He tapped the box behind him. "Why did I do it? Because it's my -way. And you're going to marry my niece, and 'll have it all some day. -But not till I've finished with it--not unless you win it from me at -dice or cards.... But no"--something human came into the old, degenerate -face--"no more gambling for the man that's to marry Diana. There's a -wonder and a beauty!" He chuckled to himself. "She'll be rich when I've -done with it. You're a lucky man--ay, you're lucky." - -Rawley was about to tell the old man what the two thousand dollars -was for, but a fresh wave of repugnance passed over him, and, hastily -drinking another dipperful of water, he opened the door. He looked back. -The old man was crouching forward, lapping milk from the great bowl, his -beard dripping. In disgust he swung round again. The fresh, clear air -caught his face. - -With a gasp of relief he stepped out into the night, closing the door -behind him. - - - - - ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: - - Babbling covers a lot of secrets - Being a man of very few ideas, he cherished those he had - Beneath it all there was a little touch of ridicule - Don't go at a fence till you're sure of your seat - Even bad company's better than no company at all - Future of those who will not see, because to see is to suffer - I like when I like, and I like a lot when I like - I don't think. I'm old enough to know - It ain't for us to say what we're goin' to be, not always - Knew when to shut his eyes, and when to keep them open - Nothing so popular for the moment as the fall of a favourite - Self-will, self-pride, and self-righteousness were big in him - That he will find the room empty where I am not - The temerity and nonchalance of despair - The real business of life is trying to understand each other - Things in life git stronger than we are - Tyranny of the little man, given a power - We don't live in months and years, but just in minutes - What'll be the differ a hundred years from now - You've got blind rashness, and so you think you're bold - - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's Northern Lights, Complete, by Gilbert Parker - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NORTHERN LIGHTS, COMPLETE *** - -***** This file should be named 6191.txt or 6191.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - https://www.gutenberg.org/6/1/9/6191/ - -Produced by David Widger - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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