Ottwell Binns

“ In the northern heavens a rosy glow proclaimed the midnight sun. Somewhere in the willows a robin was chirping, and from the wide bosom of the river, like the thin howl of a wolf, came the mocking cry of a loon still pursuing its finny prey. And in his little canvas tent, sitting just inside, so as to catch the smoke of the fire that afforded protection from the mosquitoes, Hubert Stane still watched and waited for the coming of his promised visitor. He was smoking, and from the look upon his face it was clear that he was absorbed in thoughts that were far from pleasant. ”

“ For a moment the corporal did not reply. He looked at the bland, mask-like face before him, saw, as he had already noted, that the steel-like blue eyes were too close together, that the lips were sensual; and as he did so, the beautiful face of Joy Gargrave, as he had seen it at table, rose before him, and somehow he found Rayner’s suggestion of coming wedlock utterly distasteful. The man, as he felt instinctively, was not a man to be trusted with a girl’s happiness. ”

“ As she swung the ax upon her shoulder and moved towards the trees she broke into song, the words of which reached Stane:
"It was a lover and his lass
With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,
That o'er the green cornfield did pass
In the spring time, the only pretty ring time,
When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding,
Sweet lovers love the Spring."
He lay there beating out the melody with his fingers. A musing look came in his eyes that remained there when once more the sound of her ax came through the forest stillness. Then it died away and his face grew grim. ”

“ He did not know what she was saying and he had no wish to know, but half an hour later as his cousin lay by a fire which had been lit, he saw that his eyes were shining with a quiet happiness.
“Better, Dick?” he inquired.
“In soul, yes!” was the answer.
“I’m glad of that,” replied the corporal simply.
“It’s like a cleansing to have a good woman’s approval. You can’t know, Roger, old boy. You haven’t been deep in the mire—but there it is.”
He allowed his cousin and Joy to examine his wound, and they found the arrow broken off in his side. The corporal looked at the girl and shook his head. ”

“ He examined the shore at the foot of the wood-covered hills carefully. Creek by creek, bay by bay, his eye searched the shore-line for any sign of life. He found none, nowhere was there any sign of life; any thin column of smoke betokening the presence of man. He looked at the other shore of the lake, though without any expectation of finding that which he sought. It was bleak and barren, and precipitous in places, where the hills seemed to rise directly from the lake's edge. Nothing moved there, and a single glance told him that the land trail on that side was an impossibility. ”

“ Dogs greeted their coming noisily, children and women came out of the skin tents to look at them, and a few men joined their captors as they moved towards the centre of the camp. Just as they halted, a tall Indian came out of one of the tents, and by his side tottered a man who seemed incredibly old, but though his step was feeble, his eyes were keen, and as they fell on Dick Bracknell they lighted with sudden ferocity, and as she caught the glare he directed towards them, Joy felt the clutch of fear at her heart. ”

“ Stane looked up and down the lake. Its smooth white surface was absolutely without life but for his companion and himself. Then he scrutinized the shore, point by point, creek by creek, and Helen also looked carefully.
"No sign of any one," he commented at last. "No camp or fire, we might be alone in the world. If there is any one he is hidden in the deep woods, and for the present invisible. I think instead of going back to the cabin we will make a detour to the point where we surprised the stranger yesterday." ”

“ Dropping the match as it burned towards the end, he thrust his hand inside the man’s fur parka to feel if the heart were beating. He could detect no movement, and as he withdrew the hand, he stood upright, and as he considered question after question went through his mind at the gallop.
Who had killed Koona Dick? The girl whom he had met with that look of frozen terror on her face? Who was she? Had she shot the man lying at his feet? Why had she done so? Where did she live? As the last question shot in his mind he knew that the answer to it was in his grasp. ”

“ The half-breed was nodding over the fire, and his two companions were sound asleep. Under her fur parka she felt the butt of the pistol which Stane had given her, when the attack on the cabin had commenced. She looked at the three men, and with her hand on the pistol-butt the thought came to her mind that it would be a simple thing to kill them in their sleep, and to take the dogs and so effect her escape. They were murderers; they deserved to die; and she felt that she could kill them without compunction. ”

“ She prayed for him silently, and leaving her with bowed head, Roger Bracknell walked slowly away.
At the outer edge of the camp he met Sibou. The latter waved a hand towards the river, on the frozen surface of which tiny streams of water were beginning to run.
“It is the spring,” he said. “If we do not leave today the ice may not hold.”
“We cannot leave today, Sibou.”
“No,” replied the Indian. “We wait for death. Is it not so?”
“It is so!” agreed the corporal.
“And tomorrow comes the spring and new life,” said the Indian thoughtfully. ”

“ Stane began to sip the coffee, and between the heat of the fire and that of the coffee, his blood began to course more freely. All the numbness passed from his brain and with it passed the sense of despair that had been expressed in his gesture, and a sudden hope came to him.
"One thing," he broke out, "if we can't travel, neither can anybody else."
"Not far—at any rate," agreed Anderton. "A man might put his back to the storm, but he would soon be jiggered; or he might take to the deep woods; but with a dog-team he wouldn't go far or fast, unless there was a proper trail." ”

“ IT WAS MID-DAY, and as they marched between the high banks on a hard trail, Joy Gargrave’s heart grew light.
“Another hour, Babette, and we shall be home.”
“Yes,” was the reply, “home! That is what North Star is to us, and I wonder you ever left it, Joy.”
“I was afraid,” answered Joy. “Dick Bracknell’s letter startled me. He plainly meant to assert himself and I was glad of Sir Joseph’s summons to England, because it helped me to get away from the complications here.”
“It does not matter much where one goes,” answered Babette philosophically, “one carries one’s real complications with her. ”

“ Packing one's worldly possessions through the pathless wilderness is a slow, grinding misery. The lightest pack soon becomes a burden. At the beginning of a march it may seem a mere nothing, in an hour it is an oppression; in three a millstone is a feather compared with it; and before night the inexperienced packer feels that, like Atlas, he bears the world upon his shoulders. It was therefore little wonder that Helen Yardely ceased to sing after they had marched but a very little way; and indeed the trail, apart from the apparently growing weight of the pack, was not favourable to song. ”

“ Joy waved her hand in a half circle. “Why, everything—the trees, the snow, the darkness, the dogs, the camp-fire, George and Jim, and you and I like a couple of Dianas.”
Babette laughed and looked round appreciatively. “It makes me think of a picture which I saw when we were in London. It had a fancy name—’When the World was Young,’ or something like that—and whoever painted it knew the wilderness well. It is, as you say, a little different to the Ritz—and ever so much better. I wonder how long we shall be on trail, not that I’m tired of it. Even hard work has its pleasures and compensations.” ”

“ They had now arrived at the tepees and as they halted, the flap of one was thrown aside, and Miskodeed emerged. She did not see them, as the moment she stepped into the open air her eyes turned towards the willows where Stane's camp had been. A look of sadness clouded the wild beauty of her face, and there was a poignant light in her eyes.
"Ah!" whispered Helen Yardely. "She knows that he has gone."
"Perhaps it is just as well for her that he has," answered Ainley carelessly. "These marriages of the country are not always happy—for the woman." ”

“ A few minutes later he returned in his canoe, carrying with him a field water-bottle filled with medical brandy.
The girl lay as he had left her, and his first action was to pour a few drops of brandy between her parted lips, and that done he waited, chafing her hands. A minute later the long-lashed eyelids fluttered and opened, and the grey eyes looked wildly round without seeing him, then closed again and a long sigh came from her as she lapsed into unconsciousness anew. At that he wasted no more time. ”

“ The glow was from a frosted parchment window, and the hut was the typical miner’s cabin of the North. Corporal Bracknell smiled and dropped his hand from the pistol-holster, finding the look of the place altogether reassuring. The dogs came to a standstill on the packed snow in front of the cabin, yelping delight, and whip in hand Bracknell waited, listening. If there were dogs at the cabin they might be expected to charge the new-comers, who fastened in the traces would be heavily handicapped. ”

“ For a fraction of time they stood there looking at each other, the man of the white dominant race, the girl of a vanishing people, whose origin is shrouded in the grey mists of time. There was wonder on the man's face, for never had he seen such beauty in a native, and on the girl's face there was a startled look such as the forest doe shows when the wind brings the breath of a presence that it does not see. ”

“ Rayner laughed again hardly. “You are persistent, Corporal, but there is nothing in a girl fainting when she is told rather dramatically that a man has been shot dead almost at her own door. Aren’t you a little imaginative? Indeed,” he laughed again, “having heard a rifle shot have you not imagined all the rest? I am told that a lonely trail plays the deuce with a man’s nerves. ”

“ Anderton sat by the fire, staring into the flames, reflecting on the irony of fate that had selected him of all men in the Mounted Service to be the one to arrest his whilom fellow-student. Stane had turned away and joined Helen, who still paced to and fro in the shadows. Her face, as her lover saw, was full of trouble.
"Oh!" she whispered. "It is unbearable to watch a man one has known go all to pieces!" ”

“ That is bad, very bad!”
“You must not think that, Babette,” cried Joy a little wildly. “We must search. I will not give up hope. I will find him.”
Her voice quivered and broke, and suddenly she buried her face in her hands. Miss La Farge looked at her for a moment with eyes brimming with sympathy. Then she took a step forward and placed her hand on her foster-sister’s shoulder.
“Joy, my dear, what is the corporal to you?”
“To me,” Joy looked up with confusion in her bearing. “How can he be anything to me? How can any man——”
“Yet if we do not find him, it will be very bitter?” ”

“ Without more ado, he slipped the harness from the dogs and fed them, whilst Stane collected wood for a fire, which was made as an Indian makes his fire, small and round, and which, built behind a mass of rock, was hidden from any one on the lake-side of the trail. Then a meal was prepared of which both partook heartily; and over the pipes they sat to await the dawn. After a little while Stane, in spite of his consuming anxiety for Helen, under the genial warmth of the fire and the fatigue induced by the strenuous march, began to nod, and at last fell sound asleep. ”

“ The wolf-dogs in the sleds gave tongue, and notwithstanding the burden behind them, leaped forward. Joy laughed gaily.
“There’s an end of philosophic reflection. The moose is hit. I wonder who——”
A man emerged from the woods, dropped on one knee, and sighted the wide-horned beast. Then his shot rang, and the moose toppled over in the snow. The hunter stood up and caught sight of the oncoming party. He scrutinized it carefully for a moment and then waved his hand.
“It is George,” cried Babette, naming an Indian servant. “See, he recognizes us.” ”

“ Ainley laughed as he spoke. "Absurd, of course—But what will you? The primitive, untutored heart is very simple in its emotions and the man was her paramour!"
"It is a lie!" cried Helen hotly. "He had spoken to her only twice in his life."
"He was scarcely likely to own to anything more, to you," answered Ainley, "and in any case I am giving you the Indian girl's version; that it accords with my own belief is of little moment. What I do know is that she cared nothing about the reward your uncle offered, and that her sole purpose seemed to be to remove you from Stane's company." ”

“ And what is it that man Kipling says, ‘There’s never a Law of God or man runs North of fifty-three.’ We’re North of fifty-three at North Star, and a law unto ourselves. If Dick Bracknell is still alive, and came worrying you, I think that I could—”
“Babette, you must not say it.”
“Very well, I will not. But all the same I feel that I could, for the man is worthless, mere vermin like the wolves in the North. And that woman Lady Alcombe, of whom you told me—”
“She is dead! I learned that in England. She was killed in a motor accident.” ”

“ For the comfort of the man, who stood by knife in hand, he recited every word that he could remember, and when he reached the words, "We therefore commit her body to the grave," the keen knife severed the moose-hide thong, and the trees, released, bent back, carrying the girl's body to its windy sepulchre, amid a shower of snow that scattered from the neighbouring trees. Stane pronounced the benediction, waited a few moments, then again he put a hand on the other's shoulder.
"Bènard, we have done what we can for the dead; now we must think of the living." ”

“ It may break the ice here, and spread over the surface. Listen.”
The corporal listened. The air was full of an indescribable sound, a moaning and growling, quite different to the sound of the soft wind in the trees.
“Already the water fights for the mastery,” said Sibou, “and tomorrow it may have won.”
“No—today!” cried the corporal quickly, as there came a sudden crash far out in front, and the next moment a gaping fissure showed in the ice.
“Yes, today!” assented the Indian as he watched. “That is the first, and there will be others. The break up has come. The spring has arrived.” ”

“ The silence was the silence of primeval places, and somehow, possibly because of the tenseness of nerve induced by the circumstances of the walk, the girl was more conscious of it than ever she had been before.
"There is something inimical in the silence up here," she said in a whisper, as she gave a little shudder. "One has a feeling as if all the world of nature were lying in wait to ambush one."
"Nature red in tooth and claw," Stane quoted lightly, "only up here her teeth are white, and her claws also. And when she bares them a man has little chance. ”

“ But, Great Christopher! it's the tip-top thing to do, to marry before you go out of the wilderness."
"That missionary," laughed Stane, "is a Godsend. It would be folly not to use the opportunity he represents."
"So I should think if I were in your shoes," laughed Anderton, joining in the laughter.
"And Jean says he laughs like an angel," cried Helen gaily. "I want to see him, naturally. I have never seen an angel laugh!"
"But I have! And so has Stane," replied the policeman. "How soon do you take the trail to Paradise? We'll wait and see you start!"
"We're ready now," said Stane. ”

“ His pipe went out, and still he sat there, thinking, thinking. Half an hour passed and the robin making the discovery that it was really bed-time, ceased its chirping; the loon no longer mocked the wolf, but still the man sat behind his smoke-smudge, tireless, unsleeping, waiting. Another half-hour crept by with leaden feet, then a new sound broke the stillness of the wild, the tinkling of a piano, sadly out of tune, followed by a chorus of voices lifted up in the homeland song. ”

“ It was the drift-pile made by the river, which at this point cast out from its bosom logs and trees and all manner of debris brought over the falls and down the gorge, a great heap piled in inextricable confusion as high as a tall fir tree, and as broad as a church.
Feverishly, Gerald Ainley began to wade round its wide base; and the Indian also joined in the search, poking among the drift-logs and occasionally tumbling one aside. Then the Indian gave a sharp grunt, and out of the pile dragged a piece of wreckage that was obviously part of the side and bow of a canoe. ”

“ Stane pursed his lips to whistle at the news. There was more behind it than appeared; and he knew that Chigmok the murderous half-breed was not the framer of the plot, however, he might be the instrument for its execution. He looked at the girl thoughtfully for a moment, and as he did so a soft look came in the wild, dark eyes that were regarding him intently.
"Canst thou not leave the bright-faced woman, and I will show thee a way through the woods. We will go together——"
"It is impossible! Quite impossible, Miskodeed," cried Stane almost violently. ”

“ The canoe began to drift backward in the current, but he made no effort to check it, instead, he sat there staring at the distant flag, with a musing look upon his face, as if he were debating some question with himself. At last he spoke aloud, after the habit of men who dwell much alone.
"The steamer can't have come yet. It probably means nothing except that the factor is expecting its arrival. Anyway I must have the grub, and I can get away in the morning."
He dipped his paddle again. The canoe ceased to drift and began to forge ahead towards the post. ”

“ She broke off again, laughed a little at herself and then blurted confusedly: "You see all my life, from being a very little girl, I have worshipped heroes."
"And I am not a hero," said Ainley with a harsh laugh. "No! I am just the ordinary man doing the ordinary things, and my one claim to notice is that I love you! ”

“ By the time that was accomplished the shadows were creeping across the lake and deepening in the woods, and it was time for the evening meal, and when it was ready they ate it at the rough table, with a sense of safety and comfort that had long been lacking. "This place is quite cosy," said Helen, looking round the firelit cabin. "Tomorrow I shall make a curtain for the doorway out of caribous skins."
"Tomorrow," laughed Stane, "the owner may return."
"But he will not turn us out," cried Helen. "The men of the wilds are all hospitable." ”

“ A puzzled expression came on the Indian's face. For a moment he stood considering the problem, then he shook his head gravely.
"I not know."
"We must get back to the camp at once, Joe. We must find out if Miss Yardely has returned. We know now that she is alive, and at all costs we must find her. We will start at once for there is no time to lose."
He turned on his heel and led the way back to the canoe, and half an hour later they were paddling upstream towards the junction of the rivers, the Indian grave and imperturbable; Ainley with a puzzled, anxious look upon his handsome face. ”

“ The man breaking the trail in front, swerved from the bluff, and the dogs swerved after him, almost upsetting the sledge. Again a rifle, and the remaining man went down. The dogs, in excitement or fear, still moved forward, and Helen strove to free herself, but a moment later the sledge halted abruptly as two of the dogs fell, shot in their traces. She had a momentary vision of two men running towards her from the shore, then the snow came down in a thick veil. ”