Ottwell Binns

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ 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.” ”

“ 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?” ”

“ 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.” ”

“ In the bunk, propped up among the furs, with his left arm in an improvised sling, he descried his cousin, puffing at a pipe, and regarding him with thoughtful gaze. Their eyes met, and Dick Bracknell smiled.
“Morning, Cousin Roger. I hope that head of yours is not very bad.”
“It is only middling,” answered the corporal truthfully.
“Um! I suspected so! Joe there,” he indicated the Indian bending over the stove, “doesn’t know his strength, and he’s a holy terror with a whipstock. You should see him tackle a big wolf dog that’s turned savage. It’s a sight for gods and men!” ”

“ If you think that lying is going to help you—”
“I am not lying,” interrupted Roger Bracknell. “I give you my word of honour that I am telling you the truth—and I say that not because I am afraid. It is true that I was trailing you, and that I was close at your heels at North Star. But I never shot you, I found you lying in the snow, as I thought, dead, but I’d nothing whatever to do with the shooting.”
“The devil!” cried the sick man, and from his tones the corporal knew that he was convinced. ”

“ He glared at the narrator as if he could slay him. “Man, do you know what you are saying?”
“Yes,” answered Rayner, with well-affected surprise. “I am saying that in her inexperience this girl-wife is thinking of contracting a flesh marriage, one in which her heart is engaged, as it appears not to have been in the first. Of course she may not understand the law as it relates to bigamy, or she may believe that her husband is dead——”
“Who is the man?” asked Bracknell, in a strangled voice.
“The man? I do not understand. Do you mean the husband?” ”

“ The trail is not that of white men’s feet.”
“Then we must follow,” cried the corporal.
“Yes,” answered Sibou gravely. “We must follow. But I shall go first, whilst you remain here. If I find nothing, then I shall be back in one hour or two. It is in my mind that there is an encampment not far away, and it is better that we do not take the dogs till we know. If they are bad Indians——”
“In God’s name, hurry!” cried Roger Bracknell, his courage shaken by the thought of the new danger into which Joy Gargrave appeared to have fallen. ”

“ Half an hour later a fire was roaring in the improvised stove, and by its light Roger Bracknell wandered round the cabin, searching for anything that would give him a clue to the mystery. He found nothing. The hut, save for a couple of rifles reposing in the corner, and some odds and ends of no importance, was quite empty. ”

“ He stood considering the matter for a minute or two, glancing now and again to the place where Koona Dick had lain, and the frown which had came upon his face deepened. Then he recalled the note which he had picked up on the previous night and the frown lightened a little.
“Of course!” he whispered to himself, “she discovered its loss and came out here to look for it.” ”

“ Roger Bracknell smiled. “There is no hurry. I thought I might winter up here—that is if you are agreeable.”
She looked at him reproachfully. “You know——”
“Wait! You have not heard everything, Joy! Down the river I passed the missionary priest, Father Doherty. He is going North—racing the winter. He knows he has already lost the race, and that he will have to finish his journey on the ice. I ventured to persuade him to break the journey at the Lodge, and he agreed to do so. It was very audacious of me——”
“Why should it be audacious? Travellers are always welcome at North Star.” ”

“ Living in the wilds, it was scarcely likely that the news of a dead man would affect her thus, if that news were without special significance for her. Death in the Northland—death sharp and sudden was not so uncommon as all that. Moving accidents by flood and field, by wild beasts and wild men, were part of the general circumstances of wilderness life; why, therefore, should the girl be thus affected by the news that he had uttered? Whilst Mr. Rayner assisted Miss La Farge to carry their hostess out of the room, he stood there, his mind occupied by this momentous question. ”

“ Then she drew a quick, gasping breath.
“You know these woods,” she said unsteadily. “There are wolves and—and bears. To carry a rifle is the merest prudence.”
A frown came on the corporal’s face. He knew that the answer was a mere evasion, and he was not pleased. But he did not challenge the answer directly.
“Miss Gargrave,” he asked, “were you afraid of Dick Bracknell?”
“Not afraid, exactly,” was the reply candidly given, “but I loathed him, and hated the thought of his coming into my life again.”
The corporal considered for a few seconds, and then asked his next question bluntly. ”

“ Yes! But where have they gone? Which way in this God-forsaken wilderness?”
“That we shall know when daylight comes. The snow will carry their trail, and we can follow. Till then it were better to rest, for the night withholds the knowledge.”
Corporal Bracknell recognized the wisdom of the Indian’s words, and condemned to inaction until daylight, decided to make the best of it.
“Then there is nothing for it but to camp. And we may as well use the cabin. Slip through the window, Sibou, and unbar the door, whilst I go across for Jim and the dogs.” ”

“ I do not! And he has been drinking, if what George says is true; and drink makes a tempted man dangerous. You must be careful, Joy, even diplomatic if necessary.”
“I shall order him to leave North Star the moment we arrive there!” answered Joy stubbornly. “If there is a shadow of truth in your surmises, there is all the more reason why I should do so.”
“You will do as you please, Joy,” replied her foster-sister, breaking into a smile, “and at any rate we have the big battalions on our side. With the drivers and George, and George’s son, Jim, we shall be able to enforce your will.” ”

“ Another half hour crept by, and then Bracknell spoke hoarsely—
“Something must have happened, or the Indian would have been back before this. And your men—you said they were to meet you at the mouth of the creek!”
“Yes,” answered Joy composedly. “And no doubt they are waiting there now.”
“I am afraid not,” answered her husband. “Something has occurred—what, we must find out!” He glanced at the window of skin parchment, then added, “That is the only way. We must cut that out. One of us must climb through and open the door——”
“Joy shall go!” said Miss La Farge firmly. ”

“ CHAPTER XVIII ADRIAN RAYNER’S STORY
“JOE, I thought I heard the yelping of dogs. Did you hear anything?”
The Indian shook his head and Dick Bracknell sank back on his improvised couch of spruce, with a sigh.
“Of course,” he muttered, “I’m dreaming. No, by Jove! I’m not. There it is again. Don’t you hear it, Joe?” This time the Indian nodded and going to the door of the cabin looked down the creek. Three men and a dog sled were coming up the trail. He turned and informed Bracknell of the fact. A thoughtful frown came on the sick man’s face. ”

“ The man Joe gave a careless reply, and moved away. Corporal Bracknell craned his neck a little and looked round.
The slush lamp was still burning, but through the parchment window the grey light of the Northland day penetrated, from which fact he deduced that he had lain where he was many hours. In front of the stove, the man of the evil face, whom he had seen on opening his eyes, was busy preparing a meal, and the odour of frying moose-steak and bacon filled the cabin. ”

“ The Indian paused in the very midst of what he was doing, and looked in the direction indicated, then he nodded, and in his own speech replied—
“Yes, one man and a dog-team.”
“I wonder if by any chance it can be the man we are looking for, the man who was with you when the trail was destroyed before Rolf Gargrave.”
“Who can say?” answered the Indian. “He has been long on the trail. He marches wearily.”
“It will be as well to take no chances. If he sees our fire he is almost certain to make for it, and if we go back in the trees a little way we shall be able to inspect him before he sees us. ”