W. A. Fraser

“ I can make Bucking Horse in three days at most with snowshoes on the buckskin; then I'll come back for you with a dog-train and a couple of men on snowshoes. You've got a gambling chance; it's like filling a bob-tailed flush—but I'm going to let you draw. If the chinook comes up the valley kissing this snow before I get back you'll get away; I'd give even a wolf a fighting chance. But I've got to clear a good woman's name; get that, Tacoma!" and Carney tapped the cards with a forefinger in emphasis. "You've got to sign a confession here in my that you killed Seth Long." ”

“ Well beyond the Valley of the Grizzley's Bridge, past the dark maw of the cave in which Jack the Wolf had hidden the stolen gold, Carney went, camping in the valley, that had now broadened out, when its holding walls of mountain sides had blanketed the light so that he travelled along an obliterated trail, obliterated to all but the buckskin's finer sense of perception. ”

“ Carney was almost startled into a betrayal. On the backs of the cards winged seven blue doves. It was the pack that had been stolen from Seth Long's pocket, and the man that sat behind them was the murderer of Seth Long, Carney knew. Yes, it was the same pack; there was the same slight variation of the wings. In a second Carney had mastered himself.
"I guess it's fair," he said hesitatingly; "let me think it over—I'm fond of that little cuss, but I guess a man's life comes first." ”

“ Intensity, too, seemed to claim Bulldog; he rested his elbows on his knees and scanned the cards as if he hesitated over the risk. There, a little to the right, he discovered the third ace, the only one in the pack. If he turned that Dave could not tie him again. He knew that the minute he turned over that card the cave-man would know that he had been double-crossed in his sure thing; his gun would be thrust into Carney's face; perhaps—once a killer always a killer—he would not hesitate but would kill. ”

“ They scrambled back to the trail, he and the little horse, and they were going forward. Oregon's command was working out—"Let the buckskin have his own way."
If they had been out on the prairie undoubtedly they would have gone around in a circle—in fact, Carney once had done so—and the cold would have been more intense, the sweep of the wind more life-sapping; but here in the valleys in places the snow piled deeper; it was like surf rolling up in billows; it took the life force out of man and horse. ”

“ Carney's code was such that he could shake heartily by the hand, or drink with, a man who had held up a train, or fought (even to the death of someone) the Police over a matter of whisky or opium running, if that man were above petty larceny, above stealing from a man who had confidence in him. He lay there suffused with the grim satisfaction of knowing how completely Seth, and possibly Shipley, would be nonplussed when they were forced on the morrow to give up their ill-gotten gains. That would be a matter purely between Carney and Seth. ”

“ Carney debated this extraordinary thing. His courage was so exquisite that he never made a mistake through over-zealousness in the fomenting of trouble; the easy way was always the brave way, he believed. In the West there was no better key to let loose locked-up passion than to accuse men of cheating at cards; it was the last ditch at which even cowards drew and shot. He took a handkerchief from his pocket, wiped his eyes, and dropped it into his lap. ”

“ Oregon was like that. Men living in the wide outside became like outcast buffalo bulls, in their supersensitiveness—every man was an enemy till he proved himself.
The man straightened up, and his eyes that were set too close together each side of the fin-like nose rested on Carney in a squinting look of distrust.
"I ain't never knowed but one man was all right, and the Mounted Police hounded him till he give up."
The cave man turned the stem of the pipe he had been smoking toward the horse. "That buckskin with the mule ears belongs to Bulldog Carney. Are you him, or are you a hawse thief?" ”

“ Bulldog knew this was a lie; he knew the cave man had taken his gun. He ran his eye over his host's physical exhibit—when the time came he would get his gun back or appropriate the one so in evidence in the other's belt. He went back to his dunnage, a thought of the buckskin in his mind; to his joy he found the horse's oats safe in the bag. This fastened the idea he had that the other had stolen his food, for his bacon and bannock had been in the same bag, they could hardly have worked out and the oats remain. ”

“ Carney said, "I've an idea Seth was killed with his own gun. He was in a grouchy mood to-night—he always was a damn fool—and he may have pulled his gun, in his usual bluffing way, and the other party twisted it out of his hand and shot him. I only heard one shot." Carney remained silent for a full minute; then he said:
"One doesn't care to bring a good woman's name into anything that's evil, but I fancy I'd better tell you: Jeanette was wakened by the shot that wakened me, and we talked in the hall before I went over to the police shack." ”

“ Carney could see the acute-angled wings of the middle dove on a card; he turned it up—it was the ace of diamonds.
"Some draw!" Dave declared. Then he deftly flipped over the ace of spades, adding: "Horse and horse, Bulldog; draw agin."
"Shuffle and spread-eagle them again, for luck," Carney suggested.
Dave gathered the cards, gave them a riffle, and swept them along the blanket in a tenuous stream.
Carney edged closer to the ribbon of blue-doved cards; and the owner of them, a sneer on his lips, craned his head and shoulders forward in a gambler's eagerness. ”

“ When he opened his eyes he saw a fire, and the flickering firelight played on stone walls. Beside the fire was sitting a man; behind him something stamped on the stone floor.
He turned his head and saw the buckskin asleep on his feet with low-hung head.
"How d'you feel, Stranger?" the man at the fire asked, rising up, and coming to his side.
Carney stared; he was supposed to be back there fighting a blizzard. And now, remembrance, coursing with langourous speed through his mind, he was in the cave where he had held Jack the Wolf a prisoner. ”

“ I guess if you just tell them to hand the money back, there'll be no argument. I can go to bed now and sleep," she added, patting Carney's hand with her slim fingers. "You see, if Seth got that stranger's money away it wouldn't worry him—the moral aspect, I mean; but somehow it makes it terrible for me. It's discovering small evil in a man—petty larceny, sneak thieving—that pours sand into a woman's soul. Good night, Bulldog. I think if I were only your sister I'd be quite satisfied—quite."
"You are," Carney said, rising; "we are seven—and you are the other six, Jeanette." ”

“ Tacoma knew that Carney was driving at something; he knew that Carney could not take him to Bucking Horse with the trail as it was; the buckskin would have all he could do to carry one man, and without huge moose-hunting snowshoes no man could make half a mile of that trail. ”

“ Shipley was a bird of passage, at present nesting in the Gold Nugget Hotel. Carney knew of him just as a machinery man, a seller of compressed-air drills, etc., on commission. He was also a gambler in mine shares, for during the game he had told of a clean-up he had made on the "Gray Goose" stock. The Gray Goose Mine was an ill-favored bird, for its stock had had a crooked manipulation. Shipley's face was not confidence-inspiring; its general contour suggested the head piece of a hawk, with its avaricious curve to the beak. His metallic eyes were querulous; holding little of the human look. ”

“ I think you'll agree with me that it is advisable for each man's sake. A wallet with a large sum of money has disappeared from the murdered man's pocket, and as each one of you will be more or less under suspicion—I'm speaking now just in the way of forecasting what that unsympathetic individual, the law, will do—it would be as well for each of you to submit to a search of your person. I have no authority to demand this, but it's expedient."
To this the three agreed; Hadley, with a sort of repugnance, and Shipley with, perhaps, an overzealous compliance, Carney thought. ”

“ Carney was an artist at twisting a rope security about a man, and Tacoma, placed in the helpless condition of a swathed babe, Carney proceeded to cook himself a nice little dinner off the latter's bacon. Then he rubbed down the buckskin, melted some snow for a drink for the horse, gave him a feed of oats, and stretched himself on the opposite side of the fire from Tacoma, saying: "You're on your good behavior, for the minute you start anything you lose your bet on the chinook." ”

“ But the law can't hang a man for having a bad face; it takes little stock in the physiologist's point of view."
Carney sat thinking hard. The full significance of the attached possibilities had been put clearly before him by the astute, canny Scotchman, and he realized that it was friendship. He was certain the Doctor suspected Shipley.
"I wanted to get shut of yon two," the Doctor added, presently, "for you're the man that needs to get this cleared up, and you're the man can do it, even as you caught Jack the Wolf. Is there any clue that we can follow up before the trail gets cold?" ”

“ Seth passed two hundred across to Shipley, saying, "That squares you."
Cranford had shoved his chips in with an I.O.U. for two hundred dollars, saying, "I'll pay that tomorrow. I feel as if I had been pallbearer at a funeral. When a man is gloomy he shouldn't sit into any game bigger than checkers."
Seth now drew from a pocket two packs of cards—the blue-doved cards and a red pack; then he returned the blue cards to his pocket.
Carney viewed this performance curiously. He had been wondering intently whether the new pack would be the same as the one with the blue doves. ”

“ Carney touched his fingers gently to the girl's arm, and manufacturing a smile of reassurance, said blithely: "You've eaten a slab of bacon, à la fry-pan, girl." Then he was gone.
As he rounded the hotel corner he could see a lighted lamp in a window of the police shack. This was curious; it hurried his pace, for they were not playing at the table.
He threw open the shack door, and stood just within, looking at what he knew was a dead man—Seth Long sprawled on his back on the floor where he had tumbled from a chair. His shirt front was crimson with blood, just over the heart. ”

“ It was quite ten o'clock when Carney discovered the footprints of a pony that were evidently fresh; here and there the outcupped black earth where the cayuse had cantered glistened fresh in the sunlight.
Carney could not say just where the cayuse had struck the trial he was on. It gave him a depressed feeling. Perhaps the rider carried the loot, and had circled to escape interception. But when Carney came to the cross trail that ran from Fort Steel to Kootenay the cayuse tracks turned to the right toward Kootenay, and he felt a conviction that the rider was not associated with the murder. ”

“ He turned on Shipley with a coarse raging:
"You talk like a man lookin' for trouble, mister. Why the hell don't you sit into the game or take your little bag of marbles and run away home."
"I'm going," Carney declared noisily. "My advice to you gentlemen is to cut out the unpleasantness, and play the game."
Somewhat sullenly Shipley checked an angry retort that had risen to his lips, and, reaching for the rack of poker chips, started to build a little pile in front of him.
Cranford followed Carney out, and though his shack lay in the other direction, walked with the latter to the Gold Nugget. ”

“ Wheeling, he asked, "Did you see anything of my grub?"
"All that was on your bronch is there, Bulldog. I don't rob no man's cache. And all I got's here," he held up in one hand a slab of bacon, about four pounds in weight, and in the other a drill bag, in its bottom a round bulge of flour the size of a cocoa-nut "That's got to get me to Bailey's Ferry," he added as he dropped them back at the head of his blankets.
A subconscious presentment of trouble caused Carney, through force of habit, to caress the place where his gun should have been—the pigskin pocket was empty. ”

“ Supposing he did shoot Seth, he might have come to the hotel and, seeing a light in the' upper hall and hearing Jeanette moving about, might have sat in that dark corner till things had quieted down before going to his room."
"Hadley isn't the kind to commit murder."
"To-night he was another kind of man—he was pretty drunk; and the man that's drunk is like an engine that had lost the governing balls—he has lost control. And the shock of the murder may have sobered him enough to make him a bit cautious."
"But Shipley was out, too," Carney objected. ”

“ Carney drew the gun from its leather pocket, broke it, and six lead-nosed .45 shells rolled on the table; not one of the shells had lost its bullet. He passed the gun to Dr. Anderson, who, pointing it toward the light, looked through the barrel.
"As bright as a silver dollar," he commented, relief in his voice; "I'm glad we thought of this."
Carney slipped the shells back into the cylinder, and dropped the gun into its holster without comment.
Then the Doctor said: "We can't do anything to-night—we'll only obliterate any tracks and lose good clues. We'll take it up in the morning. ”