But perhaps Mordaunt was not dead.

To rid himself of these morbid questionings, he would give his remoter memory the reins to-day, at whatever cost; it was pleasanter to remember bygone unpleasantness than to live with the ills which threatened his present life. He recollected how some one had once asked Carlyle, "Why does the Past always seem so much happier than the Present?" And Carlyle's stern reply, "Because the fear has gone out of it." How odd it seemed to him that he should be recalling Carlyle up there in Keewatin! Yet, because that answer was true, he took up the thread of his London life again, that so, with the drug of memory, he might lay to rest his immediate misfortunes. He was a little boy again in the old red house on Clapton Common. One by one he entered its homely rooms with their ancient furniture, quaint wall-paper, and general look of substantial comfort. Once more he leant out of the bow-window at the back and gazed beyond the hill, upon which the house was built, up which gardens climbed, divided by creeper-covered walls of crumbling brick, down to where at its foot the river ran through flats and marshes. Far away, a little to the right, old Woodford raised its head; to the left Chingford, as yet unmodernized, showed up; and straight ahead, at a distance of seven miles, the steeple of High Beech, in the kindly habitable forest of Epping, was in sight. This was the house in which he had first dreamed the dream by the glamour of which he had been led astray. His father had dreamed the same dream, and his grandfather before him; it seemed to be a part of the walls and masonry, so interwoven was it with his memories of that house. It had been the first faery-story which he had ever listened to, and had been told to him for the most part in that back room with the bow-window, as he had sat on his grand-father's knee on winters' nights.

The first time that he had heard it he could not have been more than five, and his father was absent, so his grandfather said, pursuing the dream on the other side of the world. This was the story as he remembered it. "In the land of Guiana there is a golden city named Manoa, but El Dorado in the Spanish language, which stands on the shores of a vast inland lake whose waters are salt, which is called Parima, and which is two hundred leagues in length. Juan Martinez was the first white man to visit it, and he did so through no fault of his own! When he was with the Spanish army at the port of Morequito, the store of powder, of which he had charge, caught fire and was destroyed. His commander, Diego Ordas, was so enraged that he sentenced him to death; but being appealed to by the soldiery with whom Martinez was a favourite, he commuted his punishment to this—that he should be set in a canoe alone, without any victual, only with his arms, and so turned loose on the great river. By the grace of God he floated down stream and was captured by certain Indians, who, never having seen a European before or anyone of that colour, carried him into a land to be wondered at, and so from town to town, until he came to the golden city of Manoa of which Inca was emperor. Now the emperor, when he beheld him, knew him to be a Christian, for not long since his brethren had been vanquished by the Spaniards in Peru; therefore he had him lodged in his palace and ordered that he should be respectfully entertained. There Martinez lived for seven months, and all that while was not allowed to wander beyond the city's walls lest he should discover the country's secrets, for he had been brought thither blindfold and had been fifteen days in the passage. When, years later, he came to die, he confessed to a priest that he had entered Manoa at high noon and that then his captors had uncovered his eyes, and that he had travelled all that day till nightfall through its streets and all the next, from the rising to the setting of the sun, of so great extent was it, until he arrived at the palace. It was Martinez who had given to Manoa its name of El Dorado, because its roadways were paved with gold, and there was so great an abundance of that metal there that, before the emperor would carouse with his captains, all those who were to pledge him were stripped naked, and their bodies anointed with white balsam, over which through hollow canes was blown by slaves the dust of fine gold, so that when his guests sat down to drink with him, they glistened yellow in the sun like gilded statues.

"When Martinez had obtained his freedom and returned to Trinidad, and told his story, many other adventurers set out in quest of Manoa; but none so much as saw it save only Pedro de Urra. He, after incredible labours, at length arrived at a mountain peak whence, looking down, far away in the distance he could just descry the shining roofs of palaces and golden domes of Inca temples, wherein, he was told, were stored gold images of women and children more beautiful than God had yet wrought into flesh and blood. But his strength was spent and his troops were famished, also the Incas' armies were moving forward to check his advance; therefore he had to retreat, and to return to the seacoast, where he fretted away his life in dreaming of the splendours of which he had only just had sight. Fifty years later Berreo, governor of Trinidad, set out from Nuevo Reyno with seven hundred horse and slaves, and descended the Cassanar river, bound upon the same errand. What with fever and poisonous water he lost many of his men and cattle, so that, when he reached the Province of Amapaia, he had but one hundred and twenty soldiers left, and these were sick and dying; and so he also was forced to abandon his search. And this man Raleigh captured, and from him extorted his secrets, when he sailed to discover and conquer El Dorado for Queen Elizabeth, having in his company Jacob Whiddon, the English pirate, and George Gifford who was captain of the Lion's Whelp.

"All the way across the ocean they studied the records of the adventurers who had sought before them, till they had them all by memory; for they hoped to find those same wonders which Lopez says that Pizarro found in the first home of the Incas: 'A royal city where all the vessels of the emperor's house, table, and kitchen, were of gold and silver, and the meanest of silver and copper for strength and hardness of metal. He had in his wardrobe hollow statues of gold which seemed giants, and the figures in proportion and bigness of all the beasts, birds, trees, and herbs that earth produceth; and of all the fishes that the sea or waters of his kingdom breedeth. He had also ropes, budgets, chests, and troughs of gold and silver, heaps of billets of gold, that seemed wood marked out to burn. Finally, there was nothing in his country whereof he had not the counterfeit in gold. Yea, and they say, that the Incas had a garden of pleasure in an island near Puna, where they went to recreate themselves when they would take the air of the sea, which had all kinds of garden-herbs, flowers, and trees of gold and silver, an invention and magnificence till then never seen. Besides all this, he had an infinite quantity of silver and gold unwrought in Cuzco.' The counterpart of all these marvels Raleigh hoped to find, when he had sailed up the Orinoco to its watershed.

"So, when he had gathered all the information which he could from Berreo, he departed and rowed up the river in the galego boat of the Lion's Whelp, till on the fourth day he dropped into the waters of the Great Amana. Up the Great Amana he travelled, always getting news of his city, always being told that it was farther inland. On the banks of this river grew diverse sorts of fruit good to eat, flowers and trees of such variety as were 'sufficient to make ten books of herbals.' And everywhere he saw multitudes of birds of all colours, some carnation, some crimson, some orange-tawny, purple, watchet, and of all other sorts, so that, as he himself has said, 'It was unto us a great good passing of the time to behold them, besides the relief we found in killing some store of them; and still as we rowed, the deer came down feeding by the water's side, as if they had been used to the keeper's call.'

"Lured on by these delights, he journeyed farther inland until at last he came to the first great silver mine; but here the Orinoco and all the other rivers had risen from four to five feet in height, so that it was not possible by the strength of man or with any boat whatsoever to row into the river against the stream. However, before his return, one day as it drew towards sunset, he had sight of a crystal mountain, which was said to be studded with diamonds and precious stones, which shone afar off, the appearance of which was like to that of a white church tower of exceeding height. Over the summit rushed a mighty river, which touched no part of the mountainside, and fell with a great clamour as if a thousand bells were knocked together; so, though he did not find El Dorado, he was somewhat comforted by the marvel of this sight. Also, before he left he saw El Madre del Oro, the mother of gold, which proved that treasure lay not far underground."

So, hour after hour, and night after night, the old man had told his magic story of the search for El Dorado to the little boy. And sometimes he would vary it with other tales and legends of men who had gone upon quests equally wild; of Ponce de Leon, who had sought for the Bimini Isle, where arose a fountain whose waters could cause men to grow young again; of the Sieur D'Ottigny, who set sail for the Unknown in search of wealth, singing songs as if bound for a bridal feast; and of Vasseur, who first brought news of the distant Appalachian Mountains, whose slopes teem with precious metals and with gems beyond price. But always the narration would return to El Dorado on the shores of Parima. Then the little boy would ask, "But, Grandpa, is it true, or is it only a faery-tale? Was there ever such a city, and does it exist to-day?" Whereupon the old gentleman would grow very serious and would reply, "Certainly there is such a city, my dear; for when I was young I went in search of it, and your father is out there finding it to-day."

After which answer he would get out maps, and show the child the red lines, which were his own journeys, and the exact spot in the watershed of the Orinoco where he believed the city to stand. Then they would reason about it together, bending low beneath the lamp, tracing out the various routes of past explorers, until his mother came in and, seeing what they were so busy about, carried him off to bed. At an early age he discovered that his mother approved neither of the grand-father's stories, nor of her husband's absence. She was often at pains to tell him that there was no such city, that the stories were all fables, and that his grandpapa had wasted his fortune and talents in its search. But the boy believed in the fables, for he liked to think of his father as sailing up the Great Amana, where the deer feed along the banks, until at last he came to the golden city where the men are like gilded statues. He was sure that his papa would return rich one day, bringing with him an Inca princess for his son to marry.

But, when his father did return, he brought back with him only a fever-shattered body for his wife to nurse, and a plucky belief that he would succeed next time. Ah, but those were good days which he had spent by his father's bedside, when he had gazed on that fair-haired, soldierly man who had trodden in Raleigh's footsteps! He remembered how his father had laughed when he had asked in awe-struck tones whether he might be allowed to kiss his hands, and how he had said, "If I do not find, you will seek for it some day"—and then he had felt proud. How eagerly he had listened when the two explorers, father and son, had sat together and had talked over their various travels! And how he could remember his father's account of his latest journey! His mother had been out at the time when it was related; they never mentioned these matters in her presence because they pained her; moreover, if she was near by when they were talked about, she would contrive some excuse for snatching the boy away. They had watched their opportunity, however, and his father had told him.

He had set out in a canvas sailing boat, and had ascended the Orinoco for twenty days. Every now and then he had come to rapids, where he had had to go ashore to carry his boat, or to marshes, where he had had to wade. As he travelled farther from the mainland, his Indian guides had deserted him till there was none left, and he had had to go on alone. Day by day he had passed by great rocks, on which there was writing engraved, which, perhaps, contained directions for travellers who, ages since, had been bound for that same city; but they were now of no use to him, because they were written in a forgotten language and in an alphabet which not even the Indians could understand. So he had gone on until at last he came to the crystal mountain, and the waterfall which Raleigh had described; and after that he had travelled further than even great Raleigh himself, or any other white man. It was at this point that the boy had gasped and asked to be allowed to kiss his father's hands.

Then his father had told him how beyond the mountain there had seemed to be nothing but tangled wood and swamp, and how he had caught fever and wandered on in delirium until, when he came to himself, he had found himself standing on the shores of what had once been a vast inland lake, but which had now become partially dry, through which it was only possible to wade. So he left his boat and waded on, sometimes shoulders high, for four days; for, though he was racked with pains, he would not give up because he believed the lake to be Parima. On the evening of the fourth day, when his strength was almost spent and he was ready to sink with faintness, he came to an island and saw in the distance, in the light of the setting sun, golden spires and the roofs of houses many miles away, which he knew to be El Dorado. But by this time he had only two days' provisions left and dared not venture further; so he, like Pedro de Urra, having come within sight of his desire, had been compelled to turn back. Of his return journey he said nothing; Granger learnt that from his mother in later years. It had been made in agonies of hunger and thirst, which had nearly robbed him of his life. Nevertheless, his father had told him that, so soon as he got well again, he was going back, and that he would reach El Dorado this time. True to his word, when his fever had left him, he had bade them all good-bye, making his son secretly promise that, if he should not come back, when he became a man, he would follow him in the quest. Then had come the two years of anxious waiting in which they had had no news of him, and the final acceptance of the belief that he was dead. But his grandfather would not lose faith; he himself had once been missing for five years. He said that his son had reached the city, and was pushing homeward through the Andes on to the Pacific side. Night by night, in that back room with the bow-window, he had collected his records and studied them beneath the lamp. "He must be about here by now," he would say, pointing to a certain place. But the boy's mother had only smiled sadly, saying, "Is he not yet undeceived?" Then one evening they had left him in his chair, and had not heard him come up to bed, and in the morning had found him sitting stiff and silent in the sunshine, with the map of Guiana spread out before him and his finger on the spot where he had written EL DORADO, the magic word.

The child had never forgotten that sight, its impression had sunk deep into his nature; somehow it had become symbolic for him of loyalty to one's chosen purpose in life. As he had once asked permission to kiss his father's hands, so, when there was no one in the room to watch him, he had stolen up and smoothed his hands with reverence against the cushions of the chair where the old grey head had last rested—but he had never sat there. After the old man's death, all things in that room became objects for his veneration. It was just this capacity in the small boy for hero-worship which his mother never tried to understand; so he kept his secret, and thus began the breach which was presently to widen. From that day Granger had pledged himself, when he should become a man, to go in search of his father and to inherit his quest; and to such a nature as Granger's that childish pledge was binding. He could never be persuaded that his father was dead; he always spoke and thought of him as a soldierly fair-haired man, living in a desirable land hard by a garden, like to that of the isle near Puna, which had herbs and flowers and trees of gold and silver, one who was an honoured guest in the emperor's house where the meanest utensils were of silver and copper for strength. At first, when only he and his mother were left, he had spoken to her of these fancies; but she had shown herself more and more averse to their mention, so he had learnt to keep his longings to himself.

His mother was a practical woman, born of a race of lawyers and diplomatists. Hence she coveted above all things for her son, as she had done for his father before him, the certainties of life—social recognition and a banking-account; she had no sympathy with theories, however heroic, or with any kind of success which was not obvious and within hand-stretch. She was one of those safe people who always choose to-day's salary, if it be promptly paid, in preference to the more generous triumph of a to-morrow which may never come. She was wisely parsimonious in all things and, daring nothing herself, had no patience with natures which were more courageous. Much of her own money, and all of her husband's, had been spent by him in his fruitless explorations of Guiana. Now that he was gone, she discreetly invested what was left of her fortune, and deprived herself of all luxuries, so that when the time should come, her boy should have his chance in life unembarrassed by his father's previous reckless expenditures. She was proud of her son, for he was handsome; but she never realised that half a day of spoken love and sympathy can purchase more friendship than twenty years of benefits punctually and dutifully conferred—still less did she recognise the necessity for a mother consciously to cultivate a friendship with her boy. Not that she was ungentle; she craved his affection, but she made the mistake of demanding it as her right—all of which is the same as saying that she was mentally insensitive, and was unaware that with thoughtful people the road to the heart must first lead through the mind; of people's minds she was incurious. She gave her son the kind of education which befits men to inherit rather than to earn. His wishes were never consulted; nor even when he went to university was he given any choice. Like a dumb brute beast he was goaded forward without knowledge of his destination, and was expected to be grateful to the hand which kept him moving, and prevented him from turning aside.

He permitted this well-intentioned despotism not through any lack of spirit, but partly because it was well-intentioned, and mostly because his immediate present seemed of little consequence to him. He felt himself to be an embryo prophet who awaited his hour; when that should strike, he would concentrate. Not until he was twenty-two years of age did he expostulate, and by that time it was too late; his training had made him dependent upon money for success. His mother had the money, and she selected the Bar as a suitable profession for him; then it was that he broke his twelve years' silence, and scandalised her with the information that his great ambition was to follow in his father's footsteps, and to find both him and El Dorado, fulfilling the promise which he had given as a child. Startled by this unexpected confession, she had charged him with disloyalty and ingratitude to herself; to avoid complications and a breach which he foresaw would become irreparable, he had accepted her choice and studied for a barrister. This utterance of his secret, however, had only served to make him aware of the intensity of his own desire. He could not work, he could not rest, he could not apply his mind; always he saw before him the tropic river with its multitude of carnation, crimson, and orange-tawny birds, its low green banks where the deer come down to graze, and far ahead and visionary the swampy lake, built on whose shore the golden city raises up its head. So books, and law, and London became for him the custodians of his captivity—things to be hated and despised.

In the three years which followed he had made one friend, a mining engineer, by name Druce Spurling. In him he had confided, and Spurling had responded with a sympathy which did him credit, kindling to the romance of the story. He had tested with his expert knowledge the evidence which Granger had laid before him for the belief that such a city as El Dorado had existed, and he had been satisfied—or, at any rate, had been made certain that in the watershed of the Orinoco gold was yet to be found in great quantities, as in the Spaniard's time. He had promised that, so soon as he had the capital, he would help him in his quest. Granger coveted the journey for its adventure, and the opportunity of fulfilling his promise to his father; Spurling only for its possibilities of attaining wealth. In their community of ambition this difference of purpose was lost to sight. Then, when Granger was twenty-five and had just completed his course of reading for the Bar, his great chance came. It was the year of the Klondike gold-rush and Spurling was going out; he wanted a partner, and offered to take Granger with him if he, in return, would promise to give him one third of all the gold he mined. Their idea was that, with the money thus earned, they would be able to provide funds for the following up of their dream of El Dorado. Granger accepted the offer at once, partly influenced by his desire to prove to his mother that he could do something by himself. After a painful farewell, he had departed to seek his fortune in the North World.

Ah, how his mother had cried when he went away! He recalled all that to-day, now that he was in Keewatin, and gazed back incredulously upon that mistaken former self, wondering whether he could have been really like that. London, indeed! What would he not give to be in London to-day; to stand in Fleet Street, listening to the roar of the passing traffic and brushing shoulders with living, companionable men? Ah well, what good purpose would it serve to think about it! He had chosen his own fate. Here he was at Murder Point, and he would soon be married to Peggy, after which, no matter what avalanche of good luck befell him, there would be no return. What would his proud old mother say to a little half-breed grandchild? The mere thought made him smile. In cynical self-derision, he pictured himself accompanied by his Indian tribe, knocking at the door of the old red house on Clapton Common—and his reception there. He gave a name to his picture, and it was "The Return of the Ne'er-do-well."

* * * * *

His brain was getting cloudy; he could not tell whether he was asleep or awake. He felt as if he had been bound hand and foot so that he could not stir, and had been raised aloft to a dizzy height. He knew that he was far above the earth, for he was very cold and was conscious of mists which drifted across his face and left it damp. Suddenly he discovered that he could open his eyes. Looking down, he saw with supernatural distinctness the entire course of the frozen river-bed. Far to the north he could descry Spurling, plodding desperately on across the thawing ice. A few miles to the west, perhaps an hour's journey from Murder Point, he could see a second figure, tall, soldierly, erect, which approached with swift clean strides, through the solitude, inevitably as Fate—the symbol of Justice in pursuit of Crime. He watched with fascination how the distance between the hunter and the hunted narrowed; only one thing could save the criminal from capture—the intervention of Murder Point.

And then the cloud rolled back again; he closed his eyes, and lost consciousness in untroubled forgetfulness.



CHAPTER VI

THE PURSUER ARRIVES

He was awakened by a man bending over him and holding a lighted match to his face. Careless as usual of preserving his life, he did not attempt to rise or defend himself, but simply gazed back indifferent and a little bewildered. He did not recognise the man; he was an utter stranger. As if wearied with an inspection which did not interest him, he turned his eyes away, and found that the room had become dark. How many hours he had slept, he could not calculate; perhaps nine or ten. He wondered what had made the night return so quickly. He looked toward the window, and saw that it was blinded with snow; and, as he listened, could hear the roaring of the wind, and, in the lull which followed, the rustling and settling down of the flakes. Then the match went out, and neither of them could perceive the other's face. Granger arose and pushed back the shutter of the stove, that so they might get a little light. "I needn't ask you to make yourself at home," he said; "you've done that already."

The stranger did not reply, but surveyed him closely all the while.

"You must have had good company out there to be so silent now that you have arrived."

Then the man spoke. "What's your name?" he asked abruptly. "Is it Granger?"

"I was always told so, and have as yet found no good reason for believing otherwise."

"Then this is the store of Garnier, Parwin, and Wrath, to which I was directed by Robert Pilgrim of God's Voice?"

"That is right, but I don't often have the pleasure of entertaining guests from God's Voice."

The stranger paused in doubt, as though choosing the best words to say; then he blurted out, "But you're a gentleman?"

"I hope so."

"An Oxford man?"

"Yes."

"What college?"

"Corpus."

"Did you row in the Eight?"

"Yes."

"I thought so. At what time?"

"When Corpus went up five places and bumped the House on the last night."

"I was stroke in the 'Varsity boat that year, and rowed at six in the Christ Church Eight that night."

"Then you must be Strangeways?"

"Yes, Corporal Strangeways of the Northwest Mounted Police, but Strangeways of the Oxford boat at one time. I fancied I knew you; you rowed at seven for Corpus, and it was you who won that race."

"I and seven others," laughed Granger; "but what brings you up here at this time?"

"We'll talk about that later. At present I'm hungry; I've hardly had a meal since I left God's Voice."

"Then you're travelling in haste?"

"Yes, in haste."

Granger set to work to prepare a meal, while Strangeways talked to him of the Cornmarket, the Turl, and the Hinkseys, running over the familiar geography for the sheer pleasure of recalling kindly Oxford names. Presently he asked him if he remembered the little maid who had served in the river-inn of the King's Arms at Sanford. Granger had had a summer love-affair with that same maid, as had many a young water-man before and after him. One quiet Sunday evening, when her fickle passion had reached its short-lived height, he had even been allowed the felicity of accompanying her to vespers at the quaint old Norman Church, which lay snuggled away in woods behind the Thames. They had returned to the inn by a roundabout way, through the meadows beneath the twilight, speaking all manner of intense things, and, very wonderfully, believing both themselves and their sayings to be sincere. When he had entered his skiff and pushed out from the bank, she had called him back and royally permitted him to give her his first and, as it proved, only kiss. But he had not known that, and had rowed elated Oxfordwards between the hayfields, dreaming his ecstasy on into the future—when it had already achieved its climax, and slipped out of his life. Since then it had come to seem very simple and absurd, as do all love affairs, however august, which are lived down—for no love affair was ever outlived. So, because he had been fond of her, he was glad to listen to Strangeways, even when he related her newer conquests over more recent undergrads, and her later romantic history. By all accounts she was a modern Helen of Troy, uncontaminate, forever fair and forever juvenile.

And all the while he was listening, Granger was planning by what means he might detain Strangeways, and hazarding what progress Spurling had made by this time in his escape. "A life for a life," he thought; "and Spurling once saved my life. Until I have cancelled that debt, even though Mordaunt has been slain, I will stand by him."

Throughout the winter months all meals were the same at Murder Point, consisting of black tea, salt bacon, and bannocks, which are a kind of hard biscuit, made of flour and water mixed to a thick paste and then baked. This diet becomes pretty monotonous, but is the traveller's universal fare in Keewatin. In those far regions men are not particular how or what they eat; of necessity they abandon the refinements of civilisation as needless and cumbrous. To-day, however, partly to protract his stay and so give Spurling time, partly to assert his waning gentility, the memory of which in its heyday Strangeways shared, he attempted to be lavish, to set a table, and to entertain. For cloth he spread a dress-length of gaudy muslin, such as Indians purchase for their squaws. He opened some tins of canned goods that he might provide his guest with more than one course. He built up his fire, and commenced to cook. All this used up time; and the expending of time was what he most desired.

When the meal was finished Strangeways rose up restlessly, as though he had just remembered his errand, and went to the door to see what progress the storm had made. The moment the door was opened the wind swept in, driving a fall of snow before it.

"It seems to me," said Granger, "that you're going to be snow-bound for a time. This'll make travelling dangerous, for the thaw has already weakened the ice in places and now the snow'll cover them over, making them appear safe. It's strange, for blizzards don't often happen so late as this."

"Well, there's one comfort," said Strangeways, "it's the same for all alike; if I'm delayed, so is someone else."

Granger turned his back on him, and walked over to the window where he stood tapping on the glass, attempting to dislodge the snow which had spread itself out like a blanket across the panes. "Poor devil," he said, "I pity him, whoever he is. He can find no place of shelter in all the three hundred and twenty miles which stretch between God's Voice and Crooked Creek, unless he comes here or falls in with some trapper's camp."

"Then you have had no one here lately?"

"No, I haven't seen an Indian for over a month. They don't visit me so late in the winter as this; they wait for the open season, when they can bring in their furs by water."

"But the man I'm speaking of is white. He drives a team of five grey huskies, the leader of which has a yellow face and a patch of brindled-brown upon its right hindquarters. Haven't you seen such an one go by within the last twenty-four hours?"

Granger shook his head; "Perhaps you've passed him on the way," he suggested; "if he knew that you were following him, he may have dodged you purposely and doubled back."

"He knew all right; it was because he knew that I was following that he fled. I can hardly have passed him, for he was seen by a half-breed ten miles from God's Voice, and I've travelled slowly and kept a careful watch between there and here. Besides I tracked his trail to within an hour's journey of the Point, until the snow came down and obliterated it. He was going weakly at the last; both man and dogs must have been spent."

"Then he must be somewhere to the westward, between the spot where you lost his trail and here."

"Perhaps, but the argument against that is that his trail was at least twelve hours old. Anyhow, I shall have to wait until this blizzard is over. During that time he may struggle in from the west, or, if he has gone by, may be driven back here for shelter by the gale."

Granger had not thought of that contingency, that Spurling might be driven back by the weather, might push open the door at any moment and give him the lie before Strangeways. Perhaps a look of fear passed across his face, which betrayed him. At any rate, the next thing he heard was Strangeways, saying to him in a careless voice, "Of course, between gentlemen it is scarcely necessary to ask you whether you are telling the truth!"

"It is scarcely necessary."

"Then I beg your pardon for asking."

"You needn't. You've got to do your duty irrespective of caste; whatever I once was, you can see for yourself what I am."

"Yes, a gentleman down on his luck; but still a gentleman. Strange how one gets knocked about by life, isn't it? I little thought when I caught a glimpse of you, leaning on your oar exhausted at the end of that race, that the next time we should meet would be up here. It's curious the things a fellow remembers. Our boats were alongside, just off the Merton barge; the first thing I saw when I recovered and sat up on my slide was your face, deadly pale, almost within hand-stretch. I don't recall ever to have seen you again until I struck that match an hour ago and held it to you, and you opened your eyes; then it all came back. When you were sleeping you looked haggard, just about the same as you did then. If I'd seen you awake, I don't suppose I should have remembered. . . . I didn't even know where Keewatin was in those days. If anyone had told me that it was a village near Jericho I should have believed him. I daresay you were nearly as ignorant; and now we're here in your shack."

Granger, anxious to keep Strangeway's attention from his pursuit, and his own thoughts occupied, inquired, "And what brought you into the Northwest Territories?"

"Oh, the usual thing—a girl. She was ward to my father, and was to inherit a considerable property when she came of age. I was in love with her, and my father was keen that I should marry her; there was only one hindrance, that her opinion didn't coincide with ours. I found out that my father was trying to break her spirit, and force her to his will. I couldn't allow that; so, having nothing better to do, I left home and came to Canada for a while. Mind you, I'm not condemning my father; he thought that he was doing the best for both our sakes. But I wish he'd left us alone; if he had, I daresay it would have come out all right. She was one of those girls of whom the physiognomists say, 'Can be led by kindness, but cannot be driven.' The moment she was ordered to do a thing, which in the ordinary course of events she might have chosen to do of her own free will, she refused and hated it.

"When I got to Montreal I was confronted by that stupid superstition of the Canadians, that every young Englishman who has had a better education than themselves, and is possessed of a private income from the old country, must be a remittance-man and a ne'er-do-well—that he's been sent out because he wasn't wanted by his family. I tried to get employment; not that I needed it, but because I wanted to work. The moment I opened my lips and didn't speak dialect or slang, and displayed hands which were not workman's hands, I was shown out. So I drifted west to Calgary and, after doing a little ranching there, enlisted in the Mounted Police."

"Do you like it?"

"Oh, yes, it's rather a lark, arresting the people who at first affected to despise you. I can always keep myself cheerful by the humour of that. If you've lost your sense of the ridiculous, you'd better join the Northwest Mounted Police—for an Englishman the cure's certain."

"And how about the girl?"

"She did a Gilbert and Sullivan trick. After I'd left home my father guessed the reason of my departure, and instead of giving her a rest, redoubled his efforts to make her marry me, that so he might bring me back. He was fond of both of us; we'd been brought up together, and he couldn't bear the idea of either of us being separated from himself. He made an awful mess of things, poor old gentleman; he persecuted her with his arguments to such an extent that one morning he woke up and found that she had vanished. He made all sorts of inquiries, but to the day of his death could never get any news of her whereabouts."

Strangeways paused and commenced to light his pipe. Granger, who had become interested in the story, waited a minute for him to proceed, but when he had kindled his tobacco and still sat smoking in silence, "Well, and what next?" he asked.

"That is all," said Strangeways; "now tell me about yourself."

"I went into the Klondike with the gold-rush of nearly five years ago. I travelled with a man named Spurling, and a young chap named Jervis Mordaunt, whom we chummed up with in our passage over the Skaguay." He was conscious that Strangeways had jerked out his foot and was looking hard at him. He paid no attention to that, but proceeded leisurely with his tale. He conceived that it would answer his purpose better, in order that he might make the corporal unsuspicious of his share in Spurling's escape, to speak of him in a hostile manner, and to mention all the small and private faults which he could place to his discredit. He told a story of personal disputes between himself and his partners over the working of claims, which left the impression that Spurling and Mordaunt had always sided together against himself, and that finally he, getting sick of the climate, and quarrellings, and his continuous bad luck, had come outside, travelled to Winnipeg, and taken service with Garnier, Parwin, and Wrath, because he was in danger of starving. Of El Dorado, or his real reason for leaving the Yukon, he said nothing.

When he had ended, Strangeways, who had never for a second removed his gaze, inquired in a hoarse, strained voice, "And this man Mordaunt, what was he like?"

"Oh, he was a slim little fellow; we nicknamed him 'The Girl' because of his ways, and because he was so slight."

"How old was he?"

"He couldn't have been more than eighteen when we first met him, for he never had to shave."

"Did he ever tell you anything about himself, where he came from, who were his family, or anything like that?"

"Not that I remember; he was always very close about himself. But what makes you ask these questions? Do you think that you recognise him?"

Strangeways rose up and paced the room, betraying his agitation, but when he spoke his voice was level and restrained. "By God, I hope not," he said.

Every moment Granger dreaded that he would hear him say that Mordaunt was dead, and yet he wanted certainty. He watched Strangeways pacing up and down, and longed to question him, yet was fearful that in so doing he would betray his own secret. At last he could bear the suspense no longer; that regular walking to and fro tortured him, it was like the constant swinging of a pendulum and made him giddy to look at. When he spoke, it was in a voice so shrill that it surprised himself.

"Tell me once and for all," he cried, "has anything happened to him? Is he dead?"

Strangeways halted, and regarded him with a look half-stern, half-compassionate.

"As for Spurling, you hated him, did you not?" he inquired.

Granger clenched his hands and his voice trembled. "I hated him so much," he said, "that there were times when I would gladly have struck him dead."

"Then, why didn't you?"

Granger started; the question was spoken so fiercely, and was so searching and direct. It aroused him to a sense of his danger, and helped him to recover himself.

"In the first place you would have hanged me, and in the second there was Mordaunt." As soon as he had said it, he knew that he had made a slip.

"And why Mordaunt?"

He hesitated a minute, gathering himself together. He could feel the scrutiny of Strangeways' eyes and was conscious that he was breathing hard.

The question was repeated, "And why Mordaunt?"

"Because Mordaunt was such a clean fellow that I couldn't do anything shabby in his presence," he said.

"How clean?" Strangeways persisted.

"Why, in every way; he was so honourable."

"But I thought you said just now that he always sided with Spurling when it came to a dispute?"

"So he did in a sense. He never seemed to think that the thing we quarrelled about was worth while, and treated it all with a well-bred contempt. Spurling was usually the one who was unjust, and I the one who complained; so I was usually the one to start the wrangle. Therefore, though he despised Spurling, he always seemed to blame me for my pettiness."

Strangeways turned on him his honest, manly gaze, as if he were about to ask again, "Is that the truth?" But he did not say it. Granger felt a cur for lying, but he was determined to fight for Spurling's life, and, if that were necessary, for his own revenge.

"And you have not seen Spurling go by the Point?" asked Strangeways.

"No." He said it quite ordinarily, as if he were answering a commonplace. Then he realised that he had been caught in a trap and had not manifested enough surprise. He slowly raised up his eyes, shame-facedly, like a schoolboy detected cribbing, when the master steals up behind.

"I'm afraid, after all, that you are not a gentleman," was all that Strangeways said.

Granger shrank back and flushed as if he had been struck across the face; he did not attempt to defend himself or expostulate. The wind had died down outside; it was evident that the storm had spent itself. In the silence which followed he could hear the padding steps of the huskies going round the house, and the sound of them sniffing about the door. Strangeways, who had been fastening on his snowshoes preparatory to departure, walked across the room and raised the latch. He stepped out, leaving the door open behind him. A bar of moonlight leapt instantly inside, as it had been a fugitive who had been kept long waiting. Then he heard the voice of Strangeways calling, "Granger, Granger."

He rose up hurriedly, thinking that perhaps Spurling had been driven back by the blizzard and was returning to his danger. When he reached the threshold he saw only this—the moon tossing restlessly in a cloudy sky, shining above a shadowy land of white; Strangeways standing twenty paces distant with his back towards him; and, seated on their haunches between Strangeways and the threshold, five lank grey huskies, one of which had a patch of brindled-brown upon its right hindquarters and a yellow face.



CHAPTER VII

THE CORPORAL SETS OUT

It would have been easy to shoot Strangeways at that time, and he must have known it; yet, he was so much a gentleman that he accepted the risk, and had the decency to turn his back when circumstances compelled him to give a man the lie. Granger wondered whether courtesy was the motive; or whether he was only testing him out of curiosity, to see of what fresh vulgarity of deceit he was capable.

As he stood in the doorway, his gaze wandered from the broad shoulders of Corporal Strangeways, late stroke of the 'Varsity Eight, to the treacherous eyes of the gaunt grey beast before him which, by reason of its unusual markings and untimely appearance, had once and forever thrown Spurling's game away. There was something Satanic and suggestive of evil about those green and jasper eyes, and the manner in which they blinked out upon him from the furious yellow head. Were they prompting him to crime, saying, "Why don't you fire? He can't defend himself; see, his back is turned?" No, not that. He half-believed that the brute was endowed with human intelligence, and had betrayed his late master of set purpose—perhaps, in revenge for the many beatings he had received on the trail from Selkirk to Murder Point. There was a vileness in the creature's look that was degrading and stirred up hatred—and surely, the lowest kind of enmity which can be entertained by man is toward a unit of the dumb creation. That he should feel so, humiliated and angered Granger. Was there not enough of ignominy for him to endure without that? He drew his revolver, took aim at this yellow devil—but could not fire. The beast did not cringe and run away, zigzagging to avoid the bullets, stooping low on its legs, as is the habit of huskies when firearms are pointed at them; it sat there patiently blinking, a little in advance of its four grey comrades, with a mingled expression of amusement and boredom in its attitude, like a sleepy old bachelor uncle at a Christmas entertainment when Clown and Harlequin commence their threadbare jests and fooleries. He might have been yawning and saying to himself, "Hang it all! Why do I stay? I know the confounded rubbish by heart—all that these fellows will do and say."

Granger's hand dropped to his side; this wolf-dog looked so far from ignorant—so much wiser than himself. Could it be that he also was playing in the game? Was it possible that he also was intent on helping Spurling? Well, then, he should have his chance.

For himself the season for deception was at an end; he had lied to gain time for the fugitive, now let him see what truth could effect. He waded through the snow to Strangeways, tapped him on the shoulder, and was made painfully aware of the opinion held of him by the way in which the corporal screwed his shoulder aside.

"I suppose I seem to you a pretty mean kind of a beast?"

"I suppose you do."

"I seem so to myself; but I have an excuse to make—that this man once saved my life."

"So you're a hero in disguise?"

"No, but I couldn't go back on a man who had done that."

"I fail to see that that is a reason why you should have lied."

"I called it an excuse."

"In this case the words mean the same."

"Well, then, I had a reason: if the person whom Spurling murdered is the person whom I . . ."

"Indeed! So you knew that much, did you?" At mention of the word "murdered," Strangeways had swung fiercely round and confronted Granger.

"Yes, I know that much. And if the man whom Spurling murdered is the man whom I suspect him to be, I had intended to dispense with law and to exact the penalty slowly, up here whence there is no escape, myself."

"Then you'll be sorry to hear that you've lied to no purpose. The person whom Spurling murdered was not a man, you damned scoundrel."

Strangeways turned sharply away from him, and, moving as briskly on his snowshoes as the unpacked state of the snow would allow, commenced methodically to go about the store in ever widening circles. He evidently suspected that the fugitive was still in hiding there, or had been at the time of his arrival, and had since escaped, in which case the snow would bear traces of his flight. When he had searched the mound in vain, he turned his attention to the river-bed where his team of dogs was stationed. Granger, watching him from above, saw that he had halted suddenly and was bending down. Then he heard him calling his dogs together and saw him harnessing them quickly into his sledge. Panic seized him lest Strangeways should drive away without telling him the name of this thing, which was not a man, which Spurling had murdered, and whether the deed had been done in the Klondike. Also he was curious to see for himself what it was that he had found in the snow down there, which made him so eager to set out. He ploughed his way down the hillside, breaking through the surface and slipping as he ran, till he arrived out of breath at the river-bank. Then he saw the meaning of this haste; approaching the Point from the northward was a muffled track, partially obliterated by the snow which had since fallen, which, on reaching Murder Point, doubled back, returning northward whence the traveller had come. It meant to Granger that, while he and Strangeways had been seated together recalling old times in the store, Spurling had come back. For what reason? No man would fight his way through a blizzard without good purpose; he would lie down where he was till the storm had spent itself, lest he should wander from his trail. This man had everything to lose by turning back. Then he discovered that the snow was speckled with dots of black, and, stooping down, discerned that they were drops of blood. Some of the blood-marks were fresh; the tracks themselves had been made, perhaps, within the last three hours. Spurling must have met with an accident, and, returning to the Point for help, had seen the stranger's dogs and sledge, and turning northwards again had fled. So thought Granger.

Strangeways, in the meanwhile, was examining the feet of his leader. Presently he stood erect, and asked in a low voice, "Did you do that?"

"What?"

"Look for yourself."

Granger looked, and saw that the balls of the leader's forefeet had been gashed several times with a knife.

"How should I have done it?" he replied. "I've been in your company every minute since you arrived."

"Who did it, then?"

"You know as well as I."

"And what do you think of a man who could do that?"

"That he was very desperate."

"I should call him a Gadarene swine."

Strangeways stood in angry thought for a few seconds; then he jerked up his head, and asked, "Can you lend me another team of huskies? Be careful when you answer that you tell me the truth this time."

Granger smiled at the childishness of such threatening.

"You will gain nothing by speaking like that," he said. "Unfortunately for you, unlike Spurling, I am not afraid of death—I should welcome it. Yet, while I live, I am curious; therefore I will promise you help on one condition, that you tell me who has been murdered, and where."

Strangeways lifted his eyes and surveyed Granger, asking himself, "And is this statement also a lie?" But, when he spoke there were the beginnings of a new respect in his voice. "So you are not afraid of death?" he said. "Well, then, I owe you an apology for what I have called you, for I am; I am horribly afraid. I am afraid that I shall die before I have avenged this death."

"Tell me, who was it that was killed?" cried Granger, impatiently. "Was it a girl? There was a girl whom I loved in the Klondike; you don't know how you make me suffer."

"Don't I?" replied Strangeways, grimly; and then with affected indifference, "There are a good many girls in the Klondike; the body of this one was found washed ashore near Forty-Mile."

"What's her name?"

"That's what I'm here to find out."

"Did Spurling know that she was a woman when he shot her?"

"So you know that also—that he shot her? Whether he knew, I don't care; the fact remains that she is dead and that he is suspected."

"Only suspected?"

"Well, . . ."

"By God!" cried Granger, bringing down his fist in Strangeways' face, "but you shall tell me! Was her name Mordaunt, and was she his partner, and did she wear a man's disguise?"

Strangeways turned his head and dodged aside so that the blow fell lightly; drawing his revolver, he covered his opponent. Granger advanced close up, until the barrel of the revolver touched his face; then he halted and waited.

Strangeways watched him; looked into his eyes amazed; then lowered his weapon and laughed nervously. "Oh," he said, "I remember, you are not afraid of death."

"But I am of madness and suspense."

Strangeways did not reply at once. Perhaps a sudden understanding had dawned on him, pity and a vision of what it meant to live through the eternal Now at Murder Point. He may have been asking himself, "For the lack of one small untruth, shall I thrust this man into Hell?" At any rate, when he answered he spoke gently. "No," he said, "she wore a woman's dress; be sure of it, your girl-friend is safe up there."

Granger looked at him steadily, wondering why he should have lied; than he took his hand and pressed it in the English manner, "I believe you," he said. Yet, at the back of his mind a voice was persistently questioning, "Do I believe him? But can I believe that?"

He was interrupted in his thoughts by Strangeways saying, "It's a pity that that poor brute should suffer; he's certain to die."

The corporal went near, levelled his revolver and shot the leader between the eyes. The bullet did its work; the dog shivered, and tottered, rolled over on its side, tried to rise again, then stretched itself out wearily as if for sleep at the end of a hard day's travel.

"You can do that for a mere husky," said Granger bitterly; "but you refuse to do it for a man."

"The husky had a harsh time of it in this world and has no other life."

"If that's so, he's to be congratulated; but there was the more reason why he should have been allowed to live his one life out. We wretched men are never done with life; if I were sure that there was only one existence and no reproaches in a future world, I could be brave to the end. It's this repetition of mortality, which men call immortality, that staggers my intellect, making me afraid—afraid lest there is no death."

Strangeways shrugged his shoulders and scowled. He did not like the subject—it caused him discomfort; there was so much left for him in life. He planned, when he had captured Spurling and seen him safely hanged, to buy himself out of the Mounted Police, return to England, and there live pleasantly at his club in London and as squire on his estate. He would marry, he told himself; and though not the girl whom he had most desired, for he believed her to be dead, yet, like a sensible man, some other girl, who would be his friend, and bear his children, and make him happy. If once he could get out of Keewatin, having performed his duty honourably, he would do all that—when Spurling had been captured alive or dead.

Therefore he broke in on Granger roughly, inquiring, "Where are those huskies which you are going to lend me?"

"They are Spurling's huskies which he left behind when I lent him mine."

"How long ago was that?—If they're Spurling's, they must be pretty well played out."

"They are. They've rested for thirty hours more or less; but I don't think you'll manage to catch him up with them."

"Perhaps not, but I'll try; he can't be more than three hours ahead."

"Three hours with a fresh team is as good as three days."

"You forget the difference between the two men."

"No, I don't, for the one has the memory of his crime."

"It's the memory of his crime that'll wear him out, and that same memory that'll give me strength."

"Why? What makes you hate him so? Supposing he did kill a woman, it may have been an accident. She may even have felt grateful for the bullet, as I should have done just now had you shot me dead. It's horrible to kill anyone, but then the poor devil's fleeing for his life and he's suffering a thousand times more pain than he inflicted."

"Is he? Does he suffer the pain of the man who follows behind? Supposing a certain man had loved that woman and had lost her, and had planned all his life on the off-chance of meeting her again, dreaming of her day and night, and then had suddenly learnt that she was brutally dead by Spurling's hand on some God-forsaken Yukon River, where the ground was hard like iron so that no grave could be dug by the murderer, and her body froze to marble and lay exposed all winter through the long dark days, with the bullet wound red in her forehead, and her grey face looking up toward the frosty sky, till the spring came and the water washed her body under and threw it up in a creek near Forty-Mile, where a year later it was discovered mutilated and defiled, do you think that her lover would be glad of that? Do you think that he would pity the black-guard who could do such a scoundrelly deed as that?"

Strangeways was speaking wildly, his voice was trembling and his face was haggard and lined; he was crying like a child. "The man who could do a deed like that," he shouted, menacing the stars with his clenched hand, "the man who could do a deed like that is so corrupt that even God would search for good in him in vain. It's the duty of every clean man to hound him off the earth. While we allow him to live, we each one share his taint. I'll pray God every day of my life that Spurling may be damned throughout the ages—eternally and pitilessly damned."

When Granger could make his voice heard, "You don't mean that she was Mordaunt?" he cried. All this talk about a woman who had been lost and loved paralleled his own case—he took it as applied to himself.

Strangeways recovered himself with an effort, "No, no," he said huskily. "Mordaunt, you have told me, was a man. I was only supposing all that."

"But Mordaunt was not a man, but a woman in man's clothing."

Strangeways closed his lips tightly together, refusing to take notice, pretending that he had not heard. Granger spoke again. "Mordaunt was not a man," he said.

"In that case," answered Strangeways, "you know what the man suffers who is following behind. I will tell you no more than that."

"You've told me enough and I will help you; only pledge me once more on your sacred word that this body was found in a woman's dress."

Strangeways hesitated; then his eyes caught again the bleakness of the land and his imagination pictured the awful loneliness of life up there. Looking full on Granger he said, "On my most sacred word as a brother-gentleman, the body that was found was clothed in a woman's dress."

"Then, thank God, she was not Mordaunt!" said Granger; "but because he knew her to be a woman at the time when he killed her, I will help you none the less."

Having called together Spurling's huskies, they found them to be too weak for travel, with the exception of the leader, therefore they harnessed in the corporal's remaining four dogs, putting the yellow-faced stranger at their head. No sooner had they turned their backs and gone inside the store to bring out the necessary provisions, than the four old dogs, jealous of their new leader, hurled themselves upon him, burying their fangs in his shaggy hair, intent on tearing him to death—an old-timer husky can stand a good deal of that. He strained on the traces, exposing to them only his hindquarters, running well ahead, and keeping his throat safe. Not until the two men had clubbed them nearly senseless did they subside into sullen quietness; and then only so long as they were watched. Once a back was turned, the four hind dogs piled on to their leader and the fight recommenced.

"You won't go far with them," said Granger. He did not notice the look of reawakened suspicion which flickered in Strangeways' eyes. "You won't go far with them; the moment you camp and that yellow-faced beast gets his chance, he'll chew your four dogs to pieces. That's what he's there for, it's my belief—he's playing Spurling's game. He'll take you fifty or a hundred miles from Murder Point, and there leave you stranded."

"What would you advise?" This was spoken in a quiet voice.

"I would advise you to wait here till the summer has come, and then to proceed by water."

"But on snow I can follow his trail, whereas travel by water leaves no traces."

"What does that matter? Instead of following him, let him return to you, as he did to-night. You've driven him up a blind alley on this Last Chance River; he can only go to the blank wall of the Bay, and then come back."

"He can reach the House of the Crooked Creek."

"And if he does, what of that? He'll be touching the blank wall then. They won't want him. The first question that they'll ask him will be, 'And what have you come here for?' If he can't give a satisfactory account of himself, they'll place him under arrest. When you get news of that, you can go up there and fetch him."

"And if he doesn't get so far as that?"

"You can set out by canoe and drive him back, and back, till you come to the Bay, and he can go no further."

"He might hide, and I might pass him on the way—what then?"

"In that case he'd double back and come past Murder Point, trying to get out."

"In the meanwhile I should be a hundred, two hundred miles to the northwards, travelling towards the Bay on my fool's errand, and who would be here to capture him?"

"Why, I should."

"Precisely."

Granger started; the way in which that last word had been spoken had made Strangeways' meaning manifest. He blushed like a girl at the shame of it. "Surely you don't still distrust me? You don't think me such a sneak that, having got you out of the way, I'd let him slip by and out?"

"It looks like it."

"But, man, don't you realise that our interests are the same?"

"Since when?"

"Since you told me of a woman who was done to death on a Yukon river, and lay unburied all winter till the thaw came, and her body was washed down to a creek near Forty-Mile, where it lay through the summer naked, gazed upon, uncovered, and defiled."

"I fancy you knew all that when you helped Spurling to escape."

"Yes, but I didn't know that it was a woman, and I didn't know her name."

"And you don't know her name now."

"I do; it was Jervis Mordaunt who wore a man's disguise."

"I told you that she wore a woman's dress."

"I know. I know."

"Then do you mean to tell me that I lied?"

"Perhaps, but not to accuse you. You said it out of kindness, and that was partly true which you said. You meant that the body was naked when it was found."

"If you dare to speak of her like that again, I'll choke you, and run the risk of getting hanged myself. The land has debased you, as the Yukon debased your friend. I can read you; you're still half-minded to play his game, and that's why you want to turn me back."

"Yes, I want to turn you back. Spurling's a hard-pressed man and he's dangerous. You can judge of what he is capable by what has just happened. He's cunning and, in his way, he's brave; he wouldn't scruple to take your life. Your best policy is to wait—either here or at God's Voice, as you think best. The ice will soon be unsafe to travel; already a mile from here, where the river flows rapidly round from the south-west, the part on the inside bend is rotten. I had to guide Spurling round that. At first, before I saw you and knew who you were, I was tempted not to warn you, to let you take your own chance and go on by yourself, and, perhaps, get drowned; but now, after I have seen you and after what you have told me, I can't do that."

"So you were tempted to let me drown myself, and now you are repentant?"

Granger bowed his head.

"Then I tell you that if the ice were as rotten as your soul or Spurling's, I would still follow him, though I had to follow him to Hell. If I've got to die, I'll die game—and you shan't turn me back."

Granger ran out after him, calling him to stay, offering to guide him round the danger spot in his trail. But suspicion and untruthfulness had done their work. Only once did he turn his head, when at the crack of the whip the yellow-faced leader leapt forward in his traces. Then he answered him and cried, "He killed the woman I loved, and he shall pay the price though I follow him to Hell."

So far as is known, these were the last words which Strangeways ever said.



CHAPTER VIII

THE LAST OF STRANGEWAYS

Granger returned to his shack and, closing the door, sat down beside the stove in his accustomed place. He commenced to fill his pipe slowly, stretching out his legs as if he were preparing for a long night of late hours and thoughtfulness. But he could not rest, his whole sensitiveness was listening and alert; the muscles of his body twitched, as if rebuking him for the delay which he imposed on them. He was expecting to hear a cry; whose cry, and called forth by what agony, he did not dare to surmise, only he must get there before it was too late. Somewhere between his shack and the Forbidden River he must get before the agony began. He rose up, and putting on his capote and snowshoes hurriedly, went out following Strangeways' trail. He had no time to realise the folly of his action—this leaving of his store unguarded and setting forth without an outfit at a season of the year when, perhaps, within a week the ice would break. He did not consider how far he might have to follow before he could hope to come up with Strangeways; nor what Strangeways would think of and do with him if, turning on a sudden his head, he should see the man who had lied to him coming swiftly up behind. He would probably shoot him; but Granger in his frenzy to save Strangeways' life did not think of that. His brain was throbbing with this one thought, that if he did not catch him up before he reached the Forbidden River, he would have seen the last of him alive which any man would ever see in this world, unless that man were Spurling.

So now there were three men spread out across the ice, two of whom followed in the other's steps. The first man was racing to preserve his own life, the second was pursuing to take it, and the third was following with all his strength that he might save the pursuer's life from danger. Of these three the last man alone had no fear of death. The other two were so eager to live, and one of them took such delight in life! Yet, Strangeways was rushing to his destruction as fast as that evil yellow-faced beast, tugging at the traces with might and main, could take him—to where beneath the ice, or in some forest ambush, lay crouched the hidden death. And if he should die, whose fault would that be? Granger was man enough to answer, "The fault would be mine. I told him untruth till he could not believe me when I spoke the truth which would save his life."

Now that he was left solitary again, he resumed that old habit of lonely men of arguing with himself. Between each hurrying stride, he panted out within his brain his unspoken words, his thoughts gasping one behind the other as if his very mind was out of breath. Why had Spurling come back? Why hadn't he killed all ten huskies outright, and so prevented Strangeways from pursuing farther until the break-up of the ice? He would have gained a month by that. His deed bore about it signs of the ineffectual cunning of the maniac; it had been only worth the doing if carried out bitterly to the end. Yet Spurling had not gone mad; he was too careful of his life and future happiness to permit himself to do that. Then he must have done it for a threat, hoping by the daring and grim humour of his brutality to strike terror into Strangeways and warn him back. Perhaps this was only one of many such experiences which had occurred all along the trail from Selkirk, and the pursuer had recognised both the motive and the challenge. Well, if you're compelled to play the game of life-taking, you may as well keep your temper, and set about it sportsmanly with a jest. Even in this horrid revelation of character there was some of the old Spurling left.

Then his thoughts turned to Strangeways. He wondered, had he lied or told the truth when he asserted that the body was not Mordaunt's which was found at Forty-Mile? He hoped for the best, but he doubted. His manner had been against it, and so had Spurling's; they had both been keeping something back. Perhaps he had lied out of jealousy, because he could not endure to think that this girl, for whom he had been searching, who now was dead, had been loved by another man—and not a worthy man either, but one whom he despised.

(Granger knew that he also would have felt like that. The mere denial of such a fact would have seemed somehow to reserve her more entirely for himself.)

He had not been able to bear the thought that, now that she was beyond reach of all men's search, her memory should be shared with him by another man with an equal quality of affection—it had seemed to him like her hand stretched out from the grave to strip him of the few mementoes of her which he had. For these reasons he might even have lied truthfully, being self-persuaded that this Jervis Mordaunt was a different girl.

Granger heartily hoped that his suspicions might be mistaken, but . . . Whatever happened he must come up with him, and ask him that question once again. Maybe last time he had not spoken plainly; Strangeways had not grasped what he meant. He could not remember how his question had been phrased, but this time it should be worded with such brutal frankness that there could be no chance of error. He would lay hold of him strongly, and clasp him about the knees so that he could not escape. He would never release his hold till his doubts had been set at rest. He would say to him quite clearly, "I loved a girl in the Klondike who called herself Jervis Mordaunt; she passed for a man, and was clothed in a Yukon placer-miner's dress. She did not know that I loved her; so you need not grieve if this murdered girl whom you loved, and the one whom I call Mordaunt, were one and the same. I fled from the Shallows where we worked together, partly in order that she might not know that. Now will you tell me, once and for all, was this girl, whom Spurling murdered, called Mordaunt? If you love God, tell me the truth and speak out. I can bear the truth, but I cannot endure this suspense."

With the careful precision of a mind uncertain of its own sanity, he repeated and re-balanced his phrases, distrusting his own exactness, fearful lest he had not chosen such words as would make his meaning plain. Ah, but by his gestures, if language failed him, he would cause him to understand. For such news, even though it should be bad news, he would pledge his honour to help Strangeways in his search for Spurling. He would even volunteer to go single-handed and capture him himself—bring him down to Murder Point by guile, where Strangeways would be waiting to take him. The best and worst which he himself could derive from such a promise would be only that he should meet with death—but he should have thought of that offer earlier, and made it while Strangeways was with him.

At that word death the purpose of his present errand flared vividly in his mind, and he hurried his pace.

Looking back across his shoulder through the darkness, for the moon was under cloud, he could just make out where his store pinnacled the mound at the Point; he had left the door open in the haste of his departure and, over the threshold slantwise across the snow, the fire from the stove threw an angry glare. It was only a mile from the Point to the bend, yet he seemed to have been journeying for hours. The surface of the river was difficult to travel because the snow which had fallen was wet; it shrank away from the feet at every stride. For this season of the year in Keewatin the night was mild; there was a damp rawness, but scarcely any frost in the air. If the ice had been rotten in the morning at the bend, it would be doubly treacherous now. Ah, but he had warned Strangeways! Surely he would be sufficiently cautious to half-believe him at least in that. When he came to where the river turned northwards, he would forsake the short-cut of the old trail and swing out into the middle stream, or work safely round along the bank. If he couldn't scent danger for himself, his huskies would choose their own path and save him, unless—unless, feeling the smoothness of the old trail beneath the snow, they should lazily choose that, or unless that leader of Spurling's should wilfully lead them astray; but surely the four hind-dogs would have sense not to follow him, and would hang back.

He kept his eyes on the darkness before him, but to the northeast all was shadowy; he could discern nothing. Yes, there was something moving over there. He judged that he had already traversed three-quarters of that interminable mile; surely he would be able to catch up with him now. The recent blizzard had wiped out the old trail, but he could still feel it firm beneath the snow; he was following in Strangeways' tracks—Strangeways' which had been Spurling's. Then he came to a point where the staler tracks, which were Spurling's, had branched out into mid-stream to round the bend; but he saw to his horror that Strangeways' had kept on to the left by the winter trail, toward the spot of which he had warned him—he had even suspected that that final warning was a trap.

Ah, there he was straight ahead of him; he could see him distinctly now. The moon, rising clear of cloud, made his figure plain. He called to him, and it seemed that he half-turned his head. He was keeping perilously near in to the bend. He called to him again, and signed to him with his arms to drive out. Then once more a cloud passed before the moon, making the land seem dead.

He advanced cautiously, moving slowly, testing the strength of the ice at each fresh step before trusting it with his weight. Underneath he could hear the lapping of the current as it rushed rapidly round the bend, and could feel the trembling of the crust beneath his feet, as a man does the vibration of an Atlantic liner when the engines are working at full pressure, and every plank and bolt begins to shake and speak. When he had come to where Strangeways had been standing, he stood still and listened. He could hear no sound of travel, no cursing a man's voice, urging his dogs forward, or cracking of a whip. Then he felt the ice sagging from under him, and the cold touch of water creeping round his moccasins. From a rift in the cloud, a segment of the moon looked out. Before and behind him lay the frozen expanse of river, with its piled-up banks on either hand, and its heavy blanketing of snow, smooth and level, making its passage seem safe. Far over to the right stretched the trail of Spurling, showing ugly and black against the white, where his steps and the steps of his dogs had punctured the surface. Just before him, three yards distant, the ice had broken open, leaving a gaping hole over whose jagged edges the water climbed, and whimpered, and fell back, like a fretful child in its cot, which has wakened too early and is trying to clamber out.

As Granger watched, heedless of his own safety, a hand pushed out above the current, the hooked fingers of which searched gropingly for something to which they might make fast. Granger, throwing himself flat in the snow, so as to distribute his weight, crawled towards it. The hand rose higher, and then the arm, followed at last by the head and eyes of Strangeways, but not the mouth. He had caught hold of a point of ice and was trying to pull himself up by that; but something (was it the swiftness of the current?) was dragging his body away from under him so that the water was still above his nose and mouth. Granger wormed his way to within arm-stretch and clasped his hand; but the moment he commenced to pull, the weight became terrific—more than the weight of one man—and he himself began to slide slowly forward till his head and shoulders were above the water. Something was tugging at Strangeways from below the river, so that his body jerked and quivered like a fisherman's line when a well-hooked salmon is endeavouring to make a rush at the other end.

Granger was leaning far out now, the surface was curving from under him and his chest had left the ice. Then he realised what had happened: the loaded sledge had sunk to the bottom of the river-bed, and was holding down the four rear-dogs by their traces; but the leader, by struggling, had fought his way to within a few inches of the outer air, and, clinging on to Strangeways' throat and breast, was fiercely striving to climb up him with his teeth to where breathing might be found, in somewhat the same manner as Archbishop Salviati did in Florence to Francesco Pazzi, when the Gonfalonier hurled them both out of the Palazzo window, each with a rope about his neck.

(Strange what men will think of at a crisis! Granger was grimly amused, and half-disgusted with himself. How absurd that of all things at such a time he should have remembered that!)

The weight of the four rear-dogs and the loaded sledge were gradually dragging the leader down, and, with him, Strangeways. He held on desperately; now and then, as he made a fresh effort, his yellow snout would appear above the water or the top of his yellow head—except for that, he might not have been there. But Granger was intent on Strangeways; staring into his eyes, which were distant the length of his arm out-stretched, he was appalled at the consternation they reflected, and the evident terror of the end. If he could only get at his knife, he might be able to effect something; but his knife was beneath his capote, in his belt, and both his hands were occupied, the one with supporting the drowning man, the other with preventing himself from slipping further.

He wanted to speak to Strangeways, but he could not think of any words which were not so trivial as to sound blasphemous on such an occasion. The man was growing weaker and heavier to hold; his eyes were losing their vision, and the water rose in bubbles from his mouth. There was only one last chance, that if he could support him long enough for the husky at his throat to release his grip and die first, he might be able to drag him out.

Though all this had been the work of only a few seconds, his arm was becoming numb and intolerably painful. Whatever it might cost him, he promised himself that he would not let go till hope was at an end. He was slipping forward again; he would soon overbalance. But what did that matter to one who did not fear death? After all, an honourable out-going is the best El Dorado which any man can hope to find as reward for his long life's search. If he were to die for and with Strangeways, he would at least prove to him that he was not entirely worthless.

Then, before it was too late, he found his words. "Be brave," he shouted hoarsely, "be brave! It is only death."

It would have seemed a preposterous supposition yesterday that the private trader at Murder Point should ever be in a position to bid the veriest scum among cowards to be brave. As he spoke, the intelligence came back to Strangeways' eyes, the fear went out from them and the features, losing their agony, straightened into an expression which was almost grave. His hand became small in Granger's palm, as though it were offering to slip away.

Some deep instinct stirred in Granger; he suddenly loved this man for the self-denial which that act betrayed. If there was to be a denial of self, however, he was emphatic that his should be the sacrifice. Was it this thought of sacrifice which brought religion to his mind—some haunting, quick remembrance of those wise words about "dying for one's friend"?

Quite irrationally and without connection with anything which had previously occurred, leaning yet further out at his own immediate peril, shifting his grip to Strangeways' wrist that he might hold him more firmly, he whispered, "Jesus of Galilee! Jesus Christ!"

The face of the drowning man took on an awful serenity, a look of holiness, as if at sight of something which stood behind Granger, which he had only just discerned. He even smiled. Suddenly, with the determination of one who had concluded and conquered an old temptation, he wrenched away his hand. Granger made one last effort to reach him, but the tugging of the beast below the surface, or its dead weight, had drifted him out of arm-stretch. He sank lower. The water rose, almost leisurely it seemed as if now certain of the one thing it had desired, higher and higher up his face till it had reached his eyes, quenched them, and nothing was left but a few bubbles which floated to the surface and broke, sparkling in the moonlight. Granger did not stir; as he had been paralysed, he lay there rigid with the black waters washing about his face and hands. Then very slowly, as though reluctant not to die, he drew himself back. When he had reached safety, rising up, he gazed around; the land looked more desolate than ever. The first words which he said were spoken sacredly, with bated breath. "And that man told me," he muttered, "that he was afraid of death. . . . To prefer to die at such a time, rather than risk my life, was the act of a man who was very brave." And next he said, "I wonder what were his last words when he crashed through the ice? I expect he said, 'Damn.' Well, that was as good as any other word to say; after all, all swearing, taken in a certain sense, is a form of prayer—a bluff assertion of belief in the divine."

Granger turned slowly about, and commenced to make his way back to the Point. At first he spoke aloud to himself as a thought occurred. "I distrusted that yellow beast of Spurling's from the first." "Now at any rate Spurling is safe." "I haven't yet discovered whether Mordaunt is dead,"—and so on. Then he ceased to speak with his lips, and his thoughts were uttered in the silence of his brain. They had all to do with Strangeways.

He wondered what vision had been his, causing him to smile as he sank. Did he think of that girl, and that he was going to meet her? Or of the old home in England? Or of his school-days? Or was it the Thames he thought about—of Oxford with its many towers, and the cry of the coach along the tow-path as the eight swings homeward up-stream, in the grey of a winter afternoon, to the regular click of the rowlocks as the men pluck their blades from the water, feather and come forward for the next stroke, making ready to drive back their slides as one man with their legs? He was certain that whatever happened, and however he should go out of life, did God spare him a moment's consciousness, it would be the vision of Oxford with its domes and spires, its austere and romantic quiet, its echoing cloisters and passages, its rivers with their sedges of silver and of grey, which would float before his dying eyes,—or would he think of Christ? Had Christ been the vision which this man had seen?

Strange thoughts for Keewatin! But death is always strange.



CHAPTER IX

THE BREAK-UP OF THE ICE

Nearly a month had gone by since the night on which Strangeways died. Not that time mattered much to Granger, for, like the immortals, men in Keewatin have dispensed with time: they have accepted as true the lesson which philosophers have been striving to teach the world ever since the human intellect first commenced to philosophise—that there are no such ontological facts as Time and Space. Among the men of this vast northern territory the outward expression of religion is rare; they do not often speak, and then only of such interests as are superficial to their lives. Yet here, in their fine neglect of the two sternest of self-imposed, human limitations, the religious instinct is manifest. As it would be sacrilege to count God's breaths, were that possible, so to them it seems a kind of blasphemy to number the recurrence of their own small perceptions when the Divine Perceived seems so entirely unconscious of their very existence. Hence it happens that one does not often hear a traveller speak of having journeyed so many days or miles; his division is more casual, and embraces only his own immediate actions—he has travelled so many "sleeps," nothing more.

As a rule, Indians are utterly deficient in the time-sense and can give no intelligent account of their age. Their calendar is enshrined, if they have one, in symbols which they use as decorations, painted on the inside of their finest skins. They make their reckoning of the years from some event which was once important to themselves, or to their tribe. Thus, stars falling from the top to the bottom of a robe represent the year of 1833, and an etching of an Indian with a broken leg and a horn on his head stands for the year in which Hay-waujina, One Horn, had his leg "killed." Back of that which is comparatively immediate to their own experience, they have ceased to count or to be inquisitive.

"Real are the dreams of Gods, and smoothly pass Their pleasures in a long immortal dream."

So with both the joys and sorrows of these Northland men; hurry is not necessary where time is unrecognised, and turbulence of emotion, whether of grief or gladness, is felt to be out of place in a dream-being, whose sole reality is its unreality. Their personal unimportance to the Universe, and remoteness from the Market-place of Life allow them to dawdle. Their experiences have no sharp edges, no abrupt precipices, no divisive gulfs, no defined beginnings and endings. The book of their sojourn in this world has neither chapters nor headings; the page runs on without hindrance from tragedy to comedy, comedy to farce, farce to melodrama, and thence to tragedy again—always it returns to tragedy. They stride round the Circle of the Emotions without halting, merging from joy into sorrow without preface, till one day the feet grow wearier and lag, the eyes grow clear and, almost without knowing it, as did Strangeways, their dream going from them, they awake—motionlessly pass out of life, and enter into What?

If smoothness of passage and apparent endlessness be the two main qualities of the divine existence, then the lives of men in Keewatin are both divine and real; only we, of the outside world, would call this same smoothness dulness, and its endlessness its most torturing agony.

The past month had dragged by with Granger as would a century with normal men, except that in the entire span of those hundred years there had been no summer. In them he had lived through and remembered every emotion which had ever come to him. His brain was confused with remembering, fevered with anguish of regret for things lost, which would never come again. He had nearly succumbed to that most unmanly of all spiritual assailants, the coward of Self-Pity—would have succumbed, had not Self-Scorn rendered him aid.

From sunrise to sunset the winter had slowly thawed: the trees had uncovered their greens and browns, thrusting themselves forth from beneath the rain-washed greyness of the melting snow; the river, reluctantly at first, had cracked and swayed, and become engraved by miniature streams which ate their way, as acid on metal, across its surface. Strange messages those narrow streams of water wrote; strange they seemed at least to Granger as he watched them day by day. Sometimes they seemed to be writing words, and sometimes drawing faces. The words he could not always decipher; when he did they were mostly proper names, STRANGEWAYS, SPURLING, MORDAUNT, EL DORADO. The faces were more easy to recognise, and three of them corresponded to the first three names. There was one morning when he awoke, having dreamed of the horrible revenge which he would take, and going to the window was appalled to see a new face scrawled upon the ice—his own, yet not his own; the evil likeness to the self which had come to him in the Klondike. He was puzzled, and set to work to discover the reason for these signs. Then a verse which he had once learnt as a child came back to him, "Jesus stooped down and wrote with his finger on the ground, as though he heard them not. And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last; and Jesus was left alone, and the woman."