It must have been fully half a minute that Bram stood like a living
creature turned suddenly into dead stone. His eyes had left Philip's
face and were fixed on the woven tress of shining hair. For the first
time his thick lips had fallen agape. He did not seem to breathe. At
the end of the thirty seconds his hand unclenched from about the whip
and the club and they fell into the snow. Slowly, his eyes still fixed
on the snare as if it held for him an overpowering fascination, he
advanced a step, and then another, until he reached out and took from
Philip the thing which he held. He uttered no word. But from his eyes
there disappeared the greenish fire. The lines in his heavy face
softened and his thick lips lost some of their cruelty as he held up
the snare before his eyes so that the light played on its sheen of
gold. It was then that Philip saw that which must have meant a smile in
Bram's face.
Still this strange man made no spoken sound as he coiled the silken
thread around one of his great fingers and then placed it somewhere
inside his coat. He seemed, all at once, utterly oblivious of Philip's
presence. He picked up the revolver, gazed heavily at it for a moment,
and with a grunt which must have reflected his mental decision hurled
it far out over the plain. Instantly the wolves were after it in a mad
rush. The knife followed the revolver; and after that, as coolly as
though breaking firewood, the giant went to Philip's rifle, braced it
across his knee, and with a single effort snapped the stock off close
to the barrel.
"The devil!" growled Philip.
He felt a surge of anger rise in him, and for an instant the
inclination to fling himself at Bram in the defense of his property. If
he had been helpless a few minutes before, he was utterly so now. In
the same breath it flashed upon him that Bram's activity in the
destruction of his weapons meant that his life was spared, at least for
the present. Otherwise Bram would not be taking these precautions.
The futility of speech kept his own lips closed. At last Bram looked at
him, and pointed to his snowshoes where he had placed them last night
against the snow dune. His invitation for Philip to prepare himself for
travel was accompanied by nothing more than a grunt.
The wolves were returning, sneaking in watchfully and alert. Bram
greeted them with the snap of his whip, and when Philip was ready
motioned him to lead the way into the north. Half a dozen paces behind
Philip followed Bram, and twice that distance behind the outlaw came
the pack. Now that his senses were readjusting themselves and his pulse
beating more evenly Philip began to take stock of the situation. It
was, first of all, quite evident that Bram had not accepted him as a
traveling companion, but as a prisoner; and he was equally convinced
that the golden snare had at the last moment served in some mysterious
way to save his life.
It was not long before he saw how Bram had out-generaled him. Two miles
beyond the big drift they came upon the outlaw's huge sledge, from
which Bram and his wolves had made a wide circle in order to stalk him
from behind. The fact puzzled him. Evidently Bram had expected his
unknown enemy to pursue him, and had employed his strategy accordingly.
Why, then, had he not attacked him the night of the caribou kill?
He watched Bram as he got the pack into harness. The wolves obeyed him
like dogs. He could perceive among them a strange comradeship, even an
affection, for the man-monster who was their master. Bram spoke to them
entirely in Eskimo--and the sound of it was like the rapid
CLACK--CLACK--CLACK of dry bones striking together. It was weirdly
different from the thick and guttural tones Bram used in speaking
Chippewyan and the half-breed patois.
Again Philip made an effort to induce Bram to break his oppressive
silence. With a suggestive gesture and a hunch of his shoulders he
nodded toward the pack, just as they were about to start.
"If you thought I tried to kill you night before last why didn't you
set your wolves after me, Bram--as you did those other two over on the
Barren north of Kasba Lake? Why did you wait until this morning? And
where--WHERE in God's name are we going?"
Bram stretched out an arm.
"There!"
It was the one question he answered, and he pointed straight as the
needle of a compass into the north. And then, as if his crude sense of
humor had been touched by the other thing Philip had asked, he burst
into a laugh. It made one shudder to see laughter in a face like
Bram's. It transformed his countenance from mere ugliness into one of
the leering gargoyles carven under the cornices of ancient buildings.
It was this laugh, heard almost at Bram's elbow, that made Philip
suddenly grip hard at a new understanding--the laugh and the look in
Bram's eyes. It set him throbbing, and filled him all at once with the
desire to seize his companion by his great shoulders and shake speech
from his thick lips. In that moment, even before the laughter had gone
from Bram's face, he thought again of Pelletier. Pelletier must have
been like this--in those terrible days when he scribbled the random
thoughts of a half-mad man on his cabin door.
Bram was not yet mad. And yet he was fighting the thing that had killed
Pelletier. Loneliness. The fate forced upon him by the law because he
had killed a man.
His face was again heavy and unemotional when with a gesture he made
Philip understand that he was to ride on the sledge. Bram himself went
to the head of the pack. At the sharp clack of his Eskimo the wolves
strained in their traces. Another moment and they were off, with Bram
in the lead.
Philip was amazed at the pace set by the master of the pack. With head
and shoulders hunched low he set off in huge swinging strides that kept
the team on a steady trot behind him. They must have traveled eight
miles an hour. For a few minutes Philip could not keep his eyes from
Bram and the gray backs of the wolves. They fascinated him, and at the
same time the sight of them--straining on ahead of him into a voiceless
and empty world--filled him with a strange and overwhelming compassion.
He saw in them the brotherhood of man and beast. It was splendid. It
was epic. And to this the Law had driven them!
His eyes began to take in the sledge then. On it was a roll of bear
skins--Bram's blankets. One was the skin of a polar bear. Near these
skins were the haunches of caribou meat, and so close to him that he
might have reached out and touched it was Bram's club. At the side of
the club lay a rifle. It was of the old breech-loading, single-shot
type, and Philip wondered why Bram had destroyed his own modern weapon
instead of keeping it in place of this ancient Company relic. It also
made him think of night before last, when he had chosen for his refuge
a tree out in the starlight.
The club, even more than the rifle, bore marks of use. It was of birch,
and three feet in length. Where Bram's hand gripped it the wood was
worn as smooth and dark as mahogany. In many places the striking end of
the club was dented as though it had suffered the impact of tremendous
blows, and it was discolored by suggestive stains. There was no sign of
cooking utensils and no evidence of any other food but the caribou
flesh. On the rear of the sledge was a huge bundle of pitch-soaked
spruce tied with babiche, and out of this stuck the crude handle of an
ax.
Of these things the gun and the white bear skin impressed Philip most.
He had only to lean forward a little to reach the rifle, and the
thought that he could scarcely miss the broad back of the man ahead of
him struck him all at once with a sort of mental shock. Bram had
evidently forgotten the weapon, or was utterly confident in the
protection of the pack. Or--had he faith in his prisoner? It was this
last question that Philip would liked to have answered in the
affirmative. He had no desire to harm Bram. He had even a less desire
to escape him. He had forgotten, so far as his personal intentions were
concerned, that he was an agent of the Law--under oath to bring in to
Divisional Headquarters Bram's body dead or alive. Since night before
last Bram had ceased to be a criminal for him. He was like Pelletier,
and through him he was entering upon a strange adventure which held for
him already the thrill and suspense of an anticipation which he had
never experienced in the game of man-hunting.
Had the golden snare been taken from the equation--had he not felt the
thrill of it in his fingers and looked upon the warm fires of it as it
lay unbound on Pierre Breault's table, his present relation with Bram
Johnson he would have considered as a purely physical condition, and he
might then have accepted the presence of the rifle there within his
reach as a direct invitation from Providence.
As it was, he knew that the master of the wolves was speeding swiftly
to the source of the golden snare. From the moment he had seen the
strange transformation it had worked in Bram that belief within him had
become positive. And now, as his eyes turned from the inspection of the
sledge to Bram and his wolves, he wondered where the trail was taking
him. Was it possible that Bram was striking straight north for
Coronation Gulf and the Eskimo? He had noted that the polar bear skin
was only slightly worn--that it had not long been taken from the back
of the animal that had worn it. He recalled what he could remember of
his geography. Their course, if continued in the direction Bram was now
heading, would take them east of the Great Slave and the Great Bear,
and they would hit the Arctic somewhere between Melville Sound and the
Coppermine River. It was a good five hundred miles to the Eskimo
settlements there. Bram and his wolves could make it in ten days,
possibly in eight.
If his guess was correct, and Coronation Gulf was Bram's goal, he had
found at least one possible explanation for the tress of golden hair.
The girl or woman to whom it had belonged had come into the north
aboard a whaling ship. Probably she was the daughter or the wife of the
master. The ship had been lost in the ice--she had been saved by the
Eskimo--and she was among them now, with other white men. Philip
pictured it all vividly. It was unpleasant--horrible. The theory of
other white men being with her he was conscious of forcing upon himself
to offset the more reasonable supposition that, as in the case of the
golden snare, she belonged to Bram. He tried to free himself of that
thought, but it clung to him with a tenaciousness that oppressed him
with a grim and ugly foreboding. What a monstrous fate for a woman! He
shivered. For a few moments every instinct in his body fought to assure
him that such a thing could not happen. And yet he knew that it COULD
happen. A woman up there--with Bram! A woman with hair like spun
gold--and that giant half-mad enormity of a man!
He clenched his hands at the picture his excited brain was painting for
him. He wanted to jump from the sledge, overtake Bram, and demand the
truth from him. He was calm enough to realize the absurdity of such
action. Upon his own strategy depended now whatever answer he might
make to the message chance had sent to him through the golden snare.
For an hour he marked Bram's course by his compass. It was straight
north. Then Bram changed the manner of his progress by riding in a
standing position behind Philip. With his long whip he urged on the
pack until they were galloping over the frozen level of the plain at a
speed that must have exceeded ten miles an hour. A dozen times Philip
made efforts at conversation. Not a word did he get from Bram in reply.
Again and again the outlaw shouted to his wolves in Eskimo; he cracked
his whip, he flung his great arms over his head, and twice there rolled
out of his chest deep peals of strange laughter. They had been
traveling more than two hours when he gave voice to a sudden command
that stopped the pack, and at a second command--a staccato of shrill
Eskimo accompanied by the lash of his whip--the panting wolves sank
upon their bellies in the snow.
Philip jumped from the sledge, and Bram went immediately to the gun. He
did not touch it, but dropped on his knees and examined it closely.
Then he rose to his feet and looked at Philip, and there was no sign of
madness in his heavy face as he said,
"You no touch ze gun, m'sieu. Why you no shoot when I am there--at head
of pack?"
The calmness and directness with which Bram put the question after his
long and unaccountable silence surprised Philip.
"For the same reason you didn't kill me when I was asleep, I guess," he
said. Suddenly he reached out and caught Bram's arm. "Why the devil
don't you come across!" he demanded. "Why don't you talk? I'm not after
you--now. The Police think you are dead, and I don't believe I'd tip
them off even if I had a chance. Why not be human? Where are we going?
And what in thunder--"
He did not finish. To his amazement Bram flung back his head, opened
his great mouth, and laughed. It was not a taunting laugh. There was no
humor in it. The thing seemed beyond the control of even Bram himself,
and Philip stood like one paralyzed as his companion turned quickly to
the sledge and returned in a moment with the gun. Under Philip's eyes
he opened the breech. The chamber was empty. Bram had placed in his way
a temptation--to test him!
There was saneness in that stratagem--and yet as Philip looked at the
man now his last doubt was gone. Bram Johnson was hovering on the
borderland of madness.
Replacing the gun on the sledge, Bram began hacking off chunks of the
caribou flesh with a big knife. Evidently he had decided that it was
time for himself and his pack to breakfast. To each of the wolves he
gave a portion, after which he seated himself on the sledge and began
devouring a slice of the raw meat. He had left the blade of his knife
buried in the carcass--an invitation for Philip to help himself. Philip
seated himself near Bram and opened his pack. Purposely he began
placing his food between them, so that the other might help himself if
he so desired. Bram's jaws ceased their crunching. For a moment Philip
did not look up. When he did he was startled. Bram's eyes were blazing
with a red fire. He was staring at the cooked food. Never had Philip
seen such a look in a human face before.
He reached out and seized a chunk of bannock, and was about to bite
into it when with the snarl of a wild beast Bram dropped his meat and
was at him. Before Philip could raise an arm in defense his enemy had
him by the throat. Back over the sledge they went. Philip scarcely knew
how it happened--but in another moment the giant had hurled him clean
over his head and he struck the frozen plain with a shock that stunned
him. When he staggered to his feet, expecting a final assault that
would end him, Bram was kneeling beside his pack. A mumbling and
incoherent jargon of sound issued from his thick lips as he took stock
of Philip's supplies. Of Philip himself he seemed now utterly
oblivious. Still mumbling, he dragged the pile of bear skins from the
sledge, unrolled them, and revealed a worn and tattered dunnage bag. At
first Philip thought this bag was empty. Then Bram drew from it a few
small packages, some of them done up in paper and others in bark. Only
one of these did Philip recognize--a half pound package of tea such as
the Hudson's Bay Company offers in barter at its stores. Into the
dunnage bag Bram now put Philip's supplies, even to the last crumb of
bannock, and then returned the articles he had taken out, after which
he rolled the bag up in the bear skins and replaced the skins on the
sledge.
After that, still mumbling, and still paying no attention to Philip, he
reseated himself on the edge of the sledge and finished his breakfast
of raw meat.
"The poor devil!" mumbled Philip.
The words were out of his mouth before he realized that he had spoken
them. He was still a little dazed by the shock of Bram's assault, but
it was impossible for him to bear malice or thought of vengeance. In
Bram's face, as he had covetously piled up the different articles of
food, he had seen the terrible glare of starvation--and yet he had not
eaten a mouthful. He had stored the food away, and Philip knew it was
as much as his life was worth to contend its ownership.
Again Bram seemed to be unconscious of his presence, but when Philip
went to the meat and began carving himself off a slice the wolf-man's
eyes shot in his direction just once. Purposely he stood in front of
Bram as he ate the raw steak, feigning a greater relish than he
actually enjoyed in consuming his uncooked meal. Bram did not wait for
him to finish. No sooner had he swallowed the last of his own breakfast
than he was on his feet giving sharp commands to the pack. Instantly
the wolves were alert in their traces. Philip took his former position
on the sledge, with Bram behind him.
Never in all the years afterward did he forget that day. As the hours
passed it seemed to him that neither man nor beast could very long
stand the strain endured by Bram and his wolves. At times Bram rode on
the sledge for short distances, but for the most part he was running
behind, or at the head of the pack. For the pack there was no rest.
Hour after hour it surged steadily onward over the endless plain, and
whenever the wolves sagged for a moment in their traces Brain's whip
snapped over their gray backs and his voice rang out in fierce
exhortation. So hard was the frozen crust of the Barren that snowshoes
were no longer necessary, and half a dozen times Philip left the sledge
and ran with the wolf-man and his pack until he was winded. Twice he
ran shoulder to shoulder with Bram.
It was in the middle of the afternoon that his compass told him they
were no longer traveling north--but almost due west. Every quarter of
an hour after that he looked at his compass. And always the course was
west.
He was convinced that some unusual excitement was urging Bram on, and
he was equally certain this excitement had taken possession of him from
the moment he had found the food in his pack. Again and again he heard
the strange giant mumbling incoherently to himself, but not once did
Bram utter a word that he could understand.
The gray world about them was darkening when at last they stopped.
And now, strangely as before, Bram seemed for a few moments to turn
into a sane man.
He pointed to the bundle of fuel, and as casually as though he had been
conversing with him all the day he said to Philip:
"A fire, m'sieu."
The wolves had dropped in their traces, their great shaggy heads
stretched out between their paws in utter exhaustion, and Bram went
slowly down the line speaking to each one in turn. After that he fell
again into his stolid silence. From the bear skins he produced a
kettle, filled it with snow, and hung it over the pile of fagots to
which Philip was touching a match. Philip's tea pail he employed in the
same way.
"How far have we come, Bram?" Philip asked.
"Fift' mile, m'sieu," answered Bram without hesitation.
"And how much farther have we to go?"
Bram grunted. His face became more stolid. In his hand he was holding
the big knife with which he cut the caribou meat. He was staring at it.
From the knife he looked at Philip.
"I keel ze man at God's Lake because he steal ze knife--an' call me
lie. I keel heem--lak that!"--and he snatched up a stick and broke it
into two pieces.
His weird laugh followed the words. He went to the meat and began
carving off chunks for the pack, and for a long time after that one
would have thought that he was dumb. Philip made greater effort than
ever to rouse him into speech. He laughed, and whistled, and once tried
the experiment of singing a snatch of the Caribou Song which he knew
that Bram must have heard many times before. As he roasted his steak
over the fire he talked about the Barren, and the great herd of caribou
he had seen farther east; he asked Bram questions about the weather,
the wolves, and the country farther north and west. More than once he
was certain that Bram was listening intently, but nothing more than an
occasional grunt was his response.
For an hour after they had finished their supper they continued to melt
snow for drinking water for themselves and the wolves. Night shut them
in, and in the glow of the fire Bram scooped a hollow in the snow for a
bed, and tilted the big sledge over it as a roof. Philip made himself
as comfortable as he could with his sleeping bag, using his tent as an
additional protection. The fire went out. Bram's heavy breathing told
Philip that the wolf-man was soon asleep. It was a long time before he
felt a drowsiness creeping over himself.
Later he was awakened by a heavy grasp on his arm, and roused himself
to hear Bram's voice close over him.
"Get up, m'sieu."
It was so dark he could not see Bram when he got on his feet, but he
could hear him a moment later among the wolves, and knew that he was
making ready to travel. When his sleeping-bag and tent were on the
sledge he struck a match and looked at his watch. It was less than a
quarter of an hour after midnight.
For two hours Bram led his pack straight into the west. The night
cleared after that, and as the stars grew brighter and more numerous in
the sky the plain was lighted up on all sides of them, as on the night
when Philip had first seen Bram. By lighting an occasional match Philip
continued to keep a record of direction and time. It was three o'clock,
and they were still traveling west, when to his surprise they struck a
small patch of timber. The clump of stunted and wind-snarled spruce
covered no more than half an acre, but it was conclusive evidence they
were again approaching a timber-line.
From the patch of spruce Bram struck due north, and for another hour
their trail was over the white Barren. Soon after this they came to a
fringe of scattered timber which grew steadily heavier and deeper as
they entered into it. They must have penetrated eight or ten miles into
the forest before the dawn came. And in that dawn, gray and gloomy,
they came suddenly upon a cabin.
Philip's heart gave a jump. Here, at last, would the mystery of the
golden snare be solved. This was his first thought. But as they drew
nearer, and stopped at the threshold of the door, he felt sweep over
him an utter disappointment. There was no life here. No smoke came from
the chimney and the door was almost buried in a huge drift of snow. His
thoughts were cut short by the crack of Bram's whip. The wolves swept
onward and Bram's insane laugh sent a weird and shuddering echo through
the forest.
From the time they left behind them the lifeless and snow-smothered
cabin Philip lost account of time and direction. He believed that Bram
was nearing the end of his trail. The wolves were dead tired. The
wolf-man himself was lagging, and since midnight had ridden more
frequently on the sledge. Still he drove on, and Philip searched with
increasing eagerness the trail ahead of them.
It was eight o'clock--two hours after they had passed the cabin--when
they came to the edge of a clearing in the center of which was a second
cabin. Here at a glance Philip saw there was life. A thin spiral of
smoke was rising from the chimney. He could see only the roof of the
log structure, for it was entirely shut in by a circular stockade of
saplings six feet high.
Twenty paces from where Bram stopped his team was the gate of the
stockade. Bram went to it, thrust his arm through a hole even with his
shoulders, and a moment later the gate swung inward. For perhaps a
space of twenty seconds he looked steadily at Philip, and for the first
time Philip observed the remarkable change that had come into his face.
It was no longer a face of almost brutish impassiveness. There was a
strange glow in his eyes. His thick lips were parted as if on the point
of speech, and he was breathing with a quickness which did not come of
physical exertion. Philip did not move or speak. Behind him he heard
the restless whine of the wolves. He kept his eyes on Bram, and as he
saw the look of joy and anticipation deepening in the wolf-man's face
the appalling thought of what it meant sickened him. He clenched his
hands. Bram did not see the act. He was looking again toward the cabin
and at the spiral of smoke rising out of the chimney.
Then he faced Philip, and said,
"M'sieu, you go to ze cabin."
He held the gate open, and Philip entered. He paused to make certain of
Bram's intention. The wolf-man swept an arm about the enclosure.
"In ze pit I loose ze wolve, m'sieu."
Philip understood. The stockade enclosure was Bram's wolf-pit, and Bram
meant that he should reach the cabin before he gave the pack the
freedom of the corral. He tried to conceal the excitement in his face
as he turned toward the cabin. From the gate to the door ran a path
worn by many footprints, and his heart beat faster as he noted the
smallness of the moccasin tracks. Even then his mind fought against the
possibility of the thing. Probably it was an Indian woman who lived
with Bram, or an Eskimo girl he had brought down from the north.
He made no sound as he approached the door. He did not knock, but
opened it and entered, as Bram had invited him to do.
From the gate Bram watched the cabin door as it closed behind him, and
then he threw back his head and such a laugh of triumph came from his
lips that even the tired beasts behind him pricked up their ears and
listened.
And Philip, in that same moment, had solved the mystery of the golden
snare.