COURTHORNE MAKES REPARATION
The silence in the big room had grown oppressive, when Barrington
raised his head and sat stiffly upright.
"What has happened has been a blow to me, and I am afraid I am scarcely
equal to entertaining you tonight," he said. "I should, however, like
Dane and Macdonald, and one or two of the older men to stay a while.
There is still, I fancy, a good deal for us to do."
The others turned towards the door, but as they passed Winston, Miss
Barrington turned and touched his shoulder. The man, looking up
suddenly, saw her and her niece standing close beside her.
"Madam," he said hoarsely, though it was Maud Barrington he glanced at,
"the comedy is over. Well, I promised you an explanation, and now you
have it you will try not to think too bitterly of me. I cannot ask you
to forgive me."
The little white-haired lady pointed to the ears of wheat which stood
gleaming ruddy bronze in front of him.
"That," she said, very quietly, "will make it easier."
Maud Barrington said nothing, but every one in the room saw her
standing a moment beside the man, with a little flush on her face and
no blame in her eyes. Then she passed on, but short as it was the
pause had been very significant, for it seemed that whatever the elders
of the community might decide, the two women, whose influence was
supreme at Silverdale, had given the impostor absolution.
The girl could not analyze her feelings, but through them all a vague
relief was uppermost, for whatever he had been it was evident the man
had done one wrong only, and daringly, and that was a good deal easier
to forgive than several incidents in Courthorne's past would have been.
Then she was conscious that Miss Barrington's eyes were upon her.
"Aunt," she said, with a little tremor in her voice, "It is almost
bewildering. Still, one seemed to feel that what that man has done
could never have been the work of Lance Courthorne."
Miss Barrington made no answer, but her face was very grave, and just
then those nearest it drew back a little from the door. A trooper
stood outside it, his carbine glinting in the light, and another was
silhouetted against the sky, sitting motionless in his saddle further
back on the prairie.
"The police are still here," said somebody. One by one they passed out
under the trooper's gaze, but there was the usual delay in harnessing
and saddling, and the first vehicle had scarcely rolled away, when
again the beat of hoofs and thin jingle of steel came portentously out
of the silence. Maud Barrington shivered a little as she heard it.
In the meanwhile, the few who remained had seated themselves about
Colonel Barrington. When there was quietness again, he glanced at
Winston, who still sat at the foot of the table.
"Have you anything more to tell us?" he asked. "These gentlemen are
here to advise me if necessary."
"Yes," said Winston quietly. "I shall probably leave Silverdale before
morning, and have now to hand you a statement of my agreement with
Courthorne and the result of my farming here, drawn up by a Winnipeg
accountant. Here is also a document in which I have taken the liberty
of making you and Dane my assigns. You will, as authorized by it, pay
to Courthorne the sum due to him, and with your consent, which you have
power to withhold, I purpose taking one thousand dollars only of the
balance that remains to me. I have it here now, and in the meanwhile
surrender it to you. Of the rest, you will make whatever use that
appears desirable for the general benefit of Silverdale. Courthorne
has absolutely no claim upon it."
He laid a wallet on the table, and Dane glanced at Colonel Barrington,
who nodded when he returned it unopened.
"We will pass it without counting. You accept the charge, sir?" he
said.
"Yes," said Barrington gravely. "It seems it is forced on me. Well,
we will glance through the statement."
For at least ten minutes nobody spoke, and then Dane said. "There are
prairie farmers who would consider what he is leaving behind him a
competence."
"If this agreement, which was apparently verbal, is confirmed by
Courthorne, the entire sum rightfully belongs to the man he made his
tenant," said Barrington, and Macdonald smiled gravely as he glanced at
Winston.
"I think we can accept the statement that it was made without question,
sir," he said.
Winston shook his head. "I claim one thousand dollars as the fee of my
services, and they should be worth that much, but I will take no more."
"Are we not progressing a little too rapidly, sir?" said Dane. "It
seems to me we have yet to decide whether it is necessary that the man
who has done so much for us should leave Silverdale."
Winston smiled a trifle grimly. "I think," he said, "that question
will very shortly be answered for you."
Macdonald held his hand up, and a rapid thud of hoofs came faintly
through the silence.
"Troopers! They are coming here," he said.
"Yes," said Winston. "I fancy they will relieve you from any further
difficulty."
Dane strode to one of the windows, and glanced at Colonel Barrington as
he pulled back the catch. Winston, however, shook his head, and a
little flush crept into Dane's bronzed face.
"Sorry. Of course you are right," he said. "It will be better that
they should acquit you."
No one moved for a few more minutes, and then with a trooper behind him
Sergeant Stimson came in, and laid his hand on Winston's shoulder.
"I have a warrant for your apprehension, farmer Winston," he said.
"You probably know the charge against you."
"Yes," said Winston simply. "I hope to refute it. I will come with
you."
He went out, and Barrington stared at the men about him. "I did not
catch the name before. That was the man who shot the police trooper in
Alberta?"
"No, sir," said Dane, very quietly. "Nothing would induce me to
believe it of him!"
Barrington looked at him in bewilderment. "But he must have
done--unless," he said, and ended with a little gasp. "Good Lord!
There was the faint resemblance, and they changed horses--it is
horrible."
Dane's eyes were very compassionate as he laid his hand gently on his
leader's shoulder.
"Sir," he said, "you have our sympathy, and I am sorry that to offer it
is all we can do. Now, I think we have stayed too long already."
They went out, and left Colonel Barrington sitting alone with a gray
face at the head of the table.
It was a minute or two later when Winston swung himself into the saddle
at the door of the Grange. All the vehicles had not left as yet, and
there was a little murmur of sympathy when the troopers closed in about
him. Still, before they rode away one of the men wheeled his horse
aside, and Winston saw Maud Barrington standing bareheaded by his
stirrup. The moonlight showed that her face was impassive but
curiously pale.
"We could not let you go without a word, and you will come back to us
with your innocence made clear," she said.
Her voice had a little ring in it that carried far, and her companions
heard her. What Winston said they could not hear, and he did not
remember it, but he swung his hat off, and those who saw the girl at
his stirrup recognized with confusion that she alone had proclaimed her
faith, while they had stood aside from him. Then the Sergeant raised
his hand and the troopers rode forward with their prisoner.
In the meanwhile, Courthorne was pressing south for the American
frontier, and daylight was just creeping across the prairie when the
pursuers, who had found his trail and the ranch he obtained a fresh
horse at, had sight of him. There were three of them, riding wearily,
grimed with dust, when a lonely mounted figure showed for a moment on
the crest of a rise. In another minute, it dipped into a hollow, and
Corporal Payne smiled grimly.
"I think we have him now. The creek can't be far away, and he's west
of the bridge," he said. "While we try to head him off you'll follow
behind him, Hilton."
One trooper sent the spurs in, and, while the others swung off, rode
straight on. Courthorne was at least a mile from them, but they were
nearer the bridge, and Payne surmised that his jaded horse would fail
him if he essayed to ford the creek and climb the farther side of the
deep ravine it flowed through. They saw nothing of him when they swept
across the rise, for here and there a grove of willows stretched out
across the prairie from the sinuous band of trees in front of them.
These marked the river hollow, and Payne, knowing that the chase might
be ended in a few more minutes, did not spare the spur. He also
remembered, as he tightened his grip on the bridle, the white face of
Trooper Shannon flecked with the drifting snow.
The bluff that rose steadily higher came back to them, willow and
straggling birch flashed by, and at last Payne drew bridle where a
rutted trail wound down between the trees to the bridge in the hollow.
A swift glance showed him that a mounted man could scarcely make his
way between them, and he smiled dryly as he signed to his companion.
"Back your horse clear of the trail," he said, and there was a rattle
as he flung his carbine across the saddle. "With Hilton behind him,
he'll ride straight into our hands."
He wheeled his horse in among the birches, and then sat still, with
fingers that quivered a little on the carbine-stock, until a faint
drumming rose from the prairie.
"He's coming!" said the trooper. "Hilton's hanging on to him."
Payne made no answer, and the sound that rang more loudly every moment
through the grayness of the early daylight was not pleasant to hear.
Man's vitality is near its lowest about that hour, and the troopers had
ridden furiously the long night through, while one of them, who knew
Lance Courthorne, surmised that there was grim work before him. Still,
though he shivered as a little chilly wind shook the birch twigs, he
set his lips, and once more remembered the comrade who had ridden far
and kept many a lonely vigil with him.
Then a mounted man appeared in the space between the trees. His horse
was jaded, and he rode loosely, swaying once or twice in his saddle,
but he came straight on, and there was a jingle and rattle as the
troopers swung out into the trail. The man saw them, for he glanced
over his shoulder, as if at the rider who appeared behind, and then
sent the spurs in again.
"Pull him up," cried Corporal Payne, and his voice was a little
strained. "Stop right where you are before we fire on you!"
The man must have seen the carbines, for he raised himself a trifle,
and Payne saw his face under the flapping hat. It was drawn and gray,
but there was no sign of yielding or consternation in the half-closed
eyes. Then he lurched in his saddle as from exhaustion or weariness,
and straightened himself again with both hands on the bridle. Payne
saw his heels move and the spurs drip red, and slid his left hand
further along the carbine stock. The trail was steep and narrow. A
horseman could scarcely turn in it, and the stranger was coming on at a
gallop.
"He will have it," said the trooper hoarsely. "If he rides one of us
down he may get away."
"We have got to stop him," said Corporal Payne.
Once more the swaying man straightened himself, flung his head back,
and with a little breathless laugh drove his horse furiously at Payne.
He was very close now, and his face showed livid under the smearing
dust, but his lips were drawn up in a little bitter smile as he rode
straight upon the leveled carbines. Payne, at least, understood it,
and the absence of flung-up hand or cry. Courthorne's inborn instincts
were strong to the end.
There was a hoarse shout from the trooper, and no answer, and a carbine
flashed. Then Courthorne loosed the bridle, reeled sideways from the
saddle, rolled half round with one foot in the stirrup and his head
upon the ground, and was left behind, while the riderless horse and
pursuer swept past the two men who, avoiding them by a hairsbreadth,
sat motionless a moment in the thin drifting smoke.
Then Corporal Payne swung himself down, and, while the trooper
followed, stooped over the man who lay, a limp huddled object, in the
trail. He blinked up at them out of eyes that were almost closed.
"I think you have done for me," he said.
Payne glanced at his comrade. "Push on to the settlement," he said.
"They've a doctor there. Bring him and Harland the magistrate out."
The trooper seemed glad to mount and ride away, and Payne once more
bent over the wounded man.
"Very sorry," he said. "Still, you see, you left me no other means of
stopping you. Now, is there anything I can do for you?"
A little wry smile crept into Courthorne's face. "Don't worry," he
said. "I had no wish to wait for the jury, and you can't get at an
injury that's inside me."
He said nothing more, and it seemed a very long while to Corporal
Payne, and Trooper Hilton, who rejoined him, before a wagon with two
men in it beside the trooper came jolting up the trail. They got out,
and one of them who was busy with Courthorne for some minutes nodded to
Payne.
"Any time in the next twelve hours. He may last that long," he said.
"Nobody's going to worry him now, but I'll see if I can revive him a
little when we get him to Adamson's. It can't be more than a league
away."
They lifted Courthorne, who appeared insensible, into the wagon, and
Payne signed to Trooper Hilton. "Take my horse, and tell Colonel
Barrington. Let him understand there's no time to lose. Then you can
bring Stimson."
The tired lad hoisted himself into his saddle, and groaned a little as
he rode away, but he did his errand, and late that night Barrington and
Dane drove up to a lonely homestead. A man led them into a room where
a limp figure was lying on a bed.
"Been kind of sleeping most of the day, but the doctor has given him
something that has wakened him," he said.
Barrington returned Payne's greeting, and sat down with Dane close
beside him, while, when the wounded man raised his head, the doctor
spoke softly to the magistrate from the settlement a league or two away.
"I fancy he can talk to you, but you had better be quick if you wish to
ask him anything," he said.
Courthorne seemed to have heard him, for he smiled a little as he
glanced at Barrington. "I'm afraid it will hurt you to hear what I
have to tell this gentleman," he said. "Now, I want you to listen
carefully, and every word put down. Doctor, a little more brandy."
Barrington apparently would have spoken, but, while the doctor held a
glass to the bloodless lips, the magistrate, who took up a strip of
paper, signed to him.
"We'll have it in due form. Give him that book, doctor," he said.
"Now repeat after me, and then we'll take your testimony."
It was done, and a flicker of irony showed in Courthorne's half-closed
eyes.
"You feel more sure of me after that?" he said, in a voice that was
very faint and strained. "Still, you see, I could gain nothing by
deviating from the truth now. Well, I shot Trooper Shannon. You'll
have the date in the warrant. Don't know if it will seem strange to
you, but I forget it. I borrowed farmer Winston's horse and rifle
without his knowledge, though I had paid him a trifle to personate me
and draw the troopers off the whisky-runners. That was Winston's only
complicity. The troopers, who fancied they were chasing him, followed
me until his horse which I was riding went through the ice, but Winston
was in Montana at the time, and did not know that I was alive until a
very little while ago. Now, you can straighten that up and read it out
to me."
The magistrate's pen scratched noisily in the stillness of the room,
but, before he had finished, Sergeant Stimson, hot and dusty, came in.
Then he raised his hand, and for a while his voice rose and fell
monotonously, until Courthorne nodded.
"That's all right," he said. "I'll sign."
The doctor raised him a trifle, and moistened his lips with brandy as
he gave him the pen. It scratched for a moment or two, and then fell
from his relaxing fingers, while the man who took the paper wrote
across the foot of it, and then would have handed it to Colonel
Barrington, but that Dane quietly laid his hand upon it.
"No," he said. "If you want another witness take me."
Barrington thanked him with a gesture, and Courthorne, looking round,
saw Stimson.
"You have been very patient, Sergeant, and it's rough on you that the
one man you can lay your hands upon is slipping away from you," he
said. "You'll see by my deposition that Winston thought me as dead as
the rest of you did."
Stimson nodded to the magistrate. "I heard what was read, and it is
confirmed by the facts I have picked up," he said.
Then Courthorne turned to Barrington. "I sympathize with you, sir," he
said. "This must be horribly mortifying, but, you see, Winston once
stopped my horse backing over a bridge into a gully when just to hold
his hand would have rid him of me. You will not grudge me the one good
turn I have probably done any man, when I shall assuredly not have the
chance of doing another."
Barrington winced a little, for he recognized the irony in the failing
voice, but he rose and moved towards the bed.
"Lance," he said, a trifle hoarsely, "it is not that which makes what
has happened horrible to me, and I am only glad that you have righted
this man. Your father had many claims on me, and things might have
gone differently if, when you came out to Canada, I had done my duty by
his son."
Courthorne smiled a little, but without bitterness. "It would have
made no difference, sir, and, after all, I led the life that suited me.
By and by you will be grateful to me. I sent you a man who will bring
prosperity to Silverdale."
Then he turned to Stimson, and his voice sank almost beyond hearing as
he said, "Sergeant, remember, Winston fancied I was dead."
He moved his head a trifle, and the doctor stooping over him signed to
the rest, who went out except Barrington.
It was some hours later, and very cold, when Barrington came softly
into the room where Dane lay half-asleep in a big chair. The latter
glanced at him with a question in his eyes, and the Colonel nodded very
gravely.
"Yes," he said. "He has slipped out of the troopers' hands and beyond
our reproaches--but I think the last thing he did will count for a
little."