"What's the mattah, Tchorch?"
There was matter enough to make her man pallid. But he was master of
himself, for he had to look after the poor wretch who now fell into a
chair by the fire and sat huddled up in terror.
"I'll tell you by and by," said George. "Give him a drink, Jenny
girl, and give me one. I've got to go out."
She brought the whisky to him. He poured some out for Ned, who
swallowed as a man, who had thirsted for a tropic day, would swallow
water. George took some himself.
"Sit quiet, Ned," said George. "I'll be back in half an hour, Jenny!"
She followed him to the door.
"Don't let him move. If anyone calls, say I'm out, dear."
"What's the mattah, Tchorch? He looks very ill," she murmured, with
her hand on his shoulder. George told her what Ned had told him, and
Jenny trembled like a leaf.
"Poor, poor Mary!" she sobbed. "Oh, the cruel man!"
"Oh, hell," said George, and Jenny controlled her tears.
"What you do, Tchorch?"
"I'm going to get someone to take him across the other side," said
George. "I must, I must."
He ran out and down the hill path, and Jenny went back reluctantly to
the room where the murderer sat. He was shivering, but the liquor
had pulled him more together for the time. He wanted to talk. How
was it that Jenny was here? He remembered he had seen Pete on the
road.
"I saw Pete to-day," he said suddenly.
Jenny stared down at the floor and answered nothing.
"I'm a wretched man, girl," said Ned; "did George tell you?"
Jenny did not reply, and Ned knew that she knew. He burst into tears.
"I've killed Mary," he said. His face was stained with the dust of
the road and the tears he shed channelled the dirt. He looked
dreadful, ludicrous, pathetic, hideously comic. "I--I killed her
with a shovel. She was a good woman to me, and I got mad with drink.
I'll never touch it again."
He looked eagerly towards the bottle on the table. He had taken some
more when the others were out of the room.
"I've killed her, and they'll hang me, Jenny! Where's George gone?"
The tears ran down Jenny's face.
"He's gone to get someone to take you away, Mr. Ned!"
They might come any moment and take him away! There was quite a big
jail in the City.
"I--I saw Pete this morning, no, yesterday. I don't know when," said
Ned. "When did you come here, Jenny?"
Jenny said it was long ago. She dried her tears for shame was hot
within her. And yet joy was alive within her. She loved Tchorch!
"I couldn't leave Tchorch now," she said to herself, as Ned went on
talking. "I'd rather he killed me. Poor Mary!"
If Pete had been brutal, Mary had always been kind. She hated Ned
suddenly.
He took another drink and sat crouched over the fire. Every now and
again he looked round. At any noise he started. Perhaps the police
were trying to look into the house. Jenny could have screamed. It
seemed hours since George went away. Ned muttered to the fire.
"Mary, Mary," he said in a low voice. He and Mary had been lovers
once, for when she first went to him he was a man, and she was quite
beautiful. Across the dark years he saw himself and her: and again
he saw her as she lay in blood upon the earthen floor of his shack,
what time he had run out and taken his horse for flight.
"They'll hang me," said Ned, choking.
And there were steps outside. He sprang to his feet and hung to the
mantel-shelf.
"What's that?" he asked. The next minute they heard George enter the
house with some other man.
"It's the police," screamed Ned thinly. He believed George had
denounced him. And George put his head inside the room and beckoned
to him. Ned ran to him stumbling. The door closed on them and Jenny
fell upon her knees. Then she sank in a heap upon the floor. She
had fainted.
In the hall was someone Ned did not know. But George knew him and
knew that he was a capable strong man. He was Long Mac of the Pony
Saw, as strong as he was long. In the winters he hunted, and knew
all the country round about.
"Take him across the river to-night, and away by Whatcom to-morrow,
Mac," said George; "do your best."
Mac never did less, whether it was for evil or for good. On the
balance he was a good and fine man. But he cared nothing for the Law
and had a curious respect and liking for George Quin.
"I'll do that," said Long Mac. He took Ned by the arm, and Ned
without a backward glance shuffled into the darkness.
George went in to Jenny and found her unconscious on the floor. He
sprinkled cold water in her face, and she moaned.
"Poor little woman," said George. "Oh, but it's hard lines on these
poor squaws. If I died what'd happen to her?"
He knew their nature and knew his own.
"But Mary's dead," said Quin. "Better for her."
Yet Mary wasn't dead, though Mac was dragging a whining, puling
wretch of a man on a dark trail to a country where there's a very
poor trail indeed cut for the slow and burdened army of the Law.