“You know your strength, and you know my lack of it. I lost my pretty
little shooter in the quagmire. I’m sorry I haven’t much to offer you,
especially as it happens to be my birthday. I am sixty-seven to-day, my
boy. By Gad! how the years do run!”
In spite of his friendly manner, I took care to keep myself between him
and Akshelah.
“How do I know this place?” I asked my enemy. “I have come along
without making a mistake, and I seem to have seen it all before.”
“You were here with your father. You were a very young child, and I
remember you were terribly in the way,” said Redpath.
Strange that the truth had never occurred to me! So I had already seen
more than a fair share of life. From London to outside Canada; from
civilisation to the unknown lands; in scenes of fighting and madness;
in gold-hunting, and murder, and flight. Truly an adventurous childhood!
When we had come upon the ledge and were out of the wind, Redpath lit a
small lantern, which a few hours before had been MacCaskill’s property,
and liberally offered us deer-pemmican, which he had stolen from our
camp. The light glinted upon our unused tools lying at the back of the
cave. Yet I could never have summoned the courage to accuse this calm
gentleman.
“It is expedient for me to keep the light out of the canyon,” our host
said carelessly. “Did Hanafin express any intention, that you remember,
of tracking me?”
“He thought you could not escape from the mud,” I replied.
Redpath was sitting in darkness, and I could make out his outline,
without being able to see his face. He changed the subject at once, and
said, letting each syllable escape coldly:
“You will understand that in my dealings with you I have played my game
according to my rules. I have generally found that where you cannot
trust the father, neither can you trust the son. It was not many yards
from this spot that your father chose to break the agreement between
us.”
Then I spoke up and told him of the confession of Leblanc.
“It is a lie,” he said casually. “Don’t believe me unless you wish to;
but Olaffson was with me while the deed was taking place. He never
saw the end of Fagge, neither did I. Your father never denied the
deed. Even now I do not say he struck with the intention of killing.
The madman may actually have attacked him in the first place. It was
Leblanc who called us, and I distinctly saw your father kneeling over
the body, his blood-stained knife by his hand.”
“Why should Leblanc put it on to Olaffson?”
“The two men have always hated each other. I believe that Olaffson has
quite recently made an attempt to silence the half-breed.”
“Why didn’t you prevent him?” I said boldly.
“I have no control over Olaffson.” The adventurer was smiling, I was
sure. “He is physically far stronger than I am, and probably would kill
me were he not such a coward, and were I not sometimes useful to him.
Besides, why should I interfere? I should like the man out of the way.”
So far Akshelah had not spoken, though she was always looking towards
Redpath, but now she said calmly:
“You want us far away.”
“You are quite correct,” said Redpath, with condescension.
“You have been to our tepee,” went on the girl. “You have taken our
food and our tools.”
“Again correct,” said Redpath pleasantly. “My dear Petrie, the young
lady does not, of course, understand the first principles of civilised
warfare. I saw my opportunity for annexing your property, and I should
have been a decidedly bad tactician had I neglected to take it.”
Akshelah had arisen. She collected together everything she could find
in the cave, not only our own property, but the few little things
belonging to Redpath, leaving only the small lamp smouldering in the
centre of the rock floor. She arranged these things between us into two
packs, the smaller for me to carry, the larger for herself.
“A clever girl,” said Redpath reflectively. “She is right. You have the
upper hand, and you must take your advantage of the circumstance. Two
small things I will plead for--the handkerchief and the old cashmere
scarf. The possession of a handkerchief in these parts stamps one with
the mark of the gentleman. The scarf once belonged to my mother, and is
interesting as a reminiscence.”
“Put everything back that does not belong to us,” I ordered.
“No,” said Akshelah.
I reiterated my command almost angrily, and the girl obeyed, Redpath
thanking me after his own manner.
“It is a mistake to return more than I asked for.”
I proposed going, lest MacCaskill should be hunting for us, but
Redpath, to my surprise, requested me to favour him with a complete
account of our doings since he had made his terrible plunge off the
_Carillon_. After I had done so, he said softly:
“As usual, I failed to seize my opportunity. You wondered why I did not
shoot you all down while we were waiting on deck for the smash?”
“The _Firefly_ was coming up,” I suggested.
“I knew nothing of it until near the end, as my attention was given to
other things,” he said. “To shoot down unarmed men, in a state of cold
blood, requires an immense amount of nerve. I had not sufficient. That
is the reason I failed. Then, when I had strung myself almost up to the
desired pitch, I saw my pursuer, and knew I was too late.
“I asked the inspector why he wanted you, but he would not say,” I
added, not without curiosity.
“Hanafin is a clever fellow, far too good for police work. He failed
in the Indian Civil, I believe, and ultimately drifted out here, where
he had the sense to keep sober. As an excellent illustration of my
ill-luck, I may say that he is after me for unintentional homicide.”
His dark shadow leaned forward to touch up the dim light of the
lantern. “Everything had failed with me, and I turned to smuggling
liquor across the boundary into a prohibition country. I was bound to
fail again, as the police were very active; but I thought I might do
well for a time, and slip away quietly when affairs should reach a
crisis. One wet night, the load of hay which contained my barrels of
smuggled spirit was surrounded unexpectedly, and I was forced to shoot,
with no intention of injuring, but merely to make an opening for my
escape. At my age a long term in the penitentiary is equivalent to a
sentence of death. Bad fortune, not my aim, steered the lead into the
stomach of a trooper. I got away, assumed the disguise of a priest,
which I had successfully used before, and always carried to meet an
emergency, and escaped into the wilds. Chance led me to the end of a
search I had been making for years. I arrived just too late to find
your father alive.”
There was a silent interval, awkward for me, but presently I said:
“What are you going to do now?”
“I do not propose showing you my hand,” said the adventurer curtly.
“I have too many enemies on the other side of the coulee, without
reckoning the two sailors, with Olaffson here after the gold, and
Hanafin and his hounds after me.”
“I don’t wish to be your enemy,” I said, wondering whether I spoke the
truth.
“Possibly, if you were alone, I might admit you to a small claim,
though I should not permit you to go from here until I was satisfied,”
went on Redpath. “Admit such men as MacCaskill, as Leblanc, and, before
the fall, all the scum of the world would be swarming and sweating up
this canyon, and I should have to rest content with a possibly dried-up
claim. Here I have been puzzling my brains how to preserve the secret
from Olaffson.”
If this were truth, his selfishness was something beyond belief.
“And all for nothing, after all,” he added coldly.