Every word of the answer reached my ears.
“Out in the snow, judge. He’ll thaw inside.”
“What’s that?” I asked the man who was jammed upon me.
“Guess t’other pris’ner’s ben froze,” he gasped back.
“Burn him! Burn him!” was the cry going up around the building. If the
man had been frost-bitten, let him be thawed with fire. “Burn him!”
“Order!” shouted the mayor.
The prisoner stood before his judge. I craned my neck, but I could not
see. I was fastened into the crowd like a cork in a bottle.
“Who is he?” I called, because Redpath was tall, and this man surely
was short, or I should have seen him.
“’Tis a little man,” spoke a very tall miner generally, “wi’ a face
like lumps o’ wet dough.”
Olaffson, the Icelander, for the last time.
“He’s sweatin’ an’ skulkin’ something horrid,” said the tall miner.
“Pris’ner!” spoke the grizzled judge, and the entire assembly tried to
push forward. “Ther’ has ben a lot uv sneak-thievin’ about this city
an’ around Bonanza. You was took right among a lot uv stolen property.
There’s jest one case we want to try special, an’ that’s the robbin’
uv the cache what belongs to ole men, Rod, Abe, an’ Pal, who’ve gone
out for the winter. We didn’t find none o’ that stuff in your dug-out,
nor yet in yer pard’s. We surmise you’ve hid it away some place. If you
speak up, an’ show grit, we’ll take that into consideration when we
come to pass sentence. Are ye guilty, or are ye not guilty?”
The pause which followed was not silence, because the wind screamed and
the snow hissed where it struck. Surely the prisoner upon the other
side of the door would be frozen to death, and his guards with him.
A voice proclaimed, “Says he’s not guilty.”
The crowd broke into furious shouts, “Flog him! Flog him!”
“Quit yer noise!” the judge ordered angrily. “This is a court uv
justice.”
He spoke to MacInnes, and the latter held up a big coon coat.
“’Twas found in the pris’ner’s dug-out,” explained the mayor. “Does any
citizen claim it?”
“That’s mine,” shouted the coarse voice of old miner Septimus
M‘Quatrain. “The durned thief! Likewise an otter cap.”
“Here ’tis,” said MacInnes. He then put up twenty pounds of very fat
bacon.
Bill Petro shouted:
“Lemme smell a hunk, an’ I’ll tell. I spilt me oil-can over me bacon.”
The mayor sniffed gravely.
“Ay, it smells of coal oil all right, Bill,” he said.
Not a laugh went up from the crowd. Only the same angry mutterings and
the deep growls, “Flog him!”
“You’ve pleaded not guilty, pris’ner,” said the judge. “Them things
were found en yer dug-out. What have ye got to say en yer defence?”
The men near the inaudible wretch repeated his frightened answer, and
it was passed on through the crowd.
“Says he never took ’em. Says he knows who did. Says his pard done it
all.”
“Pris’ner,” exclaimed the judge with sudden heat, “ye are the meanest
skunk what ever trod!”
The citizens broke loose again.
“Wood-pile, jedge! Say wood-pile!” and under it all the monotonous
antiphon, “Flog him!”
Above the tumult of those demands, and the insanity of the elements, a
bull-like bellow roared, and an arm, like a black tree, shot up--the
black arm which I had once broken at Gull.
“Jake Peterssen for the floggin’!” yelled the half-mad crowd, and
refused to be quieted.
The judge was talking with MacCaskill, and so soon as he could make his
voice heard, called to know if I were present. Directly I had answered,
the negro shouted:
“He’s a better man than me, jedge. He beat me. He’s the boy ye want.
Rupe Petrie fo’ the floggin’!”
The miners took up the cry and yelled it, until I could already hear
Olaffson’s vile screams for mercy, and the horrid shock of a heavy
whip. When he was allowed to speak, the judge recounted the charges
brought by the factor against the prisoner--the burning of my home, the
treachery at Gull upon the lake, and at Hanafin; and I had to answer
that the story was all true.
“Bring in his pard,” the voices were demanding.
The judge spoke grimly to the Icelander.
“Ye are a mean, skulkin’ louse, pris’ner, an’ we don’t have to show
ye no pity, though I allow we ain’t got nothing ’cept what they call
circumstantial evidence ’gainst ye. Jest ye tell me if ther’ is any
sort uv reason why we should show mercy to ye.”
“He’s sweatin’ awful,” said the tall miner.
Olaffson had only his former story. His partner had been the thief.
The voices went up strongly:
“Fetch in his pard.”
Moccasin Bill almost smiled.
“Fetch in his pard,” he repeated terribly.
The doors were open, and in fought the rush of snow and wind, and the
lamp flames leapt wildly. There was a sound of struggling, of lifting,
and of carrying. The doors were shut again, and I knew that Redpath
was amongst us, the cynical, opinionative English gentleman, the man
who had made such a miserable failure of that space between coming and
going called life. Redpath for the last time.
He had come to my home at Yellow Sands, like a thief in the night; he
had come to mock at my misery in the old stone ruin of the bush, where
he hoped to steal away my life; he had come half a skeleton to be fed,
and, after taking my hospitality, had robbed me and gone. As he entered
then, what was the influence of that superior smile, what the use of
that gentlemanly manner, and what the power of that contemptuous glance?
He had always been fond of life.
Four men carried a long shape, swathed in a snow-covered blanket. They
proceeded to unwrap this shape. It was like unrolling a sheet of lead,
because the cruel frost had made the thick duffle rigid and unyielding.
The blanket came away gradually, and revealed the man, frozen body and
blood and bones. The flesh frozen into ridges, was as solid to the
touch as stone, and colder far. They had brought me forward to identify
the frozen man.
“His name was Redpath,” I said. “He was my father’s enemy, and I know
he was a thief.”
“The corpse is guilty,” said the judge, and a whisper of assent hurried
round the building.
I could still find that old superior smile upon Redpath’s face. It
could not disappear, because it was frozen there, and it seemed to me
to be intended for myself, and for those around, the men who had hunted
him down who now judged and had found him guilty, but who could not
condemn. Through his half-open lips I saw his white even teeth. They
were the only pleasant feature he possessed, and they were false.
The blanket frozen round the frozen man was claimed by one miner;
the clothes he had been frozen in by another; my bundle of money was
discovered in one of the pockets, and returned to me; everything upon
him, from the clothes to a lump of tobacco, had been stolen. The only
thing he had failed to steal was a longer span of the life he loved.
I stood between Olaffson and the dead; the one silent for ever, the
other wringing and cringing in an agony. Still I felt that inexplicable
pity for the Englishman. He had once been friendly with my father; he
had taken the hand of my mother, whom I had never seen; he had held
me as a baby upon his knee. A revulsion of feeling crossed me when
I looked upon Olaffson, and for him I had no pity at all. I heard
the vengeful voices demanding, “Sentence the pris’ner, jedge.” Once
MacCaskill’s glance met mine, and he turned aside with an awkward
movement. Moccasin Bill stood up.
“Ye are guilty, pris’ner,” he said slowly. “I’ve ben around the world
en me time, an’ followed the yeller every place, an’ I’ve seen crooks
an’ blacklegs shot an’ hung--ay, an’ burned--an’ I’ve stood by an’ said
as how they deserved it. But I’ve never known a worse case than this.”
The assenting voices shouted again. “No, boys,” he said, appealing to
his audience, “I’ve never known a worse case than this. Ye have ben
tried fair, pris’ner. We’re on Canadian soil, an’ a Canuk has tried ye.
For I’m Canadian, boys; I’m Canadian to the cuticle. Ye are guilty of
sneak-thievin’, pris’ner. Ye are jest a louse what wants poundin’, an’
we’re a-goin’ to pound ye. The boys want to have ye flogged.”
The voice of the grizzled judge became drowned, and above all the yells
sounded the mighty bull bellow of Jake Peterssen, calling my name, and
invoking my right arm for the punishment of the thief.
“I sentence ye to be flogged,” said the judge. “Fifty lashes--”
Then it seemed to me as though the wind had swept into the building,
and had caught up the assembly, and brought them down upon me like
an overwhelming wave. I heard the screams of Olaffson. They had
seized him, and were dragging him this way and that. My name was upon
everyone’s lips. “Rupe Petrie!” The place howled with it. The wind
caught it up, and whirled it away over all Bonanza. And still the men
were shouting, “Rupe Petrie!”
I understood at length that a tribute had been paid to my strength,
that, partly because the condemned had wronged me, I had been appointed
by the judge public executioner to the city.
I could not--I shouted that I could not--do what was required of me,
but I might as successfully have appealed to the wild wind outside as
to the wilder men about me. The whip was being made; Olaffson, beside
himself with terror, was being stripped; and the scene made me sick
when the entire meaning of my hideous duty confronted me. And all the
time the men shouted with mad tongues, and around were all the demon
faces and the demon eyes. Jake Peterssen snatched my weak hand and
wrung it in congratulation, confident that he had shown himself my
friend.
Another shout went up. The doors were being bombarded with fists and
kicks.
“The boys are spoilin’ to get inside.”
“Open up!” called some of the men.
“There’s no room for ’em!” shouted Moccasin Bill.
The arctic temperature streamed inside; the tempest paused in its
yelling, to draw its icy breath for a fresh outburst. A strong voice,
muffled and angry, demanded admission in the name of the Queen-Empress.
“Open,” said the judge.
Again the stream of wind and ice, and the delirious leaping of the
lights. Figures like white bears pushed inward, their moustaches frozen
up in fine snow, a snow-covered figure at their head, grasping a sword
covered with crystals in his fur mitt--the Commissioner himself; and
behind him his police.
“Draw on them!” the representative shouted, and the white company
brought up their revolvers and covered every part of the building.
Two men at least felt the joy of reprieve--the executioner and the
condemned.
“Hand over that man!” called the Commissioner.
The crowd growled like lions disappointed of their prey. This
Commissioner was a different man from Hanafin. He was bold and hard,
but had no tact, and when he gave an order he would have it instantly
obeyed, though he might accompany it with a curse or an insult.
“Hand him over, or I’ll cancel the certificates of the lot of you.”
“We tried him fair, Commissioner,” entreated Moccasin Bill. “He ain’t
done so much agin her gracious Majesty as agin us boys. He an’ his
pard, who’s froze solid ther’, have ben bad sneak-thieves, an’ we’ve
ben an’ took this case right inter our own hands for this once. You’d
only put him inter prison, but we’re a-goin’ to hang him.”
The City of Hanafin endorsed every word spoken by their own appointed
judge.
The Commissioner simply gave the word of command to his men. Four tall
figures shoved forward, the fine snow falling off their furs.
“Shoot anyone who interferes!” shouted the angry Commissioner.
MacInnes, the mayor, spoke aside to Moccasin Bill.
“Boys!” called the latter, “the law has got to be obeyed. Let the
police have the pris’ner.”
The miners could scarcely obey the order of their own judge, but
the police made the arrest of Olaffson, and marched him out. The
Commissioner wheeled round sharply, with a satisfied smile, and
followed. But while the clouds of snow hissed inwards, the mayor,
standing stiff upon the bar counter, yelled with all his might:
“Boys! To hell with the sneak-thief!”
The men went mad again. Taking up the cry, they rushed into the
whirling night, into the freezing, tearing wind and the grey torrent
of snow, and flung themselves upon the police. Revolvers flashed
uselessly, and swords darted aimlessly, stabbing merely the great grey
shapes that fled down the wind ghost-like. The miners of Hanafin were
drunk with fury, and they were in thousands against a handful. Soldier
after soldier was seized and dragged to the light of the saloon,
that each might be identified. The time came when they found the one
shrieking wretch they wanted....
I fled, battling against the stream of ice, away from the life I had
come from home to see.
Standing beside the stove in my shanty I found poor Akshelah, shivering
with terror. The relief of finding myself alone with her, the delight
of being able to console and assure her! She had told me that I was all
she had. What had I upon earth beside her?
“We have no enemies to follow us now, little squirrel,” I said,
stroking her thick warm hair. “Redpath is frozen into stone, and
Olaffson,” I shivered, because the shrieks of the wind were pitilessly
human.
“The white face!” she said fearfully, coming up to me.
“They are killing him now.”
She shivered, and clung to me more closely. She spoke presently.
“I told you the factor loved the yellow stones.” She was playing
nervously with my cold fingers. “He has left you, and--you have no one
now.”
I lifted her face and kissed her soft mouth with a new feeling which
made me forget everything save the present.
“I have all that I want. And when the storm has done, we will go
together to Father Casey, and tell him”--the wind became terrible, and
I had to wait for it to pass--“that we want to be together all our
lives.”