THE LADY OF
NORTH STAR
_BOOKS BY_
_OTWELL BINNS_
A MATING IN THE WILDS
THE LADY OF NORTH STAR
THE LADY OF
NORTH STAR
BY
OTTWELL BINNS
[Illustration: LOGO]
NEW YORK ALFRED · A · KNOPF MCMXXII
COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY
ALFRED A. KNOPF, INC.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I THE END OF A TRAIL, 1
II A STRANGE DISAPPEARANCE, 12
III THE CORPORAL FINDS A LETTER, 24
IV A PUZZLING SCENT, 35
V A REVELATION, 45
VI THE CORPORAL HEARS A STORY, 58
VII JOY MAKES A REQUEST, 71
VIII KOONA DICK, 80
IX THE HUSKS OF THE PRODIGAL, 92
X A DESPERATE SITUATION, 106
XI AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE, 116
XII A DASTARDLY DEED, 129
XIII TWO PROPOSALS, 140
XIV MISSING, 154
XV AN ENCOUNTER AT THE LODGE, 164
XVI THE CORPORAL HEARS NEWS, 174
XVII A LONELY CABIN, 186
XVIII ADRIAN RAYNER’S STORY, 199
XIX HUSBAND AND WIFE, 210
XX DICK BRACKNELL LEARNS THE TRUTH, 221
XXI UNDER COVER OF NIGHT, 235
XXII TO THE RESCUE, 245
XXIII PRISONERS, 258
XXIV THE PRODIGAL MAKES GOOD, 269
XXV A SNOW-BLIND MAN, 279
THE LADY OF NORTH STAR
CHAPTER I
THE END OF A TRAIL
THERE was a smell of burning spruce in the sharp air, and Corporal
Bracknell, of the North-west Mounted Police, threw back his head and
sniffed it gratefully. His team of dogs had been conscious of it for
some time, and now, quickening the pace, they broke into joyous yelps
as they turned inward towards the Saskatoon bushes on the left bank of
the frozen river. The corporal smiled to himself.
“They’re wise dogs,” he muttered, “but not wise enough to know the
trail’s end. I wonder if I shall find the man here.”
He followed the well-marked track towards the bank. The aromatic smell
of the spruce grew stronger, but there was nothing to be seen save the
shadowy woods, and the packed sled-road between. The road had been cut
through the trees, and here and there a stump bearing the mark of the
ax protruded above the snow. For perhaps three hundred yards it ran in
a bee-line between the tall trunks, and then turned abruptly to the
right. He reached the turning, and looked about him curiously. The
road still continued, but the end of it was not in sight, for again it
turned, as it seemed to him into the very heart of the forest.
“There’s a house or encampment somewhere about,” he said to himself,
“but--”
He broke off abruptly as something caught his eye. It was a new-marked
sled-trail debouching from the main track, and he stooped to examine it
carefully. When he straightened himself there was an eager light in his
eye, and curbing his impatient dogs he stood considering for a full two
minutes.
“He may have a shack here,” so his thoughts ran, “but if there’s more
than that, why this broad road?”
He considered the avenue made by the sombre pinewoods on each side of
the road, and then shook his head. “Too much style for Koona Dick.
There must be a homestead somewhere about, but if those are not the
marks of his sled-runners I’m a dutchman.”
He spoke a word or two to his well-trained dogs, and slipping off his
snowshoes turned towards the trail which led into the wood, and began
to follow it carefully. As he walked, he unbuttoned the pistol-holster
at his waist, and gripped the handle of the weapon in preparation for
action. The man whose trail he believed that he was following was not
given to being over-scrupulous. He had pursued him for nearly four
hundred miles, and now that the end of the chase was in sight, it
behoved him to be cautious, for if Koona Dick suspected his presence
his resentment of it might even go to the extreme length of a rifle
bullet. He left the trail, and began to move cautiously from tree to
tree.
The short Northland day was almost over. Dusk was coming on apace, and
the gloom under the trees deepened, little misgivings awake in his mind.
Was it wise to follow the track into the heart of the wood? His dogs
were good dogs, but--
The sudden sharp crash of a rifle echoed through the stillness,
followed immediately by a second, and that by the sharp cry of a woman
assailed by mortal terror, and then there came the quick yelp of dogs.
He turned in his tracks and began to run back under the trees.
How long it was before he reached the main trail he never knew, but
never in his life had he run so fast before. Fear was pounding at his
heart. His dogs? If they were gone--
He reached the edge of the wood to find them still where he had left
them, and his relief found expression in a quick “Thank God!” He looked
round him, up and down the road and into the dark woods on either hand.
There was nothing to be seen, and the coming of night had already
shortened the range of vision. He stood listening intently. No sound
broke the awful silence that had followed the shots and the curdling
cry of fear. His hand, resting on the gee-pole of the sled, shook a
little.
“It was a woman,” he whispered, “a white woman, at that. There’s some
infernal mystery about. I wonder if Koona Dick--”
He did not finish the thought. Setting his face to the turn in the
road, he gave the dogs the word and they moved forward. Somewhere at
the end of the road there was a human habitation. Of that he was
convinced. He would find it, and perhaps at the same time find Koona
Dick and the solution of that mysterious cry which had so suddenly
startled the silent woods.
But he was not destined to reach the end of the road without further
adventure. As he reached the turn he became aware of a narrow road on
the left hand cut at right angles from the main track, and as he looked
down it, saw a shadowy figure moving swiftly between the trees straight
towards him. Against the fading light and the white background of snow
he made out the form of a woman, and instantly halted his dogs with the
intention of speaking to her. She was perhaps five and twenty yards
away when he first saw her, and the distance between them she covered
at a run, approaching him apparently without seeing him. Her line of
progression brought her within four yards of the place where he stood
waiting in the shadow of a giant spruce. Still she did not see him, and
he was about to make his presence known, when the sight of her face
checked him.
It was a young face, and beautiful, but as he saw it, it was a picture
of incarnate terror. The eyes were staring as in horror. There was a
stony look about the cameo-like features, and he caught the gasping
intake of breath as she passed him. He had seen terror in feminine
faces before, once when a drunken half-breed had lifted a knife to
slay, and once on the face of an Indian girl, swept towards the White
Horse Rapids on the Yukon in a frail canoe, and he had no doubt
whatever as to the emotion which found expression in that stonily
beautiful face. The girl was badly frightened. He was quite certain of
that, and the fact of her passing both himself and his team without
observing them was further evidence that she was in great stress of
mind. As she hurried by something in her hand caught his eye. It was a
rifle carried at the trail.
For a moment he stood there undecided what to do. Once he made as if to
follow the girl, and then checking himself again, stood considering.
Those two shots which he had heard--what did they mean? They had
sounded quite close, and now there came this girl, clearly badly
frightened, carrying a rifle and hurrying from the wood. He looked
up the narrow path between the gloomy pines, his trained mind and
his instincts working together. Something had occurred in the wood,
something tragical, or it had not brought that look on the girl’s face.
What was it?
Tired as he was with the day’s travel, and certain though he was of
the nearness of some house of rest, he could not leave the problem
unsolved. For the moment he even forgot Koona Dick, and again leaving
his dogs he turned into the path from which the girl had emerged. He
moved cautiously, with the service pistol in his hand. He did not know
what to expect, and he was not inclined to be caught unprepared. Once,
as he walked in the darkness of the trees, he paused, and throwing back
the ear-flaps of his fur-cap, stood listening. No sound reached him,
though a moment before he had caught a noise which had seemed like the
snapping of a dry twig. Thinking he must have been mistaken, he resumed
his way. As he did so, a shadowy form behind him slid from one tree
trunk to another; and as he progressed the form in the wood followed,
evidently stalking him.
Corporal Bracknell, however, remained unconscious of the shadow, and
moving quickly but silently on his way, came suddenly upon something
which brought him to an abrupt halt. In the snow not three yards from
where he stood lay the huddled form of a man. For a moment he stared
at it as if fascinated, and as the man did not move, when the moment
had passed he stepped swiftly forward, and bent over the inanimate
form. The man was lying on his side, and a dark stain in the snow the
corporal divined was blood. Apparently the man was dead, and as it
was now too dark to see his face, the corporal felt in his pouch and
produced a tin box of sulphur matches. Striking one, he waited until
the sulphur had finished spluttering, and when the wood was fairly
alight, he bent over the prostrate form, shading the match with his
hands so as to throw the light upon the man’s face. Then suddenly he
dropped the match and stood upright.
“Koona Dick!” he muttered, and then whistled softly to himself.
He struck another match and looked again in order to make sure. As for
the second time the flickering light fell on the face in the snow,
every doubt vanished. The man who was lying there was the man whom
he had followed for _four_ hundred miles through the waste, the man
whom he had hoped to make his prisoner, but who now, if appearances
were to be trusted, had finally escaped him. Dropping the match as it
burned towards the end, he thrust his hand inside the man’s fur parka
to feel if the heart were beating. He could detect no movement, and as
he withdrew the hand, he stood upright, and as he considered question
after question went through his mind at the gallop.
Who had killed Koona Dick? The girl whom he had met with that look of
frozen terror on her face? Who was she? Had she shot the man lying at
his feet? Why had she done so? Where did she live? As the last question
shot in his mind he knew that the answer to it was in his grasp. He
had seen the direction she had followed, and he guessed that whatever
homestead lay at the end of that road cut through the forest would be
her dwelling place. As this conviction surged into his mind the whining
of his dogs came to his ears. They were evidently growing restless, and
since he could do nothing by lingering there, after one glance at the
still form lying in the snow, he swung on his heel, and made all speed
back to where his team awaited him. They yelped with delight as he
appeared, and when he gave the word, bounded impatiently forward along
the well-beaten track.
Four minutes later, a turn in the road unexpectedly brought into view
the homestead that he was seeking. It was set in the midst of a large
clearing, and from its outline in the darkness was of considerable
proportions for a Northland lodge. Lights shone in three of the
windows, and just as he reached the wooden fence which ran round the
house, a door opened, and a light within streaming through outlined the
form of a man in the act of entering.
Corporal Bracknell shouted to him, and the man turned round and peered
into the darkness, then he rested something against the wooden wall of
the passage, shut the door, and moved towards the policeman.
“Who are you?” he asked, as he came nearer.
“Corporal Bracknell--on Dominion service,” replied the policeman.
“Corporal Bracknell?”
As the man echoed the words the corporal caught a puzzled note in his
tones, and explained further.
“Yes, of the Mounted Police.”
“Oh, of course! I was not thinking of the Mounted service. I am a
stranger in the Nor’-West--” Bracknell had already divined that such
must be the case, but he did not say so. He laughed lightly, and made
his wants known.
“I’m on service, and tired. I should be grateful for supper and a bunk
if that is possible.”
“It is quite possible, Officer, and Joy--I mean Miss Gargrave will
be very glad to oblige you. She is always pleased to play the Good
Samaritan.”
As the man spoke the name, the corporal remembered that he had heard
it before. It had been borne by an eccentric Englishman, who had been
reported enormously wealthy and who had perished rather tragically on
the Klondyke, three years before, and the mystery of whose death had
never been cleared up, satisfactorily. He knew now where he was.
“This is the North Star Lodge, then?” he inquired.
“Yes!” was the reply. “Will you go in now and attend to your team
afterwards, or--”
“In my service,” laughed Bracknell, “the dogs come first.”
“Very well,” answered the other. “I will wait for you!”
He lit a cigarette and watched the corporal whilst he loosed the dogs
from the traces, and fed them with frozen fish. The light from the
window fell on his face and showed that he was less interested in the
operation than in the man engaged upon it, for never for a moment did
his eyes leave the officer, and there was a ruminative look in them,
as if he were speculating what manner of man the policeman was. The
corporal was quite conscious of the stare, but gave no sign of it,
though once or twice as he moved about, he flashed a glance at the
stranger, endeavouring in his turn to take the other’s measure. When he
had finished his task he turned to him.
“I am ready now.”
“So am I,” laughed the man; “it is cold waiting about.”
He threw his cigarette away, and moved towards the door of the house.
Corporal Bracknell followed him, and as the door opened his guide
stumbled over something which fell with a clatter on the pinewood floor.
The man stooped and picked it up.
“My rifle,” he explained. “I had forgotten it was there. I rested it
against the wall when you hailed me.”
The corporal nodded, but made no remark. His thoughts were engaged with
Koona Bill lying out there under the shadow of the pines, and he was
wondering what the meeting with Joy Gargrave would be like, guessing
as he did that she must be the girl who had passed him out in the
wood. His companion conducted him to a room that for the Northland was
positively luxurious, and waved him a chair near the stove.
“You will like to change your socks and moccasins,” he said politely.
“I will go and inform Miss Gargrave, and return for you in ten minutes
or so. It should be almost dinner time.”
Corporal Bracknell nodded, and when the man had departed looked round
the room with some curiosity. Nowhere in the wild region where his
work was done was there another such room, he was sure. Even the
commandant’s rooms down at the Post were poor beside it. The furniture
was of excellent quality. The wall was match-boarded, hiding the outer
logs, and there were furs everywhere. Pictures too! Something familiar
in one of them caught his eye, and moving towards it he saw that it was
a photograph of Newham College, Cambridge.
He stood looking at it, whistling softly to himself. He himself had
been at Caius, and having a sister at Newham, had once or twice had tea
in its precincts. He wondered what the picture was doing here in this
lodge in the northern wilderness, and he was still wondering when a
gong sounded. Hastily he began to change his socks, and the operation
was scarcely completed, when the man who had introduced him to the
house appeared.
“Ready, Corporal?”
“Almost,” he replied, and half a minute later stood up and nodded.
“This way,” said the other laconically, and led the way out of the room
and across the wide passage. The policeman was prepared for surprises,
but the appearance of the room into which he entered almost took his
breath away. Except for the roaring Yukon stove, and the fur rugs on
the polished floor, it was a replica of the typical dining-room of
an English country house. The furniture was Jacobean, the table was
laid with the whitest napery, and silver and glasses gleamed on its
whiteness. He had a quick apprehension of oil-paintings on the wall, of
a long-cased clock in the corner, and of two girls standing together
near the stove, then his companion’s voice sounded.
“Corporal Bracknell! Miss Gargrave! Miss La Farge.”
He bowed to the two ladies in turn. The second he knew as he glanced at
her was of French Canadian extraction, with perhaps a dash of Indian
blood in her veins; but the first was a golden-haired English girl,
tall, blue-eyed, with face a little bronzed by the open-air, and--the
girl who had passed him with her face the index of mortal terror and
her rifle at the trail. It was she who spoke in a voice that had the
indescribable accent of culture.
“We are pleased to see you, Corporal Bracknell. No doubt, if you have
been long on the trail, you will be ready for dinner.”