ADRIAN RAYNER’S STORY
“JOE, I thought I heard the yelping of dogs. Did you hear anything?”
The Indian shook his head and Dick Bracknell sank back on his
improvised couch of spruce, with a sigh.
“Of course,” he muttered, “I’m dreaming. No, by Jove! I’m not. There
it is again. Don’t you hear it, Joe?” This time the Indian nodded and
going to the door of the cabin looked down the creek. Three men and a
dog sled were coming up the trail. He turned and informed Bracknell of
the fact. A thoughtful frown came on the sick man’s face.
“Who can they be? Not Roger, certainly, for it is but two days since
he was here, and he had but one man with him. Perhaps----” Then as a
thought struck him he broke off and cried excitedly, “I say, Joe, does
one of the men look at all like a prisoner?”
The Indian shook his head.
“That’s a pity,” commented his master. “I had a wild hope that Roger
might have overtaken the man. Anyway we shall know who they are in a
few minutes, and patience is a virtue that I’ve plenty of opportunity
for practising just now.”
Laboriously he rose from his couch and seated himself near the fire.
The effort brought on a fit of coughing, which was still shaking him,
when a whipstock rapped upon the door. His servant opened it, and a
white man entered, and stood for a moment watching Bracknell as he
coughed and groaned. Then suddenly an alert look came in his face and
for one instant into his eyes there came a flicker of recognition. He
waited until the paroxysm had passed, then in a voice that had in it a
note of sympathy he spoke--
“You seem in a bad way, friend.”
The voice of a cultured man, as Bracknell instantly noted, and as he
wiped his eyes the sick man looked sharply at the new-comer.
“Yes,” he replied, “and so would you be if you’d had your lungs frozen.”
“Is it as bad as that?” asked the other in a voice that was still
sympathetic.
“It is, and worse! I’ve got scurvy too. I suppose you haven’t such a
thing as a potato with you?”
The stranger smiled. “As it happens I have. I never travel without in
winter, because, as you seem to know, a raw potato is better than lime
juice for scurvy, and a sight handier to carry. I shall be happy to
oblige you.”
He went to the door of the cabin and called an order to the men
outside. A few moments later an Indian entered bringing with him
seven or eight potatoes. Bracknell instantly seized one, and taking
out a clasp knife began to cut thin slices of the tuber, and to eat
regardless of everything but the one fact that here was salvation
from one of the diseases which afflicted him. He chewed methodically,
without speaking, and Adrian Rayner, for he was the arrival, watched
him with curious eyes, reflecting on the irony of the situation which
made the heir of an ancient estate glad to eat raw potato; for though
he himself remained incognito, he had already recognized Dick Bracknell.
“I’d go slow if I were you,” he said warningly, as having finished one
tuber, the sick man stretched his hand for another. “You had better not
overdo it. A little every day is better than a glut; and, of course, my
stock is limited.”
Dick Bracknell laughed weakly. “You’re right, of course. But if you
knew what I suffer you’d understand the impulse to stuff oneself! I’ll
go slow, as you advise, and perhaps I shall get quit of one disease at
any rate, though the other will get rid of me as sure as a gun.”
“You think so?” asked Rayner, with an eager interest which Bracknell
failed to note.
“Sure of it! I’ve seen other men this way--and there was always a
funeral at the end of it; though not always a burial service. Parsons
are scarce up here!”
“Have you been long in the country?” asked Rayner carelessly.
Bracknell looked at him sharply, as if suspicious of so simple a
question, and then gave a short laugh. “I’ve been here a year or two.
And you? You’re pretty new to the North, aren’t you?”
Rayner laughed. “A regular tenderfoot. I’ve been here before, but only
for a short spell, and this time I’m straight from England.”
“Is that so?” asked Bracknell, and appraised the stranger anew. “In the
mining line, I suppose?”
“Nothing half so profitable,” answered Rayner smilingly. “I am merely
representing a legal firm, and have come out on a rather curious
mission, one with little profit in it in fact, and with even a
possibility of loss.”
“That’s poor business for a lawyer,” said Bracknell encouragingly.
“It is,” agreed Rayner, “and it’s not only that, but it is about the
queerest business that I ever struck.” He turned and addressed a remark
to one of his men who had entered the cabin, and then resumed, “It is
quite a romance in high life, and very interesting. Would you like to
hear the story?”
“I was always fond of romance,” answered Bracknell with a laugh, “and
as up here we’ve no penny dreadfuls, I shall be glad to have a slice of
the real thing.”
“Oh, it’s real enough,” answered Rayner, “and it’s interesting, because
it has a rich and young and beautiful girl for the heroine.”
“Romance always must have!” commented Bracknell. “Your story, I can
see, is going on the penny plain and twopenny coloured line!”
“Not quite. It has deviations and some original features. This girl’s
father was immensely rich, and whilst he remained in this country
looking after his mining properties, he sent his daughter to England
to be educated. There she ran against the heir of an old Westmorland
family, and married him secretly--”
He broke off as his host rose unexpectedly to his feet. “What is the
matter?” he asked innocently. “Are you not feeling well?”
“Just a spasm,” growled Bracknell. “It will pass in a minute. Get on
with your tale.”
The other smiled a little to himself, and resumed his narrative. “As I
was saying, she married this young gentleman secretly, and immediately
after the marriage separated from him for some reason, and at the same
time something else happened, which compelled her husband to leave
England and to reside abroad.... Did you say something?”
“No! It’s only this confounded wheeze of mine!”
“About the same time news reached England that the girl’s father had
died in an accident out here, and as by the terms of his will the
daughter was to reside for three years in the home he had built in the
woods here, she returned to the Dominion without having said anything
about the marriage to her uncle and guardian, the well-known solicitor
Sir Joseph Rayner, of whom you perhaps have heard?”
“Yes, I’ve heard of him! Go on, man. Your story is very interesting.”
“Fortunately Sir Joseph was not left in ignorance of the marriage,
for the girl’s husband wrote and informed him of it. Sir Joseph was
astonished; but he kept the news to himself, because the husband,
though of good family, had done something that was--er--scarcely
creditable. He did not even inform the girl of the information which
had reached him, hoping that time would solve what appeared to be a
difficult situation.”
“And hasn’t it?”
“No, sir. Time may solve many things, but the policy of
_laissez-faire_, whilst sometimes a good one, is not without its
dangers! This happens to be one of the cases where the dangers
predominate, and time has but brought a new complication.”
“What is that?” asked Bracknell sharply.
“Well, the girl is thinking of marrying again.”
“God in heaven!” Dick Bracknell had staggered to his feet. His eyes
were burning and there was a ghastly pallor on his haggard face. He
glared at the narrator as if he could slay him. “Man, do you know what
you are saying?”
“Yes,” answered Rayner, with well-affected surprise. “I am saying that
in her inexperience this girl-wife is thinking of contracting a flesh
marriage, one in which her heart is engaged, as it appears not to have
been in the first. Of course she may not understand the law as it
relates to bigamy, or she may believe that her husband is dead----”
“Who is the man?” asked Bracknell, in a strangled voice.
“The man? I do not understand. Do you mean the husband?”
“No, the man whom she is thinking of marrying?”
“Oh, I see. Well, that’s the curious part of the whole business, for
this new lover is the cousin of her husband, one time a barrister, but
now out here in the Mounted Police. What did you say? A strange story.
Yes, it is that; but there is one piquant detail that you have not yet
heard, sir!”
“What is that?”
“Well, it is this, the husband, as I informed you, is the heir to an
old estate in Westmorland. He had a younger brother who since the
elder’s disappearance had slipped into the position of heir--at least
people had come to look upon him as such, it being fairly well known
that the elder could not return to claim the succession. This younger
son is dead----”
“Dead!” The word came in a gasp from Dick Bracknell’s lips, and
immediately after he was taken with a fit of coughing which lasted for
some little time, and left him exhausted with his face hidden in his
hands.
“Your cough is very bad, sir,” said Rayner with affected sympathy. “Are
you sure that you wish me to continue the narrative?”
Bracknell lifted a tortured face, and in his deep-sunk eyes there was
a moisture that was more than suspicious. “Yes,” he said hoarsely. “Go
on!”
“As you wish,” replied Rayner with affected solicitude, and then
continued, “As I was saying, this younger son is dead----”
“How did he die?” interrupted Bracknell.
“Something went wrong with his gun when he was out grouse shooting. It
burst, I believe, anyhow it killed him, and by his death, failing the
succession of the older son, the cousin becomes the heir, and you have
the rather unique situation of the cousin stepping into the shoes of
the heir and the husband at one and the same time. Quite a little drama
in its way, is it not?”
Dick Bracknell’s reply to the question was an inarticulate one, and
afterwards for a little time he stared into the fire with eyes that
looked almost ferocious. Then he asked abruptly, “How do you know all
this?”
“As I explained, I am the representative of the firm of Sir Joseph
Rayner and Son, and I have been sent out to find the girl wife----”
“To find J--er--the girl?”
“Yes! she left England very suddenly a few weeks ago without informing
Sir Joseph. She, as we have ascertained, came to the Dominion, and
my principal suspecting that she was going to marry the man I have
mentioned, sent me to intervene. Two courses are open for me to follow,
either to find the young lady, and explain to the former that in the
absence of proof of her husband’s death such a marriage is of more than
doubtful legality; or to find the policeman and point out that the
young lady is already a wife.”
“But he--but what if he already knows?”
“Then in that case I shall be called upon to explain the law to
him also! But so far I have accomplished none of these things. The
policeman, as I learned at Regina, is missing; and when I arrived
there the young lady had already left her home up here for an unknown
destination.... I do not know, of course, but I have my suspicions as
to who may be awaiting her at that destination.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, sir, you appear to be a man of education, and you will remember
that the great Antony thought the world well lost for love, and what
Cleopatra thought, her actions proved. Human nature does not change,
and love is the strongest passion it knows, and I suspect that her
lover being missing, the young lady has gone to look for him, or if
not that to meet him at some appointed rendezvous. The two are young,
between them they will be fabulously rich and they will not be the
first pair of lovers to set the world and the world’s conventions at
defiance. At least they will be able to afford it!”
“Never! by---- never!”
The words came from the sick man’s lips explosively. He rose from his
seat, and gripped Rayner’s shoulder in a way that made him grimace with
pain.
“Man,” he cried, “are you telling me the truth?”
“Certainly, sir! Why----”
“Do you know who I am?”
Bracknell’s eyes, full of wild light, glared down into Rayner’s but the
latter, as he lied, met them unflinchingly.
“I do not, sir! We have not exchanged----”
“My name is Bracknell--Dick Bracknell; and I can guess it is my wife
and my cousin of whom you have been talking. By---- if I had him here.
And to think that two days ago he was here, and that I let him go.”
“He was here two days ago?”
“Two days ago--and I let him go because he pitched a cock and bull
story which I believed! And I might have known all the time that it was
so much bunkum, just a yarn to get out of my hands. I ought to have
killed him as he tried to kill me by poisoning my dogs. I remember now
that once before when we met, he showed a tenderness for Joy that was
more than natural in a mere cousin by marriage. He suggested to me that
I should make reparations to my wife by allowing her to divorce me!”
“That was a very crafty suggestion on his part!” broke in Rayner
suavely. “It would have cleared his own way to your wife!”
The sick man was stung to madness at the thought. His eyes burned and
his face grew convulsed. “Reparation!” he cried hoarsely in jealous
rage. “Reparation! The viper! If ever I put eyes on him again, I
will----” he broke off as a fit of coughing took him, and when it was
over he dropped to his seat utterly exhausted, gasping painfully for
breath.
The man whose lying story had brought on this attack, watched him
unmoved, and calculated cynically whether Bracknell’s own estimate of
the span of life remaining to him was correct; then he said, “I am very
sorry for you, Mr. Bracknell, but I cannot allow private wrongs to
interfere with my own mission. You say that your cousin was here two
days ago; perhaps you can tell me which way he was travelling?”
“He was going up the river--to meet Joy as like as not!”
“Then I shall follow! Perhaps I shall meet the lady; if so, I shall be
able to assure her that the marriage she is contemplating is quite out
of the question.”
“Say nothing to the man about my threats, if you find him,” said
Bracknell, rousing himself. “Say I’ve news for him, that I want to see
him; as by---- I do! Tell him what you like, but get him to come back
here.”
“I will do my best, sir!”
“If I’d dogs, sick though I am, I’d follow him myself. But that’s out
of the question. I shall rely on you to----”
“You may, sir,” broke in Rayner obsequiously. “If I find him, I will
certainly induce him to come back to you, if I can. But I hope you will
not be violent----”
“Violent! Bring him here,” Bracknell laughed almost deliriously, “and
you will see.”
* * * * *
In the morning when Adrian Rayner took the trail, he looked back at the
haggard man standing by the cabin door. Bracknell had been delirious in
the night, and now as he stood there swaying, the other looked at him
without pity.
“Booked!” he muttered to himself, “and knows it. If Roger Bracknell
should happen to return here, Harrow Fell will require a new heir, and
I shall be saved from a disagreeable necessity. But that chance is not
to be depended on. I must find him if I can.”
And as he followed the Northward trail there was the index of grim
purpose in his face.