It was late next night when the corporal reached the police outpost, and
on the following morning Esmond and Major Coulthurst sat at a little
table in the latter's dwelling. The corporal, who had told his story
concisely, had just gone out, and Coulthurst, who rolled an unlighted
cigar between his fingers, was grave in face. Esmond glanced at him
inquiringly.
"It is, in one respect, not exactly your business; but you and I are
between us responsible for the tranquillity of the Green River country,
and I should be glad of your opinion, sir," he said. "I don't want to
make a mistake just now. There is no doubt that most of the men are in
an uncertain temper, and they do not seem pleased with me."
Coulthurst smiled, a trifle drily. "I presume you don't want me to go
into that?"
"No. The fact is, after all, of no great importance. The point is--what
do you make of the corporal's story?"
The major appeared to be taxing his brain for a moment or two. "Not
being a detective, I can make nothing at all. I suppose he is
trustworthy?"
"As reliable a man as there is in the force. Let me try to set out what
we know. Tomlinson thrashed Probyn and pitched him into the creek.
Neither of them would explain the cause of the trouble, which is a
trifle significant; but Tomlinson was heard to say that if the trooper
played the same game again he would kill him. He is apparently not an
impulsive man, and the corporal seems to think it was a warning and not
mere bluster."
"That," said Coulthurst, "gives you a little to go upon. We can admit
that Tomlinson fancied he had a grievance against the trooper. He is not
the man to say a thing of that kind without sufficient reason."
"Then Probyn leaves Sewell's camp, and never comes back. Sewell,
Ingleby, and the corporal hear two shots, apparently from the same part
of the range."
"I understand Ingleby does not admit that."
Esmond smiled. "One would scarcely expect Ingleby to agree with a
corporal of police. Still, I may point out that he has been less than a
year in the bush, and the corporal has, at least, spent most of his life
on the prairie. You know the effect the life my troopers lead has in
quickening the perceptions. Most of them could locate and tell you the
meaning of a sound I couldn't hear at all."
Coulthurst made a sign of concurrence. "His view is certainly worth a
good deal more than Ingleby's. Still, admitting that the two shots were
fired from about the same place, it doesn't necessarily follow that they
were fired by the same person."
"We know that, leaving out Probyn, Tomlinson and the Indian could have
been the only men on that part of the range just then. When Tomlinson
appeared he seemed disconcerted to find the corporal there. He also
showed signs of embarrassment when questioned about the shots, and
persisted that he fired no more than one. When told which way the
trooper had gone he stated that he had come in just the opposite one. It
is significant that he did not mention where he had been until then.
Several hours later Probyn's horse came back grazed by a bullet, and a
forty-four cartridge was found beside the trail. That is the size of
rifle Tomlinson uses."
"It seems to me the several hours are the difficulty."
"Not necessarily. Whoever shot Trooper Probyn would naturally be afraid
of his horse doing exactly what it did, and fired at it. The wounded
beast would probably run as long as it was able. It is evident that it
must have smashed through several thickets. Somebody fired at it, and
the man who did so was the one who shot Probyn."
"You don't know he was shot. I'm not sure I should find it necessary to
keep quite as tight a hand on your troopers as you do," said the major
suggestively.
Esmond flushed a little. "I feel absolutely certain the lad never
intended to give us the slip."
"There were two men in the vicinity about that time," said Coulthurst
reflectively.
"Tomlinson was known to have a grievance against Probyn. The Indian, who
apparently did not turn up at all, had never seen him. Men do not kill
one another without a strong inducement, and nobody would expect to find
much money on a police trooper."
"His carbine," said the major, "would be worth a little."
"The man had an excellent rifle of his own."
"Well," said Coulthurst, "it is tolerably easy to see what all this
points to, but I could never quite believe Tomlinson would do the thing.
There's another point that strikes me."
Esmond appeared expectant, though he had consulted Coulthurst more from
a sense of duty than because he looked for any brilliant suggestion.
"It's rather an important one," said the major gravely. "You can't well
have a murder without a corpse, you see."
Esmond failed to hide a little sardonic smile. "That is a trifle
obvious, sir. You have no advice to offer me?"
"I have. It's good as far as it goes. Lie low, and keep your eyes open
until you find Probyn."
Esmond rose. "I suppose that is the only thing, after all, though it
looks very much like wasting time. I feel quite sure there will be a
nicked forty-four bullet in him when I do."
He went out; but the longer he considered the major's advice the more
reasonable it appeared to him. Esmond, with all his shortcomings, had a
keen sense of duty, and had he consulted his own inclination would have
wasted no time in seizing Tomlinson. He was, however, quite shrewd
enough to recognize that he was not regarded with favour, and that,
although the major did not seem to realize it, the miners were not
likely to content themselves with looking on while he did anything that
did not meet their views. He had reasons for believing that once
Tomlinson's culpability was evident he need expect no trouble from them;
but it was equally plain that unless he had definite proof it would be a
risky thing to lay hands on him. Esmond was arrogant and impulsive, but
he had discovered in the Northwest that it is not always advisable to
run counter to popular opinion, and in this case there was a faint
probability that Tomlinson's friends might be right. He therefore set
himself to wait as patiently as he could until Trooper Probyn should be
found; while the men, who for the most part believed Probyn to be
living, waited for him to come back--which he eventually did, though by
no means in the fashion they had expected.
There had been a sudden rise of temperature, and a warm wind from the
Pacific had sent the white mists streaming across the mountain land. It
had rained for several days, as it usually does in the northern
wilderness in those circumstances, and the snow on the lower slopes had
melted under the warm deluge. The river swirled by, thick with the
wreckage of the forests the snow had brought down, frothing between its
crumbling banks; and on a certain Saturday evening most of the men in
the valley assembled by the ford where the trail crept perilously down
the opposite side of the canyon. It appeared very doubtful whether any
man or beast could cross it then, but the freighter, with mails and
provisions, was already overdue, and they had awaited him anxiously for
a week or so. It was possible that he might arrive that evening; and,
in any case, the six o'clock supper was over and there was very little
else to do.
Ingleby, Leger, Hetty, and Tomlinson were there with the rest, and they
sat among the roots of a great cedar where it was a little drier. The
rain had stopped at last, but all the pines were dripping, and the river
came swirling out of a curtain of drifting mist. The hoarse roar it made
filled all the canyon.
Hetty was vacantly watching the slow whirl of an eddy when a great trunk
that plunged into it held her eye. It had been a stately hemlock well
over a hundred feet in height and great of girth, and now it gyrated
slowly round the pool, a splendid wreck, with far-flung limbs that
thrashed the water as they rose and fell. Then the great butt tilted,
and there was a crash that rang high above the turmoil of the flood as
the branches that smashed and splintered struck a boulder whose wet head
rose just above the foam. The forks held for a moment, and then the
ponderous trunk swung again and, with its shattered limbs whirling about
it, drove madly down the white rush of a rapid.
It was an impressive sight, and the sound of rending and smashing was
more impressive still; but when the trunk had gone Hetty found her
attention fixed upon the pool. It swirled and lapped upon the rocks with
nothing on its surface now but muddy smears of foam, but she watched it
with a vague sense of expectancy. It seemed to her that she and that
sullen eddy alike were waiting for what should follow. Another trunk,
with branches that heaved out of the turmoil and sank into it again, was
coming down the river, but a dusky, half-submerged object slid on in
front of it. Hetty could scarcely see it save when it was lifted by the
buffeting of the flood, until it plunged into the head of the eddy. Then
she rose suddenly.
"Look at it," she said. "It's like--a bundle of old clothes!"
Ingleby, who was nearest her, stood up. The light was growing dim in the
canyon, and it was a moment before he could make out what she pointed to.
Hetty, however, was staring at it with a curious intensity, and there
was, he noticed, apprehension in her eyes. The object drove on quietly,
an insignificant dusky blur, swinging and swaying with the pulsations of
the river, and Ingleby felt the girl's hand close suddenly on his arm.
"Oh," she said, with a little gasp, "it's coming straight here. I'm
afraid of it, Walter."
The thing swung in towards them with the whirl of the eddy, and Ingleby
had for a moment a glimpse of a white patch in the water that was
horribly suggestive of a face. Then he seized Hetty's hand, and drew her
with him as he turned away.
"Stay there!" he said, when a great pine rose between them and the
river, and went scrambling back to the water's edge.
Two or three other men, among whom was Tomlinson, had reached it by this
time, and Sewell stood on a boulder gazing at the stream, while the
dusky object, drawn almost under now, swung by amidst a rush of foam.
Then he stepped down, and looked steadily at the men about him.
"I fancy Trooper Probyn has come back," he said.
Ingleby was close beside him, and for a moment the two men looked into
each other's eyes. In less than another minute the object they had seen
would swing out with the outflow at the tail of the pool, and the long
white rapid would whirl it beyond their reach into the gloom again.
Night was close at hand, and, if they let him pass, Trooper Probyn would
by morning have travelled far into the heart of a wilderness where it
was scarcely likely that any of them would ever overtake him. The rivers
of the North run fast, and that is a country wherein the strongest man
must travel slowly. It seemed to Ingleby that it might be better to let
him go. Then he was ashamed of the doubt that this implied, and Sewell,
who knew what he was thinking, glanced for just a second in Tomlinson's
direction.
"One can't hide the truth. It will come out," he said, and then raised
his voice. "That's a man we have something to do for. The rapid will
have him in a minute, boys."
Tomlinson was first into the water, with Ingleby almost at his side, and
the rest floundering and splashing close behind. They went straight,
while the thing that swung with the eddy went round, but they were in
the lip of the rapid before they came up with it. Ingleby gasped as he
braced himself against the flood which broke in a white swirl to his
waist, while the stream-borne gravel smote his legs, and he clutched at
the big miner as Trooper Probyn drove down on them.
He evaded Tomlinson, but Ingleby, stooping, seized his uniform, and
tightened his hold on his companion as his feet were dragged from under
him. He could almost have fancied that Trooper Probyn struggled to be
free from them, and while the current frothed about him Tomlinson was
dragged backwards by the strain. Ingleby went under, still clinging
fiercely to the sodden tunic, and for a second or two it seemed that all
of them, the dead and the living, must go down the rapid together, in
which case no man could have distinguished between them when they were
washed out at the tail of it. Then a man clinging to his comrade with
one hand seized Tomlinson; there was a straining of hardened muscles, a
wild splashing and floundering, and, while one who leaned across a
boulder gasped and wondered if his arm was leaving its socket, the line
swung into slack water again. Still, Ingleby had driven against a stone
with a thud that drove out most of the little breath left in him.
They brought Probyn ashore between them, and Sewell, who kept his head,
left them a moment and went straight up the bank, where he came upon
Hetty standing with hands closed at her sides. She could see very little
beyond a group of men bending over something that lay between them.
"Go back to the shanty. Make a big fire and some coffee," he said.
Hetty did not seem to understand him. "Tomlinson held on to him, but he
struck a stone," she said. "I couldn't see any more, but--of course--you
brought him out? Is he hurt?"
Sewell looked astonished. "Hurt!" he said. "You must know that the man
is dead."
Then comprehension dawned upon him, as he remembered that he had for
several anxious moments fancied that the man who seized Trooper Probyn
would drive with him down the rapid.
"I scarcely think Tom is any the worse--and Ingleby appears to have got
off with a bruise on his head," he said.
He saw the sudden relief in Hetty's face, for she had not remembered the
need of reticence then; but she turned away from him silently, and he
went back to the river, where the group made way for him. Sewell, who
held only an unremunerative claim, was already an influence in the Green
River country.
The light was rapidly failing, but he could still see the faces of the
men, who turned to him as though uncertain what to do. Tomlinson stood
still among the rest, and his voice and attitude were both unmistakably
compassionate.
"I hove him into the creek. I 'most wish I hadn't now," he said. "He was
young and had no sense, but there was good hard sand in him."
Sewell turned, and looked down on Trooper Probyn, who lay very still, a
rigid shape in sodden uniform, with the water running from him, and his
face partly turned away from them, which was just as well.
"Two of you go for Captain Esmond, boys," he said. "It will be some time
before you make the outpost, and I want the rest of you. There is
something we have to do in the meanwhile. The police make mistakes now
and then, and it is, I think, our business as well as Captain Esmond's."
He knelt down, and presently pointed to a little hole, very small and
cleanly cut, in the soaked tunic.
"I think you know what made that," he said. "One of you get down. I
can't do what is necessary, alone."
Nobody seemed very anxious, which was, perhaps, not astonishing, and it
was not until Sewell looked up again that Ingleby, who shivered a
little, knelt down. He wondered when he saw that Sewell's fingers were
very steady as he opened the tunic and saturated vest. Then the latter
signed to the men to draw a little nearer, and pointed to what appeared
to be a folded pad of wet cotton held in place by a strip of hide. He
moved it a little so that all could see it, and then let the tunic fall
again. Ingleby was, however, the only one who noticed that there was
something in Sewell's hand that had not been there before.
"There is nothing to show whether Trooper Probyn was dead when he
reached the water, though I think he was," he said. "He was certainly
shot, and it is evident that he did not shoot himself. His uniform isn't
charred, you see. Then you saw the pad. Police troopers do not make
their shirts or patch their clothes with cotton flour-bags, and a man
hit where Probyn was would not be very likely to bandage himself. The
man who shot him tried to save his life. Why should he do that if he
meant to kill him?"
There was no answer, and Sewell stood up. "We don't know what has
happened, boys. Perhaps we never shall; but it seems to me one thing is
certain--it wasn't murder."
There was a little murmur of concurrence, and then Sewell made a
gesture.
"It's getting dark, and we're most of us very wet," he said. "One or
two of you cut a few fir boughs, and we'll make a litter."
It was done, and in another few minutes a line of wet and silent men
plodded behind their comrades who carried Trooper Probyn up the climbing
trail.