Jacob Welse was given due respect when he arose at the convening of the
miners' meeting and denounced the proceedings. While such meetings had
performed a legitimate function in the past, he contended, when there
was no law in the land, that time was now beyond recall; for law was
now established, and it was just law. The Queen's government had shown
itself fit to cope with the situation, and for them to usurp its powers
was to step backward into the night out of which they had come.
Further, no lighter word than "criminal" could characterize such
conduct. And yet further, he promised them, in set, sober terms, if
anything serious were the outcome, to take an active part in the
prosecution of every one of them. At the conclusion of his speech he
made a motion to hold the prisoner for the territorial court and to
adjourn, but was voted down without discussion.
"Don't you see," St. Vincent said to Frona, "there is no hope?"
"But there is. Listen!" And she swiftly outlined the plot of the
night before.
He followed her in a half-hearted way, too crushed to partake of her
enthusiasm. "It's madness to attempt it," he objected, when she had
done.
"And it looks very much like hanging not to attempt it," she answered a
little spiritedly. "Surely you will make a fight?"
"Surely," he replied, hollowly.
The first witnesses were two Swedes, who told of the wash-tub incident,
when Borg had given way to one of his fits of anger. Trivial as the
incident was, in the light of subsequent events it at once became
serious. It opened the way for the imagination into a vast familiar
field. It was not so much what was said as what was left unsaid. Men
born of women, the rudest of them, knew life well enough to be aware of
its significance,--a vulgar common happening, capable of but one
interpretation. Heads were wagged knowingly in the course of the
testimony, and whispered comments went the rounds.
Half a dozen witnesses followed in rapid succession, all of whom had
closely examined the scene of the crime and gone over the island
carefully, and all of whom were agreed that there was not the slightest
trace to be found of the two men mentioned by the prisoner in his
preliminary statement.
To Frona's surprise, Del Bishop went upon the stand. She knew he
disliked St. Vincent, but could not imagine any evidence he could
possess which would bear upon the case.
Being sworn, and age and nationality ascertained, Bill Brown asked him
his business.
"Pocket-miner," he challenged back, sweeping the assemblage with an
aggressive glance.
Now, it happens that a very small class of men follow pocketing, and
that a very large class of men, miners, too, disbelieve utterly in any
such method or obtaining gold.
"Pocket-miner!" sneered a red-shirted, patriarchal-looking man, a man
who had washed his first pan in the Californian diggings in the early
fifties.
"Yep," Del affirmed.
"Now, look here, young feller," his interlocutor continued, "d'ye mean
to tell me you ever struck it in such-fangled way?"
"Yep."
"Don't believe it," with a contemptuous shrug.
Del swallowed fast and raised his head with a jerk. "Mr. Chairman, I
rise to make a statement. I won't interfere with the dignity of the
court, but I just wish to simply and distinctly state that after the
meeting's over I'm going to punch the head of every man that gets gay.
Understand?"
"You're out of order," the chairman replied, rapping the table with the
caulking-mallet.
"And your head, too," Del cried, turning upon him. "Damn poor order
you preserve. Pocketing's got nothing to do with this here trial, and
why don't you shut such fool questions out? I'll take care of you
afterwards, you potwolloper!"
"You will, will you?" The chairman grew red in the face, dropped the
mallet, and sprang to his feet.
Del stepped forward to meet him, but Bill Brown sprang in between and
held them apart.
"Order, gentlemen, order," he begged. "This is no time for unseemly
exhibitions. And remember there are ladies present."
The two men grunted and subsided, and Bill Brown asked, "Mr. Bishop, we
understand that you are well acquainted with the prisoner. Will you
please tell the court what you know of his general character?"
Del broadened into a smile. "Well, in the first place, he's an
extremely quarrelsome disposition--"
"Hold! I won't have it!" The prisoner was on his feet, trembling with
anger. "You shall not swear my life away in such fashion! To bring a
madman, whom I have only met once in my life, to testify as to my
character!"
The pocket-miner turned to him. "So you don't know me, eh, Gregory St.
Vincent?"
"No," St. Vincent replied, coldly, "I do not know you, my man."
"Don't you man me!" Del shouted, hotly.
But St. Vincent ignored him, turning to the crowd.
"I never saw the fellow but once before, and then for a few brief
moments in Dawson."
"You'll remember before I'm done," Del sneered; "so hold your hush and
let me say my little say. I come into the country with him way back in
'84."
St. Vincent regarded him with sudden interest.
"Yep, Mr. Gregory St. Vincent. I see you begin to recollect. I
sported whiskers and my name was Brown, Joe Brown, in them days."
He grinned vindictively, and the correspondent seemed to lose all
interest.
"Is it true, Gregory?" Frona whispered.
"I begin to recognize," he muttered, slowly. "I don't know . . . no,
folly! The man must have died."
"You say in '84, Mr. Bishop?" Bill Brown prompted.
"Yep, in '84. He was a newspaper-man, bound round the world by way of
Alaska and Siberia. I'd run away from a whaler at Sitka,--that squares
it with Brown,--and I engaged with him for forty a month and found.
Well, he quarrelled with me--"
A snicker, beginning from nowhere in particular, but passing on from
man to man and swelling in volume, greeted this statement. Even Frona
and Del himself were forced to smile, and the only sober face was the
prisoner's.
"But he quarrelled with Old Andy at Dyea, and with Chief George of the
Chilcoots, and the Factor at Pelly, and so on down the line. He got us
into no end of trouble, and 'specially woman-trouble. He was always
monkeying around--"
"Mr. Chairman, I object." Frona stood up, her face quite calm and
blood under control. "There is no necessity for bringing in the amours
of Mr. St. Vincent. They have no bearing whatsoever upon the case;
and, further, none of the men of this meeting are clean enough to be
prompted by the right motive in conducting such an inquiry. So I
demand that the prosecution at least confine itself to relevant
testimony."
Bill Brown came up smugly complacent and smiling. "Mr. Chairman, we
willingly accede to the request made by the defence. Whatever we have
brought out has been relevant and material. Whatever we intend to
bring out shall be relevant and material. Mr. Bishop is our star
witness, and his testimony is to the point. It must be taken into
consideration that we nave no direct evidence as to the murder of John
Borg. We can bring no eye-witnesses into court. Whatever we have is
circumstantial. It is incumbent upon us to show cause. To show cause
it is necessary to go into the character of the accused. This we
intend to do. We intend to show his adulterous and lustful nature,
which has culminated in a dastardly deed and jeopardized his neck. We
intend to show that the truth is not in him; that he is a liar beyond
price; that no word he may speak upon the stand need be accepted by a
jury of his peers. We intend to show all this, and to weave it
together, thread by thread, till we have a rope long enough and strong
enough to hang him with before the day is done. So I respectfully
submit, Mr. Chairman, that the witness be allowed to proceed."
The chairman decided against Frona, and her appeal to the meeting was
voted down. Bill Brown nodded to Del to resume.
"As I was saying, he got us into no end of trouble. Now, I've been
mixed up with water all my life,--never can get away from it, it
seems,--and the more I'm mixed the less I know about it. St. Vincent
knew this, too, and him a clever hand at the paddle; yet he left me to
run the Box Canyon alone while he walked around. Result: I was turned
over, lost half the outfit and all the tobacco, and then he put the
blame on me besides. Right after that he got tangled up with the Lake
Le Barge Sticks, and both of us came near croaking."
"And why was that?" Bill Brown interjected.
"All along of a pretty squaw that looked too kindly at him. After we
got clear, I lectured him on women in general and squaws in particular,
and he promised to behave. Then we had a hot time with the Little
Salmons. He was cuter this time, and I didn't know for keeps, but I
guessed. He said it was the medicine man who got horstile; but
nothing'll stir up a medicine man quicker'n women, and the facts
pointed that way. When I talked it over with him in a fatherly way he
got wrathy, and I had to take him out on the bank and give him a
threshing. Then he got sulky, and didn't brighten up till we ran into
the mouth of the Reindeer River, where a camp of Siwashes were fishing
salmon. But he had it in for me all the time, only I didn't know
it,--was ready any time to give me the double cross.
"Now, there's no denying he's got a taking way with women. All he has
to do is to whistle 'em up like dogs. Most remarkable faculty, that.
There was the wickedest, prettiest squaw among the Reindeers. Never
saw her beat, excepting Bella. Well, I guess he whistled her up, for
he delayed in the camp longer than was necessary. Being partial to
women--"
"That will do, Mr. Bishop," interrupted the chairman, who, from
profitless watching of Frona's immobile face, had turned to her hand,
the nervous twitching and clinching of which revealed what her face had
hidden. "That will do, Mr. Bishop. I think we have had enough of
squaws."
"Pray do not temper the testimony," Frona chirruped, sweetly. "It
seems very important."
"Do you know what I am going to say next?" Del demanded hotly of the
chairman. "You don't, eh? Then shut up. I'm running this particular
sideshow."
Bill Brown sprang in to avert hostilities, but the chairman restrained
himself, and Bishop went on.
"I'd been done with the whole shooting-match, squaws and all, if you
hadn't broke me off. Well, as I said, he had it in for me, and the
first thing I didn't know, he'd hit me on the head with a rifle-stock,
bundled the squaw into the canoe, and pulled out. You all know what
the Yukon country was in '84. And there I was, without an outfit, left
alone, a thousand miles from anywhere. I got out all right, though
there's no need of telling how, and so did he. You've all heard of his
adventures in Siberia. Well," with an impressive pause, "I happen to
know a thing or two myself."
He shoved a hand into the big pocket of his mackinaw jacket and pulled
out a dingy leather-bound volume of venerable appearance.
"I got this from Pete Whipple's old woman,--Whipple of Eldorado. It
concerns her grand-uncle or great-grand-uncle, I don't know which; and
if there's anybody here can read Russian, why, it'll go into the
details of that Siberian trip. But as there's no one here that can--"
"Courbertin! He can read it!" some one called in the crowd.
A way was made for the Frenchman forthwith, and he was pushed and
shoved, protestingly, to the front.
"Savve the lingo?" Del demanded.
"Yes; but so poorly, so miserable," Courbertin demurred. "It is a long
time. I forget."
"Go ahead. We won't criticise."
"No, but--"
"Go ahead!" the chairman commanded.
Del thrust the book into his hands, opened at the yellow title-page.
"I've been itching to get my paws on some buck like you for months and
months," he assured him, gleefully. "And now I've got you, you can't
shake me, Charley. So fire away."
Courbertin began hesitatingly: "'_The Journal of Father Yakontsk,
Comprising an Account in Brief of his Life in the Benedictine Monastery
at Obidorsky, and in Full of his Marvellous Adventures in East Siberia
among the Deer Men_.'"
The baron looked up for instructions.
"Tell us when it was printed," Del ordered him.
"In Warsaw, 1807."
The pocket-miner turned triumphantly to the room. "Did you hear that?
Just keep track of it. 1807, remember!"
The baron took up the opening paragraph. "'_It was because of
Tamerlane_,'" he commenced, unconsciously putting his translation into
a construction with which he was already familiar.
At his first words Frona turned white, and she remained white
throughout the reading. Once she stole a glance at her father, and was
glad that he was looking straight before him, for she did not feel able
to meet his gaze just them. On the other hand, though she knew St.
Vincent was eying her narrowly, she took no notice of him, and all he
could see was a white face devoid of expression.
"'_When Tamerlane swept with fire and sword over Eastern Asia_,'"
Courbertin read slowly, "'_states were disrupted, cities overthrown,
and tribes scattered like--like star-dust. A vast people was hurled
broadcast over the land. Fleeing before the conquerors_,'--no,
no,--'_before the mad lust of the conquerors, these refugees swung far
into Siberia, circling, circling to the north and east and fringing the
rim of the polar basin with a spray of Mongol tribes_.'"
"Skip a few pages," Bill Brown advised, "and read here and there. We
haven't got all night."
Courbertin complied. "'_The coast people are Eskimo stock, merry of
nature and not offensive. They call themselves the Oukilion, or the
Sea Men. From them I bought dogs and food. But they are subject to
the Chow Chuen, who live in the interior and are known as the Deer Men.
The Chow Chuen are a fierce and savage race. When I left the coast
they fell upon me, took from me my goods, and made me a slave_.'" He
ran over a few pages. "'_I worked my way to a seat among the head men,
but I was no nearer my freedom. My wisdom was of too great value to
them for me to depart. . . Old Pi-Une was a great chief, and it was
decreed that I should marry his daughter Ilswunga. Ilswunga was a
filthy creature. She would not bathe, and her ways were not good . . .
I did marry Ilswunga, but she was a wife to me only in name. Then did
she complain to her father, the old Pi-Une, and he was very wroth. And
dissension was sown among the tribes; but in the end I became mightier
than ever, what of my cunning and resource; and Ilswunga made no more
complaint, for I taught her games with cards which she might play by
herself, and other things_.'"
"Is that enough?" Courbertin asked.
"Yes, that will do," Bill Brown answered. "But one moment. Please
state again the date of publication."
"1807, in Warsaw."
"Hold on, baron," Del Bishop spoke up. "Now that you're on the stand,
I've got a question or so to slap into you." He turned to the
court-room. "Gentlemen, you've all heard somewhat of the prisoner's
experiences in Siberia. You've caught on to the remarkable sameness
between them and those published by Father Yakontsk nearly a hundred
years ago. And you have concluded that there's been some wholesale
cribbing somewhere. I propose to show you that it's more than
cribbing. The prisoner gave me the shake on the Reindeer River in '88.
Fall of '88 he was at St. Michael's on his way to Siberia. '89 and '90
he was, by his talk, cutting up antics in Siberia. '91 he come back to
the world, working the conquering-hero graft in 'Frisco. Now let's see
if the Frenchman can make us wise.
"You were in Japan?" he asked.
Courbertin, who had followed the dates, made a quick calculation, and
could but illy conceal his surprise. He looked appealingly to Frona,
but she did not help him. "Yes," he said, finally.
"And you met the prisoner there?"
"Yes."
"What year was it?"
There was a general craning forward to catch the answer.
"1889," and it came unwillingly.
"Now, how can that be, baron?" Del asked in a wheedling tone. "The
prisoner was in Siberia at that time."
Courbertin shrugged his shoulders that it was no concern of his, and
came off the stand. An impromptu recess was taken by the court-room
for several minutes, wherein there was much whispering and shaking of
heads.
"It is all a lie." St. Vincent leaned close to Frona's ear, but she
did not hear.
"Appearances are against me, but I can explain it all."
But she did not move a muscle, and he was called to the stand by the
chairman. She turned to her father, and the tears rushed up into her
eyes when he rested his hand on hers.
"Do you care to pull out?" he asked after a momentary hesitation.
She shook her head, and St. Vincent began to speak. It was the same
story he had told her, though told now a little more fully, and in
nowise did it conflict with the evidence of La Flitche and John. He
acknowledged the wash-tub incident, caused, he explained, by an act of
simple courtesy on his part and by John Borg's unreasoning anger. He
acknowledged that Bella had been killed by his own pistol, but stated
that the pistol had been borrowed by Borg several days previously and
not returned. Concerning Bella's accusation he could say nothing. He
could not see why she should die with a lie on her lips. He had never
in the slightest way incurred her displeasure, so even revenge could
not be advanced. It was inexplicable. As for the testimony of Bishop,
he did not care to discuss it. It was a tissue of falsehood cunningly
interwoven with truth. It was true the man had gone into Alaska with
him in 1888, but his version of the things which happened there was
maliciously untrue. Regarding the baron, there was a slight mistake in
the dates, that was all.
In questioning him. Bill Brown brought out one little surprise. From
the prisoner's story, he had made a hard fight against the two
mysterious men. "If," Brown asked, "such were the case, how can you
explain away the fact that you came out of the struggle unmarked? On
examination of the body of John Borg, many bruises and contusions were
noticeable. How is it, if you put up such a stiff fight, that you
escaped being battered?"
St. Vincent did not know, though he confessed to feeling stiff and sore
all over. And it did not matter, anyway. He had killed neither Borg
nor his wife, that much he did know.
Frona prefaced her argument to the meeting with a pithy discourse on
the sacredness of human life, the weaknesses and dangers of
circumstantial evidence, and the rights of the accused wherever doubt
arose. Then she plunged into the evidence, stripping off the
superfluous and striving to confine herself to facts. In the first
place, she denied that a motive for the deed had been shown. As it
was, the introduction of such evidence was an insult to their
intelligence, and she had sufficient faith in their manhood and
perspicacity to know that such puerility would not sway them in the
verdict they were to give.
And, on the other hand, in dealing with the particular points at issue,
she denied that any intimacy had been shown to have existed between
Bella and St. Vincent; and she denied, further, that it had been shown
that any intimacy had been attempted on the part of St. Vincent.
Viewed honestly, the wash-tub incident--the only evidence brought
forward--was a laughable little affair, portraying how the simple
courtesy of a gentleman might be misunderstood by a mad boor of a
husband. She left it to their common sense; they were not fools.
They had striven to prove the prisoner bad-tempered. She did not need
to prove anything of the sort concerning John Borg. They all knew his
terrible fits of anger; they all knew that his temper was proverbial in
the community; that it had prevented him having friends and had made
him many enemies. Was it not very probable, therefore, that the masked
men were two such enemies? As to what particular motive actuated these
two men, she could not say; but it rested with them, the judges, to
know whether in all Alaska there were or were not two men whom John
Borg could have given cause sufficient for them to take his life.
Witness had testified that no traces had been found of these two men;
but the witness had not testified that no traces had been found of St.
Vincent, Pierre La Flitche, or John the Swede. And there was no need
for them so to testify. Everybody knew that no foot-marks were left
when St. Vincent ran up the trail, and when he came back with La
Flitche and the other man. Everybody knew the condition of the trail,
that it was a hard-packed groove in the ground, on which a soft
moccasin could leave no impression; and that had the ice not gone down
the river, no traces would have been left by the murderers in passing
from and to the mainland.
At this juncture La Flitche nodded his head in approbation, and she
went on.
Capital had been made out of the blood on St. Vincent's hands. If they
chose to examine the moccasins at that moment on the feet of Mr. La
Flitche, they would also find blood. That did not argue that Mr. La
Flitche had been a party to the shedding of the blood.
Mr. Brown had drawn attention to the fact that the prisoner had not
been bruised or marked in the savage encounter which had taken place.
She thanked him for having done so. John Borg's body showed that it
had been roughly used. He was a larger, stronger, heavier man than St.
Vincent. If, as charged, St. Vincent had committed the murder, and
necessarily, therefore, engaged in a struggle severe enough to bruise
John Borg, how was it that he had come out unharmed? That was a point
worthy of consideration.
Another one was, why did he run down the trail? It was inconceivable,
if he had committed the murder, that he should, without dressing or
preparation for escape, run towards the other cabins. It was, however,
easily conceivable that he should take up the pursuit of the real
murderers, and in the darkness--exhausted, breathless, and certainly
somewhat excited--run blindly down the trail.
Her summing up was a strong piece of synthesis; and when she had done,
the meeting applauded her roundly. But she was angry and hurt, for she
knew the demonstration was for her sex rather than for her cause and
the work she had done.
Bill Brown, somewhat of a shyster, and his ear ever cocked to the
crowd, was not above taking advantage when opportunity offered, and
when it did not offer, to dogmatize artfully. In this his native humor
was a strong factor, and when he had finished with the mysterious
masked men they were as exploded sun-myths,--which phrase he promptly
applied to them.
They could not have got off the island. The condition of the ice for
the three or four hours preceding the break-up would not have permitted
it. The prisoner had implicated none of the residents of the island,
while every one of them, with the exception of the prisoner, had been
accounted for elsewhere. Possibly the prisoner was excited when he ran
down the trail into the arms of La Flitche and John the Swede. One
should have thought, however, that he had grown used to such things in
Siberia. But that was immaterial; the facts were that he was
undoubtedly in an abnormal state of excitement, that he was
hysterically excited, and that a murderer under such circumstances
would take little account of where he ran. Such things had happened
before. Many a man had butted into his own retribution.
In the matter of the relations of Borg, Bella, and St. Vincent, he made
a strong appeal to the instinctive prejudices of his listeners, and for
the time being abandoned matter-of-fact reasoning for all-potent
sentimental platitudes. He granted that circumstantial evidence never
proved anything absolutely. It was not necessary it should. Beyond
the shadow of a reasonable doubt was all that was required. That this
had been done, he went on to review the testimony.
"And, finally," he said, "you can't get around Bella's last words. We
know nothing of our own direct knowledge. We've been feeling around in
the dark, clutching at little things, and trying to figure it all out.
But, gentlemen," he paused to search the faces of his listeners, "Bella
knew the truth. Hers is no circumstantial evidence. With quick,
anguished breath, and life-blood ebbing from her, and eyeballs glazing,
she spoke the truth. With dark night coming on, and the death-rattle
in her throat, she raised herself weakly and pointed a shaking finger
at the accused, thus, and she said, 'Him, him, him. St. Vincha, him do
it.'"
With Bill Brown's finger still boring into him, St. Vincent struggled
to his feet. His face looked old and gray, and he looked about him
speechlessly. "Funk! Funk!" was whispered back and forth, and not so
softly but what he heard. He moistened his lips repeatedly, and his
tongue fought for articulation. "It is as I have said," he succeeded,
finally. "I did not do it. Before God, I did not do it!" He stared
fixedly at John the Swede, waiting the while on his laggard thought.
"I . . . I did not do it . . . I did not . . . I . . . I did not."
He seemed to have become lost in some supreme meditation wherein John
the Swede figured largely, and as Frona caught him by the hand and
pulled him gently down, some man cried out, "Secret ballot!"
But Bill Brown was on his feet at once. "No! I say no! An open
ballot! We are men, and as men are not afraid to put ourselves on
record."
A chorus of approval greeted him, and the open ballot began. Man after
man, called upon by name, spoke the one word, "Guilty."
Baron Courbertin came forward and whispered to Frona. She nodded her
head and smiled, and he edged his way back, taking up a position by the
door. He voted "Not guilty" when his turn came, as did Frona and Jacob
Welse. Pierre La Flitche wavered a moment, looking keenly at Frona and
St. Vincent, then spoke up, clear and flute-like, "Guilty."
As the chairman arose, Jacob Welse casually walked over to the opposite
side of the table and stood with his back to the stove. Courbertin,
who had missed nothing, pulled a pickle-keg out from the wall and
stepped upon it.
The chairman cleared his throat and rapped for order. "Gentlemen," he
announced, "the prisoner--"
"Hands up!" Jacob Welse commanded peremptorily, and a fraction of a
second after him came the shrill "Hands up, gentlemen!" of Courbertin.
Front and rear they commanded the crowd with their revolvers. Every
hand was in the air, the chairman's having gone up still grasping the
mallet. There was no disturbance. Each stood or sat in the same
posture as when the command went forth. Their eyes, playing here and
there among the central figures, always returned to Jacob Welse.
St. Vincent sat as one dumfounded. Frona thrust a revolver into his
hand, but his limp fingers refused to close on it.
"Come, Gregory," she entreated. "Quick! Corliss is waiting with the
canoe. Come!"
She shook him, and he managed to grip the weapon. Then she pulled and
tugged, as when awakening a heavy sleeper, till he was on his feet.
But his face was livid, his eyes like a somnambulist's, and he was
afflicted as with a palsy. Still holding him, she took a step backward
for him to come on. He ventured it with a shaking knee. There was no
sound save the heavy breathing of many men. A man coughed slightly and
cleared his throat. It was disquieting, and all eyes centred upon him
rebukingly. The man became embarrassed, and shifted his weight
uneasily to the other leg. Then the heavy breathing settled down again.
St. Vincent took another step, but his fingers relaxed and the revolver
fell with a loud noise to the floor. He made no effort to recover it.
Frona stooped hurriedly, but Pierre La Flitche had set his foot upon
it. She looked up and saw his hands above his head and his eyes fixed
absently on Jacob Welse. She pushed at his leg, and the muscles were
tense and hard, giving the lie to the indifference on his face. St.
Vincent looked down helplessly, as though he could not understand.
But this delay drew the attention of Jacob Welse, and, as he tried to
make out the cause, the chairman found his chance. Without crooking,
his right arm swept out and down, the heavy caulking-mallet leaping
from his hand. It spanned the short distance and smote Jacob Welse
below the ear. His revolver went off as he fell, and John the Swede
grunted and clapped a hand to his thigh.
Simultaneous with this the baron was overcome. Del Bishop, with hands
still above his head and eyes fixed innocently before him, had simply
kicked the pickle-keg out from under the Frenchman and brought him to
the floor. His bullet, however, sped harmlessly through the roof. La
Flitche seized Frona in his arms. St. Vincent, suddenly awakening,
sprang for the door, but was tripped up by the breed's ready foot.
The chairman pounded the table with his fist and concluded his broken
sentence, "Gentlemen, the prisoner is found guilty as charged."