MAN AND WOMAN
A voyageur in the best physical trim would have found it fatiguing to
travel along the rough mountain slopes, breaking a path over fallen
snow crust, wallowing through deep, soggy drifts. Before he had
traveled a mile of his journey, Dexter found himself growing short of
breath, slipping and floundering more than a trained mountaineer
should. It took determination to push onward, but he kept going as
long as he could; until his head was reeling and his legs tottered
under him. The heavy pounding of his heart warned him at last, and
he had sense enough to quit. He was anxious to reach Devreaux, but
he must take his time about it.
It was an hour or more before sundown when he finally admitted that
he could go no farther. They made camp in the lee of a warm rock
ledge, the corporal helping to gather sticks to build the night fire.
The remains of the rabbit stew were heated, and as soon as he had
eaten his supper, Dexter rolled up in a blanket and almost instantly
dropped off into profound slumber. He slept all night like a dead
man, and did not awaken until the morning sun flooded upon him over
the eastern mountain peaks.
Every bone and muscle of his body was an aching torment, but he
forced himself to his feet, and as soon as possible he and Alison
resumed their northward journey. They moved by easy stages up the
valley that day, stopping at intervals for rest, and then pushing on
again a little farther. And some time during mid-afternoon they
crossed the flank of a forested hillslope, and caught a distant view
of Saddle Mountain, looming in pale white outline against the limpid
sky.
Complete exhaustion forced the corporal to call a halt at a point
five or six miles south of the double peaks, but he went to sleep
that evening with the assurance that he would be able to reach his
destination by noon of the following day.
Alison, for some reason, was in a subdued and quiet mood when they
set forth next morning to finish the last stage of their journey.
She answered the corporal's occasional remarks in the barest
monosyllables, but she kept closer at his side than usual; and
frequently, when she thought he was not looking, she would glance
stealthily towards him, from under veiling lashes, as though she had
grown curious to know what thoughts lurked behind the stern
immobility of his weather-bronzed face. Several times Dexter caught
her unawares, before she could turn her eyes away, and he gathered,
from her troubled expression, that there was something on her mind
that needed saying. It was not until they were climbing the last
slope across the base of Saddle Mountain, however, that she finally
broke the silence that had lasted between them all that morning.
"I wonder what you think of me?" she blurted out unexpectedly.
The suddenness of the question startled him. "Why--what do you mean?"
"You know what I mean!" She spoke in a voice tremulous with repressed
feeling. "But there's no need of asking. It's horrible--what I
realize you do think. And I can't--it's almost more than I can bear."
"Why, Alison," he began wonderingly, "you must know--"
She interrupted with a passionate gesture. "I do know. That
newspaper clipping you showed me--it's about me and my brother. We
ran away--yes. That much is true, but the rest of it is a lie--a
shameless lie. Neither Archie nor I had anything to do with my
uncle's--with the dreadful thing they charged. I'm telling you the
truth. I swear it's the truth!"
Dexter looked down grimly at the girl, steeling his heart against the
appeal of beseeching blue eyes. "It's been my experience," he
observed, "that innocent people as a rule do not run from the law."
"I know--I know!" she cried brokenly. "It looks bad not to stay, and
I wanted to stay and face it out. We never would have left home if
I'd had my way!"
"Well?" he asked mildly.
"As you read in the clipping," she went on in quick, overwrought
speech, "my uncle, our guardian, died, and it was found that a poison
had been given him. Archie and I were his heirs. We were--the
police discovered that we were the only ones in the household who had
easy access to his medicine. Archie had been foolishly playing the
market, had lost heavily, was in desperate financial straits. That
all came out, and--well, we got word that a murder indictment had
been brought by the grand jury. And Archie lost his head--saw no
hope of escape if he stayed--decided there was nothing to do but run
while he had the chance."
"He got together all the money he could," she added in a choking
voice; "he packed a bag, and left secretly in the night. But I had
been watching." She shook her head sadly. "Archie is younger than
I, the baby--I've got to say it--the weakling of the family. I knew
he would do the wrong thing. And I followed him and overtook him at
the station as he was about to board a west-bound train. I argued,
pleaded, begged him to stay and see it through. He was
afraid--desperately. I could do nothing with him, and so at the
end--there was nothing for me to do but get on the train and go with
him. He's always needed looking after, and at the last--well, I had
to stand by him. I couldn't let him go alone."
"Believing him innocent, of course," Dexter remarked dryly.
Alison threw up her head and confronted her companion with flashing
eyes. "I know he is innocent!" she declared passionately. "I didn't
even ask him to swear to me. I've known him all his life, and I know
he's utterly incapable of that crime--of any crime. I've never
blinded myself to his weaknesses, but I know also that he could never
have done this thing."
"In any event," observed the corporal, walking onward with a slow,
deliberate stride, "he lacked the courage of innocence, and cleared
out. I suppose he had already bargained with one of Stark's agents
to help him escape through the Canadian wilderness."
"With--what do you mean?" asked the girl sharply.
"I know all about Stark and his organization for fugitive criminals,"
Dexter said. "I'd already suspected the existence of an underground
railroad, running through this country." His lips twisted into a
fleeting smile. "And Stark himself did me the honor to tell me the
details of his business--when he thought I was doomed to certain
death."
"In that case," said Alison after a little pause, "I'm not
betraying--Yes: one of Stark's men came to Archie in his trouble. He
offered the chance of escape, took all the money Archie had left and
Stark has helped us this far on our way.
"It's--I can't ask you to have my faith in Archie," the girl resumed
after a momentary pause. "It isn't about him that I really want to
talk, but--" She glanced towards Dexter with a timidity that he had
never before seen in her eyes. "It's about the night you found me at
that cabin where--where the men were killed."
"Yes?" he urged as she hesitated.
Alison's rounded chin set resolutely. It was apparent that there was
something she had decided to say, and she did not propose to mince
matters. "You told me that you heard a woman's voice in that cabin
over yonder, just before the two men were shot in their bunks. You
say there were no footprints near the place beside my own. So by
police logic you arrive at the only deduction that fits the case. I
must have fired the shots."
They had climbed the southward slope leading across the foot of
Saddle Mountain, and were now making their way over a stretch of
rough, furrowed ground along the edge of the open plateau. Dexter
absently offered his hand to steady the girl's steps across a
slippery outcropping of rock. "You came to that cabin that night
from the cabin farther up the valley, where I afterwards found your
brother," he stated with thoughtfully knitting brows. "Why did you
make that journey alone at such an hour?"
"To find help for Archie," she answered. "You saw him yourself next
day, and know how badly he needed it. I didn't know what to do for
him, and so I went down the valley to the lower cabin, looking for
some one who might know more about such matters than I."
"Who in particular?" the corporal persisted.
"Anybody who might have been there. What difference did it make who,
as long as he could do something to relieve Archie of his pain?"
Dexter eyed the girl covertly for a space as she walked at his elbow.
"Did you know a man named Mudgett?" he inquired.
"I don't remember seeing such a person, but I think I'd heard the
name."
"One of Stark's gang, wasn't he?"
"Why, possibly he and Mr. Stark were associated in some way. I'm not
positive though."
"Who was Mudgett's companion that night--small, swarthy, hook-beaked
chap with sullen black eyes?"
"I don't recall seeing any man who answers that description," Alison
asserted.
"He and Mudgett were the two who were shot," Dexter said, as he
keenly scrutinized her sensitive features.
The girl nodded slowly, without speaking.
"You had no feelings against either of these men? They didn't know
anything you were afraid they might tell?"
Alison's face blanched under her companion's merciless gaze, and he
saw it was all she could do to keep back her tears. "Oh, what
could--I swear to you--I didn't know either of them, even by sight.
So why would I--what motive could there be?"
"I've been asking myself that question for months," Dexter observed.
"The motive? All I know is that the woman's voice I heard talking in
that dark cabin said something about dead tongues never talking. The
few fragments of speech suggested the idea that either fear or
vengeance had much to do with the tragedy. You have no notion of
what it all meant?"
"No!" she moaned. "How could I? I don't know anything more than you
yourself have told me."
The corporal strode along for a distance in meditative silence,
soberly watching the ground underfoot. Alison looked up at him, and
shook her head, and sighed. "It isn't that I'm hoping to influence
you in your duty," she said at last in a small, stifled voice. "I
don't think I---I'd want you to yield an inch from the straight line
as you see it, even if I could persuade you. And I know I couldn't.
I'm not asking anything, only--"
"Only what?" he asked as she failed to finish.
"I want you to believe that I have done nothing wrong," she said in
stumbling accents. "I know what I've got to go through later with
others, but if you didn't think evil of me, then I--it would make it
a little easier."
"You were the only woman in that section of the forest that night,"
Dexter stated dully, and deep lines of unhappiness were graven at the
corners of his mouth. "Can I deny the testimony of my own eyes and
ears? I was there, and saw and heard."
"Try to believe in me," she sobbed. "I--I'm not bad. Won't you try
to think that I'm not? Please!"
"As a man, I want to believe: you know that! But as a policeman--"
He turned his head aside for a moment to hide the anguish in his
face. "As a policeman," he went on somberly, "I've got to believe in
the evidence that I gather--in facts."
"Don't think of evidence now," she begged in a piteous voice.
"Think--try to think--just of me."
"I've done little else but that, Alison, since the first night I saw
you," he told her with a faint, sad smile.
"Then--" She caught her breath with a quivering sound. "Look at me,
David!" Her hand fluttered towards him and touched his wrist. "Look!"
Slowly he turned, and found himself gazing deep into her
eyes--straight-seeing eyes, clear and soft blue as violets--eyes
overflowing with womanly sweetness, giving back his glance, unafraid
and unashamed.
"Do you believe?" she whispered.
He gazed long and searchingly, and somehow all sense of doubting left
him. "I do!" he declared suddenly, in a straining voice. "I've got
to. What else can I do? It's impossible not to believe the truth
when you see it. I believe in you."
"Oh!" she said with a full-drawn sigh, and Dexter saw the sparkle of
tears in her eyes as her lashes slowly closed. "That's all I
wanted," she breathed.
"Alison!" he cried. He swayed towards her, impelled by an
overwhelming desire to touch her, to feel her nearness, to draw her
into the comforting circle of his arm. "Alison!"
The girl lifted her head to face him, seeing the look he gave her,
and she did not move away. "Yes," she said, so low he barely heard.
He stood for an instant in wavering silence, and then all at once he
caught himself with a startled movement. The muscles of his body
stiffened, and the inflexible line of his jaw reasserted itself.
"There's nothing we can do about it," he said.
They had halted for a moment on the open plateau, standing in knee
deep snow; but now Dexter turned with heavy steps and started to
break his way forward once more through the drift. Alison at once
caught pace with him.
"I hadn't asked you to do anything about it," she reminded him
quietly.
Dexter gave no sign of hearing her, but went on in a ruminative
voice, following the train of his own thoughts. "I must take you to
the fort with me, and lay all our data before the commissioner. What
I may feel in my heart, and what the logic of the law decides, are
two different matters. I'm still a policeman, Alison, whatever else
I may be, and I'm going through straight--clean."
"Listen!" the girl interrupted sharply. She threw up her chin, and
there was a compelling quality in her tone that forced him to meet
her eyes. "I have asked for only one thing--just blind, honest
faith. You have given it to me. Don't spoil it, David, please!
I've asked for nothing else."
"I didn't exactly mean it that way," Dexter said unsteadily.
"I hope you didn't," she returned, "because--I know as well as you
know that you could never do anything that wasn't absolutely right in
your own mind. If you ever failed in a trust you wouldn't be you."
She smiled wanly. "And then--things wouldn't matter much one way or
another--would they?"
"Don't!" he protested. "Please! Let's not talk like this. Let's
try and find the way out somehow."
They were not more than fifty yards from the coppice where the
entrance of the bear cave was hidden. If Devreaux were at home a
shout would have reached him, but the corporal for the time being had
forgotten the existence of his commanding officer, and did not think
to announce himself. He trudged along with bent head, weighed in
profoundest thought. But at last the scowl cleared from his face,
and he looked up intense and eager.
"I'll tell you!" he exclaimed. "Here's what we can do!"
"What?" The girl stared at him, apparently a little frightened by his
sudden vehemence.
"My enlistment expires this spring," he declared. "I won't reenlist."
"Then what?" she asked, a strange limpness sounding in her voice.
"Why, then, I'll be my own man, of course."
"You won't be your own man until you've discharged your present
duties," Alison said with a quick, sidewise glance.
"Of course not," he agreed. "I'll have to take you to the fort and
turn you over. They're decent chaps down there. They'll make it as
easy as possible for you--"
"Oh, I see," Alison interrupted. "I didn't quite understand what you
meant."
"Just this," he plunged on--"I come back here as a free agent.
There's a mystery in all this business that we haven't even begun to
fathom. The facts as they stand make things look very black for you,
but we'll get at the bottom of the affair somehow. I'll work day and
night. I'll never rest until I dig out the truth. You've forced me
against my reason to believe in you absolutely, and with such faith
to back me, I know that I cannot fail!"
Dexter had entered the thicket beyond the treeless plateau, and was
picking his way absentmindedly over the broken ground. The entrance
of the cave was only a few paces distant, concealed behind a clump of
bushes. As he skirted the fringe of underbrush, he discovered a
trail of freshly made boot prints. The sight of the footmarks
recalled him sharply to himself, and for the first time in the last
half hour he thought of Devreaux. The colonel evidently was
somewhere about, still waiting for his return.
Forcing his way through the screening branches, he reached the foot
of the mountain slope and stood before the dark mouth of the cave.
The line of footprints went inside. "Colonel Devreaux!" he called.
"Oh, colonel!"
Nobody replied. But as he bent forward to look into the opening, he
caught a sudden movement in the gloom, and the next instant a human
figure loomed into view, and Dexter found himself staring full in the
muzzle of a leveled rifle.
"Hands up!" commanded a sharp, high-pitched voice.
The corporal stood stock-still, gazing in blank amazement at the face
that peered at him from behind the rifle sights. And all at once he
recognized the unexpected intruder, and he caught his breath in
wonderment. The man was Alison's brother, Archie.