A few moments later Philip heard the movement of heavy feet, the opening
and closing of a door, and for a time after that there was silence. Had
MacGregor anticipated this, he wondered? Was this a part of the program
which the inspector had foreseen that he would play? His blood warmed
at the thought and he clenched his fists. Then he began to think more
calmly. His captors had not relieved him of his weapons. They had placed
his service cap in the box with him and had unbuckled his cartridge belt
so that he would rest more comfortably. What did all this mean? For the
hundredth time he asked himself the question.
Returning footsteps interrupted his thoughts. The cabin door opened,
people entered, again he heard whispering voices.
He strained his ears. At first he could have sworn that he heard the
soft, low tones of a woman's voice, but they were not repeated. Hands
caught hold of the box, dragged it across the floor, and then he felt
himself lifted bodily, and, after a dozen steps, placed carefully upon
some object in the snow. His amazement increased when he understood what
was occurring.
He was on a sledge. Through the air-holes in his prison he heard the
scraping of strap-thongs as they were laced through the runner-slits and
over the box, the restless movement of dogs, a gaping whine, the angry
snap of a pair of jaws. Then, slowly, the sledge began to move. A whip
cracked loudly above him, a voice rose in a loud shout, and the dogs
were urged to a trot. Again there came to Philip's ears the wheezing
notes of the accordion. By a slight effort he found that he could turn
his head sufficiently to look through a hole on a level with his eyes in
the side of the box. The sledge had turned from the dark trail into the
lighted street, and stopped at last before a brilliantly lighted front
from which there issued the sound of coarse voices, of laughter and
half-drunken song.
One of his captors went into the bar while the other seated himself on
the box, with one leg shutting out Philip's vision by dangling it over
the hole through which he was looking.
“What's up, Fingy?” inquired a voice.
“Wekusko,” replied the man on the box, in the husky, flesh-smothered
tones of the person who had entered last into the cabin.
“Another dead one up there, eh?” persisted the same voice.
“No. Maps 'n' things f'r Hodges, up at the camp. Devil of a hurry, ain't
he, to order us up at night? Tell ---- to hustle out with the bottle,
will you?”
The speaker sent the lash of his whip snapping through the air in place
of supplying a name.
“Maps and things--for Hodges--Wekusko!” gasped Philip inwardly.
He listened for further information. None came, and soon the man called
Fingy jumped from the box, cracked his whip with a wheezing command to
the dogs, and the sledge moved on.
And so his captors were taking him to Wekusko?--and more than that,
to Hodges, chief of construction, whose life had been attempted by the
prisoner whom Inspector MacGregor had ordered him to bring down!
Had Fingy spoken the truth? And, if so, was this another part of the
mysterious plot foreseen by the inspector?
During the next half hour, in which the sledge traveled steadily over
the smooth, hard trail into the north, Philip asked himself these and
a score of other questions equally perplexing. He was certain that the
beautiful young woman whom he had followed had purposely lured him into
the ambush. He considered himself her prisoner. Then why should he be
consigned, like a parcel of freight, to Hodges, her husband's accuser,
and the man who demanded the full penalty of the law for his assailant?
The more he added to the questions that leaped into his mind the more
mystified he became. The conflicting orders, the strange demeanor of his
chief, the pathetic appeal that he had seen in the young woman's eyes,
the ambush, and now this unaccountable ride to Wekusko, strapped in a
coffin box, all combined to plunge him into a chaos of wonder from which
it was impossible for him to struggle forth. However, he assured himself
of two things; he was comparatively comfortable, and within two hours at
the most they would reach Hodges' headquarters, if the Wekusko camp were
really to be their destination. Something must develop then.
It had ceased to occur to him that there was peril in his strange
position. If that were so, would his captors have left him in possession
of his weapons, even imprisoned as he was? If they had intended him
harm, would they have cushioned his box and placed a pillow under his
head so that the cloth about his mouth would not cause him discomfort?
It struck him as peculiarly significant, now that he had suffered
no injury in the short struggle on the trail, that no threats or
intimidation had been offered after his capture. This was a part of the
game which he was to play! He became more and more certain of it as
the minutes passed, and there occurred to him again and again the
inspector's significant words, “Whatever happens!” MacGregor had spoken
the words with particular emphasis, had repeated them more than once.
Were they intended to give him a warning of this, to put him on his,
guard, as well as at his ease?
And with these thoughts, many, conflicting and mystifying, he found it
impossible to keep from associating other thoughts of Bucky Nome, and
of the woman whom he now frankly confessed to himself that he loved.
If conditions had been a little different, if the incidents had not
occurred just as they had, he have suspected the hand of Bucky Nome in
what was transpiring now. But he discarded that suspicion the instant
that it came to him. That which remained with him more and more deeply
as the minutes passed was a mental picture of the two women--of this
woman who was fighting to save her husband, and of the other, whom he
loved, and for whom he had fought to save her for her husband. It was
with a dull feeling of pain that he compared the love, the faith, and
the honor of this woman whose husband had committed a crime with that
one night's indiscretion of Mrs. Becker. It was in her eyes and face
that he had seen a purity like that of an angel, and the pain seemed to
stab him deeper when he thought that, after all, it was the criminal's
wife who was proving herself, not Mrs. Becker.
He strove to unburden his mind for a time, and turned his head so that
he could peer through the hole in the side of the box. The moon had
risen, and now and then he caught flashes of the white snow in the
opens, but more frequently only the black shadows of the forest through
which they were passing. They had not left Le Pas more than two hours
behind when the sledge stopped again and Philip saw a few scattered
lights a short distance away.
“Must be Wekusko,” he thought. “Hello, what's that?”
A voice came sharply from the opposite side of the box.
“Is that you, Fingy?” it demanded. “What the devil have you got there?”
“Your maps and things, sir,” replied Fingy hoarsely. “Couldn't come up
to-morrow, so thought we'd do it to-night.”
Philip heard the closing of a door, and footsteps crunched in the snow
close to his ears.
“Love o' God!” came the voice again. “What's this you've brought them up
in, Fingy?”
“Coffin box, sir. Only thing the maps'd fit into, and it's been layin'
around useless since MacVee kem down in it Mebby you can find use for
it, later,” he chuckled grewsomely. “Ho-ho-ho! mebby you can!”
A moment later the box was lifted and Philip knew that he was being
carried up a step and through a door, then with a suddenness that
startled him he found himself standing upright. His prison had been set
on end!
“Not that way, man,” objected Hodges, for Philip was now certain that
he was in the presence of the chief of construction. “Put it down--over
there in the corner.”
“Not on your life,” retorted Fingy, cracking his finger bones fiercely.
“See here. Mister Hodges, I ain't a coward, but I b'lieve in bein'
to the dead, 'n' to a box that's held one. It says on that red card,
'Head--This end up,' an', s'elp me, it's going to be up, unless you
put it down. I ain't goin' to be ha'nted by no ghosts! Ho, ho, ho--”
He approached close to the box. “I'll take this red card off, Mister
Hodges. It ain't nat'ral when there ain't nothing but maps 'n' things in
it.”
If the cloth had not been about his mouth, it is possible that Philip
would not have restrained audible expression of his astonishment at what
happened an instant later. The card was torn off, and a ray of light
shot into his eyes. Through a narrow slit not more than a quarter of an
inch wide, and six inches long, he found himself staring out into the
room. The Fingy was close behind him. And in the rear of these two,
as if eager for their departure, was Hodges, chief of construction.
No sooner had the men gone than Hodges turned back to the table in the
center of the office. It was not difficult for Philip to see that the
man's face was flushed and that he was laboring under some excitement.
He sat down, fumbled over some papers, rose quickly to his feet, looked
at his watch, and began pacing back and forth across the room.
“So she's coming,” he chuckled gleefully.
“She's coming, at last!” He looked at his watch again, straightened
his cravat before a mirror, and rubbed his hands with a low laugh. “The
little beauty has surrendered,” he went on, his face turning for an
instant toward the coffin box. “And it's time--past time.”
A light knock sounded at the door, and the chief sprang to open it. A
figure darted past him, and for but a breath a white, beautiful face was
turned toward Philip and his prison--the face of the young woman whom he
had seen but two hours before in Le Pas, the face that had pleaded with
him that night, that had smiled upon him from the photograph, and that
seemed to be masked now in a cold marble-like horror, as its glorious
eyes, like pools of glowing fire, seemed searching him out through that
narrow slit in the coffin box.
Hodges had advanced, with arms reaching out, and the woman turned with a
low, sobbing breath breaking from her lips.
Another step and Hodges would have taken her in his arms, but she evaded
him with a quick movement, and pointed to a chair at one side of the
table.
“Sit down!” she cried softly. “Sit down, and listen!”
Was it fancy, or did her eyes turn with almost a prayer in them to the
box against the wall? Philip's heart was beating like a drum. That one
word he knew was intended for him.
“Sit down,” she repeated, as Hodges hesitated. “Sit down--there--and I
will sit here. Before--before you touch me, I want an understanding. You
will let me talk, and listen--listen!”
Again that one word--“listen!”-Philip knew was intended for him.
The chief had dropped into his chair, and his visitor seated herself
opposite him, with her face toward Philip. She flung back the fur from
about her shoulders, and took off her fur turban, so that the light of
the big hanging lamp fell full upon the glory of her hair, and set
off more vividly the ivory pallor of her cheeks, in which a short time
before Philip had seen the rich crimson glow of life, and something that
was not fear.
“We must come to an understanding,” she repeated, fixing her eyes
steadily upon the man before her. “I would sacrifice my life for
him--for my husband--and you are demanding that I do more than that. I
must be sure of the reward!”
Hodges leaned forward eagerly, as if about to speak, but she interrupted
him.
“Listen!” she cried, a fire beginning to burn through the whiteness
of her cheeks. “It was you who urged him to come up here when, through
misfortune, we lost our little home down in Marion. You offered him
work, and he accepted it, believing you a friend. He still thought you
a friend when I knew that you were a traitor, planning and scheming
to wreck his life, and mine. He would not listen when I spoke to him,
without arousing his suspicions, of my abhorrence of you. He trusted
you. He was ready to fight for you. And you--you--”
In her excitement the young woman's hands gripped the edges of the
table. For a few moments her breath seemed to choke her, and then she
continued, her voice trembling with passion.
“And you--you followed me about like a serpent, making every hour of
my life one of misery, because he believed in you, and I dared not tell
him. So I kept it from him--until that night you came to our cabin when
he was away, and dared to take me in your arms, to kiss me, and I--I
told him then, and he hunted you down and would have killed you if
there hadn't been others near to give you help. My God, I love him more
because of that! But I was wrong. I should have killed you!”
She stopped, her breath breaking in a sob.
With a sudden movement Hodges sprang from his chair and came toward her,
his face flushed, his lips smiling; but, quicker than he, Thorpe's wife
was upon her feet, and from his prison Philip saw the rapid rising and
falling of her bosom, the threatening fire in her beautiful eyes as she
faced him.
“Ah, but you are beautiful!” he heard the man say.
With a cry, in which there was mingled all the passion and gloating joy
of triumph, Hodges caught her in his arms. In that moment every vein in
Philip's body seemed flooded with fire. He saw the woman's face again,
now tense and white in an agony of terror, saw her struggle to free
herself, heard the smothered cry that fell from her lips. For the first
time he strained to free himself, to cry out through the thick bandage
that gagged him. The box trembled. His mightiest effort almost sent it
crashing to the floor. Sweating, powerless, he looked again through the
narrow slit. In the struggle the woman's hair had loosened, and tumbled
now in shining masses down her back. Her hands were gripping at Hodges'
throat. Then one of them crept down to her bosom, and with that movement
there came a terrible, muffled report. With a groan the chief staggered
back and sank to the floor.
For a moment, stupefied by what she had done, Thorpe's wife stood with
smoking pistol in her hand, gazing upon the still form at her feet.
Then, slowly, like one facing a terrible accuser, she turned straight
to the coffin box. The weapon that she held fell to the floor. Without a
tremor in her beautiful face she went to one side of the room, picked
up a small belt-ax, and began prying off the cover to Philip's prison.
There was still no hesitation, no tremble of fear in her face or hands
when the cover gave way and Philip stood revealed, his face as white as
her own and bathed in a perspiration of excitement and horror. Calmly
she took away the cloth about his mouth, loosened the straps about his
legs and arms and body, and then she stood back, still speechless, her
hands clutching at her bosom while she waited for him to step forth.
His first movement was to fall upon his knees beside Hodges. He bowed
his head, listened, and held his hand under the man's waistcoat. Then
he looked up. The woman was bending over him, her eyes meeting his own
unflinchingly.
“He is dead!” he said quietly.
“Yes, my brother, he is dead!”
The sweet, low tones of the woman's voice rose scarcely above a whisper.
The meaning of her words sank into his very soul.
“My sister--” he repeated, hardly knowing that the words were on his
lips. “My--”
“Or--your wife,” she interrupted, and her hand rested gently for a
moment upon his shoulder. “Or your wife--what would you have had her
do?”
Her voice--the gentleness of her touch, sent his mind flashing back to
that other tragic moment in a little cabin far north, when he had almost
killed a man, and for less than this that he had heard and seen. It
seemed, for an instant, as though the voice so near to him was coming,
faintly, pleadingly, from that other woman at Lac Bain--the woman
who had almost caused a tragedy similar to this, only with the sexes
changed. He would have excused Colonel Becker for killing Bucky Nome,
for defending his own honor and his wife's. And here--now--was a woman
who had fought and killed for her own honor, and to save her husband.
His sister--his wife--Would he have had them do this? Would he have Mrs.
Becker, the woman he loved, defend her honor as this woman had defended
hers? Would he not have loved her ten times--a hundred times--more for
doing so?
He rose to his feet, making an effort to steel himself against the
justice of what he had seen--against the glory of love, of womanhood, of
triumph which he saw shining in her eyes.
“I understand now,” he said. “You had me brought here--in this way--that
I might hear what was said, and use it as evidence. But--”
“Oh, my God, I did not mean to do this,” she cried, as if knowing what
he was about to say. “I thought that if he betrayed his vileness to
you--if he knew that the world would know, through you, how he had
attempted to destroy a home, and how he offered my husband's freedom in
exchange for--but you saw, you heard, you must understand! He would not
dare to go on when he knew that all this would become public. My husband
would have been free. But now--”
“You have killed him,” said Philip.
There was no sympathy in his voice. It was the cold, passionless
accusation of a man of the law, and the woman bowed her face in her
hands. He put on his service cap, tightened his belt, and touched her
gently on the arm.
“Do you know where your husband is confined?” he asked. “I will take you
there, and you may remain with him to-night.”
She brightened instantly. “Yes,” she said.
“Come!”
They passed through the door, closing it carefully behind them, and the
woman led the way to a dark, windowless building a hundred yards from
the dead chief's headquarters.
“This is the camp prison,” she whispered.
A man clad in a great bear-skin coat was on guard at the door. In the
moonlight he recognized Philip's uniform.
“Here are orders from the inspector,” said Philip, holding out
MacGregor's letter. “I am to have charge of the prisoner. Mrs. Thorpe is
to spend the night with him.”
A moment later the door was opened and the woman passed in. As he turned
away Philip heard a low sobbing cry, a man's startled voice. Then the
door swung heavily on its hinges and there was silence.
Five minutes later Philip was bending again over the dead man. A
surprising transformation had come over him now. His face was flushed
and his strong teeth shone in sneering hatred as he covered the body
with a blanket. On the wall hung a pair of overalls and a working-man's
heavy coat. These and Hodges' hat he quickly put on in place of his own
uniform. Once more he went out into the night.
This time he came up back of the prison. The guard was pacing back and
forth in his beaten path, so thickly muffled about the ears that he did
not hear Philip's cautious footsteps behind him. When he turned he found
the muzzle of a revolver within arm's length of his face.
“Hands up!” commanded Philip.
The astonished man obeyed without a word.
“If you make a move or the slightest sound I'll kill you!” continued
Philip threateningly. “Drop your hands behind you--there, like that!”
With the quickness and skill which he had acquired under Sergeant Moody
he secured the guard's wrists with one of the coffin box straps, and
gagged him with the same cloth that had been used upon himself. He had
observed that his prisoner carried the key to the padlocked cabin in one
of his coat pockets, and after possessing himself of this he made him
seat himself in the deep shadow, strapped his ankles, and then unlocked
the prison door.
There was a light inside, and from beyond this the white faces of the
man and the woman stared at him as he entered. The man was leaning back
in his cot, and Philip knew that the wife had risen suddenly, for one
arm was still encircling his shoulders, and a hand was resting on his
cheek as if she had been stroking it caressingly when he interrupted
them. Her beautiful, startled eyes gazed at him half defiantly now.
He advanced into the light, took off his hat, and smiled.
With a cry Thorpe's wife sprang to her feet.
“Sh-h-h-h-h!” warned Philip, raising a hand and pointing to the door
behind them.
Thorpe had risen. Without a word Philip advanced and held out his hand.
Only half understanding, the prisoner reached forth his own. As, for
an instant, the two men stood in this position, one smiling, the other
transfixed with wonder, there came a stifled, sobbing cry from behind.
Philip turned. The woman stood in the lamp glow, her arms reaching out
to him--to both--and never, not even at Lac Bain, had he seen a woman
more beautiful than Thorpe's wife at that moment.
As if nothing had happened, he went to the table, where there was a pen
and ink and a pad of paper.
“Perhaps your wife hasn't told you everything that has happened
to-night, Thorpe,” he said. “If she hasn't, she will--soon. Now,
listen!”
He had pulled a small book from an inner pocket and was writing.
“My name is Steele, Philip Steele, of the Royal Mounted. Down in Chicago
I've got a father, Philip Egbert Steele, a banker, who's worth half a
dozen millions or so. You're going down to him as fast as dog-sledge and
train can carry you, and you'll give him this note. It says that your
name is Johnson, and that for my sake he's going to put you on
your feet, so that it is going to be pretty blamed comfortable for
yourself--and the noblest little woman I've ever met. Do you understand,
Thorpe?”
He looked up. Thorpe's wife had gone to her husband. She stood now, half
in his arms, and looking at him; as they were, they reminded him of a
couple who had played the finale in a drama which he had seen a year
before.
“There is one favor which you must do me, Thorpe,” he went on. “At
home I am rich. Up here I'm only Phil Steele, of the Royal Mounted. I'm
telling you so that you won't think that I'm stripping myself when I
make you take this. It's a little ready cash, and a check for a thousand
dollars. Some day, if you want to, you can pay it back. Now hustle
up and get on your clothes. I imagine that your friends are somewhere
near--with the sledge that brought me up from Le Pas. Tomorrow, of
course, I shall be compelled to take up the pursuit. But if you hurry I
don't believe that I shall catch you.”
He rose and put on his hat, leaving the money and the check on the
table. The woman staggered toward him, the man following in a dazed,
stunned sort of way. He saw the woman's arms reaching out to him again,
a look in her beautiful face that he would never forget.
In another moment he had opened the door and was gone.