_A deed accursed! Strokes have been struck before
By the assassin's hand, whereof men doubt
If more of horror or disgrace they bore;
But this foul crime, like Cain's, stands darkly out._
THOMAS TAYLOR
Hastily dressing, the two policemen mounted and took the trail once more.
Side by side as they rode along, in each man's heart was an estimate of
the other vastly different from that with which they started out that
memorable morning.
Yorke, his spirits now fully recovered, became quite companionably
communicative, relating picturesque, racy stories of India, the Yukon,
and other countries he had known. George, in receptive mood, listened in
silent appreciation to one of the most fascinating _raconteurs_ he had
ever met in his young life. Incidentally he felt relieved as he noted
his comrade now tactfully avoiding morbid egotism--dwelling but lightly
upon the milestones that marked his chequered career.
The bodily stiffness and soreness, consequent upon their recent bout, was
now well-nigh forgotten, though occasionally they laughingly rallied each
other as the sharp air stung their bruised faces. They were just
surmounting the summit of a long, steep grade in the trail.
Said Redmond dubiously: "See here; look! I'm darned if I like getting
the freedom of the City of Cow Run sportin' such a pretty mug as this!
How many more miles to this giddy burg, old thing?"
Yorke grinned unfeelingly. "Hard on nine miles to go yet. We're about
half way. _Isch ga bibble_! . . . open your ditty-box and sing! you
blooming whip-poor-will."
"A werry heart goes all the way,
But a sad one tires in a mile a';
A--"
The old lilt died on his lips. With a startled oath he reined in sharply
and, shielding his eyes from the sun-glare, remained staring straight in
front of him. They had just topped the crest of the rise. The eastward
slope showed a low-lying, undulating stretch of snow-bound country,
sparsely dotted with clumps of poplar and alder growth, through which the
trail wound snake-like into the fainter distance. Southwards, below the
rolling, shelving benches, lay the river, a steaming black line, twisting
interminably between frosty, bush-fringed banks.
No less startled than his companion, Redmond pulled up also and stared
with him. Not far distant on the trail ahead of them they beheld a dark,
ominous-looking mass, vividly conspicuous against the snow. Suddenly the
object moved and resolved itself unmistakably into a horse struggling to
rise. For an instant they saw the head and the fore-part of the body
lift, and then flop prone again. Close against it lay another dark
object.
"Horse down!" snapped Yorke tersely. "Hell!" he added, "looks like a man
there, too! come on quick!"
Responding to a shake of the lines and a fierce thrust of the spurs,
their horses leapt forward and they raced towards their objective.
"Steady! steady!" hissed Yorke, checking his mount as they drew near the
fallen animal and its rider, "pull Fox a bit, Red! Mustn't scare the
horse!"
Slackening into a walk, they flung out of saddle, dropped their lines,
crouched, and crept warily forward. The horse, a big, splendid
seal-brown animal, had fallen on its right side, with its off fore-leg
plunged deep in a snow-filled badger-hole. The body of the man lay also
on the off-side with one leg under his mount. The stiffened form was a
ghastly object to behold, being literally encased in an armour-like shell
of frozen, claret-coloured snow.
At the approach of the would-be rescuers the poor brute whinnied
pitifully and made another ineffectual attempt to rise. Yorke flung
himself onto the head and held it down, while George dived frantically
for the man's body, and tugged until he had got the leg from under.
"Hung up! by God!" gasped the former, "his foot's well-nigh through the
stirrup!"
Redmond, ex-medical student, made swift examination. "Dead!" he
pronounced with finality, "Good God! dead as a herring! The man's been
dragged and kicked to death!" He made a futile effort to release the
imprisoned foot.
"No! no!" cried Yorke sharply, "no use doing that if he's dead.
Coroner's got to view things as they are."
The horse began to struggle again painfully. Peering down the
badger-hole they could see the broken bone of its leg protruding bloodily
through the skin. Yorke released one hand and reached for his gun.
"Poor old chap!" he said, "we'll fix you. Quick Red! pull the body as
far back as the stirrup-legadeiro'll go! That'll do! There, old
boy! . . ."
And with practised hand he sent a merciful bullet crashing through brain
and spinal cord. The hind legs threshed awhile, but presently, with a
muscular quiver they stiffened and all was still. Yorke, releasing his
hold struggled to his feet, and the two men stared pityingly at what lay
before them. What those merciless, steel-shod hoofs had left of the head
and the youthful body indicated a man somewhere in his twenties. His
ice-bound outer clothing consisted of black Angora goatskin chaps and a
short sheepskin coat.
"Can't place him--like this," muttered Yorke, after prolonged scrutiny,
"but I seem to know the horse."
Suddenly he uttered a sharp exclamation--something between a groan and a
cry. Redmond, startled at a new horror apparent on the other's ghastly
face, clutched him by the arm.
"What's up?" he queried tensely.
Yorke struggled to speak. "Fox!" he gasped presently--"this
morning. . . . I never told you. My God!--You might have got hung up
like this, too."
"No! no! Yorkey!" Redmond almost shouted the disclaimer, "Slavin wised
me up to that trick of his yesterday. I forgot. It was my own fault I
got piled like that. Forget it, old man! I say forget it!"
He shook the other's arm with a sort of savage gentleness.
A look of vague relief dawned on Yorke's haggard face. "Ay, so!" he
murmured, and paused with brooding indecision. "That's absolved my
conscience some, but not altogether."
They remained silent awhile after this. Presently Yorke pulled
himself together and spoke briskly and decisively. "Well, now! we'll
have to get busy. Blair's place is only about three miles from
here--nor'east--they're on the long-distance 'phone. Doctor Cox of Cow
Run's the coroner for this district. If I can get hold of him I'll get
him to come out right-away--and I'll notify Slavin."
Catching up his horse he swung into the saddle. "I'll be back here on
the jump. You stick around, and say, Reddy, you might as well have a
dekko at the lay of things while you're waiting. Where he came off the
perch, how far he's been dragged, and all that. Be careful though, keep
well to the side and don't foul up the tracks. And don't get too far
away, either!"
He galloped off and soon disappeared over a distant rise. Left to
himself George mounted Fox and set to work to follow out the senior
constable's instructions.
"Well?" queried Yorke, swinging wearily out of his saddle an hour or so
later, "How'd you make out? Find the place where he flopped? Rum sort
of perch you've got there--you look like Patience on a monument!"
George, seated upon the rump of the dead horse, nodded and grunted
laconic response: "Sure. 'Bout two miles down the trail there. How'd
you get along, Yorkey? Did you raise Slavin and the coroner?"
"Got Slavin all hunkadory," said the senior constable briefly, "he should
be here soon, now. Dr. Cox'd just left for Wilson's, two miles this side
of Cow Run. They're on the 'phone, too; so I left word there for him to
come on here right away." He seated himself alongside the other.
Awhile they carried on a desultory, more or less speculative conversation
anent the fatality, until they grew morbidly weary of contemplating the
poor broken body. Yorke slid off the dead horse suddenly.
"Wish Slavin were here!" he said, "let's take a dekko from the top of the
rise, Reddy, see'f we can see him coming. I'm getting cold sitting here."
Redmond, nothing loath, complied. Mounting, they turned back to the
summit of the ridge. Reaching it, the jingle of bells smote their ears,
and they espied the Police cutter approaching them at a rapid pace.
"Like unto Jehu, the son of Nimshi!" murmured Yorke, "he's sure springing
old T and B up the grade."
Sergeant Slavin pulled up his smoking team along-side his two mounted
subordinates. "So ho, bhoys!" was his greeting, "fwhat's this bizness?"
Yorke rapidly acquainted him with all the details. At one point in his
narration he had occasion to turn to George: "That's how it was, Reddy?"
And the latter replied, "That's about the lay of it, Yorkey."
The sergeant listened, but absently. To them it did not seem exactly to
be an occasion for levity; but they could have sworn that, behind an
exaggerated grimness of mien, he was striving to suppress some inward
mirth, as his deep-set Irish eyes roved from face to face.
"Yez luk as if yez had been hung up an' dhragged tu--th' pair av yez," he
remarked casually.
Remembrance smote the two culprits. They exchanged guilty glances and
swallowed the home-thrust in silence.
Slavin clucked to his team. "Walk-_march_, thin!" said he.
Wheeling sharply about, they started down the trail again, the cutter
following in their wake. If their consciences would have permitted them
to glance back they would have remarked their superior's face registering
unholy delight.
Out of the corner of his mouth Redmond shot, tensely, "Dye think he--"
"Oh!" broke in Yorke resignedly, sotto voce. "You can't fool him! . . .
_Isch ga bibble_, anyway!"
"Yorkey!" an' "Reddy!" that worthy was mumbling tu himself--over and over
again, "_Yorkey_!" an' "_Reddy_!" "'Tis so they name each other--now!
Blarney me sowl! 'Tis come about! Fifty-fifty, tu--from th' mugs av
thim. Peace, perfect peace, in th' fam'ly at last! Eyah! I wud have
given me month's pay-cheque for a ring-side seat." He sighed deeply.
They reached the fatal spot. Slavin, his levity gone, stepped out of the
cutter and, retaining the lines of his restive team, stared long at the
gruesome spectacle before him, with a sort of callous sadness.
"These tu must have lain here th' night," he remarked, indicating the
frost-rimed forms, "have yez sized things up? Got th' lay av fwhere ut
happened?"
Redmond made affirmative response.
"Can you place him, Sergeant?" queried Yorke.
"Eyah! Onless I am vastly mishtuk. Whoa, now! shtand still, ye fules!
Fwhat yez a-scared av? Here, Yorkey! hold T an' B a minnut!"
He pushed over his lines to the latter and, producing a pair of
leather-cased brand-inspector's clippers, he cropped bare a circular
patch on the defunct horse's nigh shoulder. Shorn of the thick,
seal-brown winter hair, the brand was now plainly visible. Enlightenment
came to Yorke in a flash, as he peered over his superior's shoulder.
"D Two!" he gasped, "I knew I'd seen that horse somewhere! It's
'Duster,' Larry Blake's horse. Tchkk! this must be him. My God!"
"Shure!" snapped Slavin testily. "Wake up! Is yeh're mem'ry goin', man?
One av yeh're own cases last month, tu!" He tenderly pocketed the
clippers. "Yes! ye shud know him!"--dryly--"lukked troo th' bottom av a
glass wid him often enough."
"Let's see'f he's got any letters or anything in his pockets--to make
sure!" began Redmond eagerly. Suiting the action to the word he bent
down to investigate. But Slavin intruded a huge arm. "Hould on, bhoy!"
he said, with all an old policeman's fussiness over rightful procedure.
"Du not touch! That is th' coroner's bizness. Did they not dhrill that
inta yeh at Regina?"
He stared thoughtfully at the corpse. "Dhrink an' th' divil! eyah!
dhrink an' th' divil!"--sadly. "Larry, me pore bhoy! niver more will ye
come a-whoopin' ut out av Cow Run on yeh 'Duster' horse . . .
shpiflicated belike an' singin' 'Th' Brisk Young Man." Austerely he
glanced at Yorke, "'Tis a curse, this same dhrink!"
"How do you know the poor beggar was drunk?" queried the latter, a trifle
sulkily. "He may have been as sober as you or I."
"Shpeak for yehsilf!" retorted Slavin dryly, "Ah! this must be Docthor
Cox comin' now!"
A cutter containing two men was approaching them rapidly. Presently it
drew up alongside the group and a short, rotund gentleman, clad in furs,
sprang out and came swiftly, bag in hand. He was middle-aged, with a
gray moustache and kind, alert, dark eyes. Greeting the policemen
quietly, he turned to the broken body.
"Tchkk! good God!" He shook his head sadly. Redmond thought he had
never seen a medical man so unprofessionally shocked. Presently he
straightened up and turned to Slavin. "Can you identify him, Sergeant?"
That worthy nodded. "Eyah! 'tis Larry Blake, I'm thinking Docthor. Best
frisk him now an' see, I guess. Maybe he has letthers."
Hastily diving into his bag the coroner produced a pair of long keen
scissors and slit the short, frozen sheepskin coat. In the breast-pocket
of the coat underneath, amongst other miscellany two old letters rewarded
his search. He glanced at the superscriptions and handed them up to
Slavin.
"Larry Blake it is," he said. He felt the soggy, pulped head. "Skull's
stove right in. Any one of these smashes would have sufficed to kill
him." He clipped the hair around a ghastly gaping crevice at the base of
the head.
Suddenly he peered closely, uttered an exclamation, peered again and drew
back. "Sergeant!" he said sharply, "D'ye see that?--No need to ask you
what that is!" In an unbroken portion of the back of the skull he
indicated a small, circular orifice. The trio craned forward and made
minute examination. Slavin ejaculated an oath and glanced up at
Yorke--almost remorsefully.
"I take ut all back," he said. Meeting the coroner's blank, enquiring
stare he added: "Booze, Docthor--we thought ut might be. . . . Yeh know
Larry!"
The physician of Cow Run nodded understandingly. Slavin bent again and
made close scrutiny of the bullet-hole. "_Back_ av th' head, no powdher
marks!" He straightened up. "Docther, are ye thru? All right, thin!
Guess we'll book up an' start in."
Methodically they all produced note-books and entered the needful
particulars. The lanky individual who had driven the coroner out brought
forward a tarpaulin and spread it on the ground. With some difficulty
the over-shoed foot was disengaged from the imprisoning stirrup, the body
rolled in the tarpaulin and deposited in the rear of the doctor's cutter.
The saddle and bridle were flung into the Police cutter. They then
rolled the dead horse clear of the trail.
That night the coyotes held grim, snarling carnival.
Slavin turned to Redmond. "Ye've located th' place, eh?" The latter
nodded. "All right, thin, get mounted, th' tu av yez, an' lead on!"
Keeping needfully wide of the broad, claret-bespotted swath in the snow,
the party started trailing back. Yorke and George rode ahead. The
latter glanced around to make sure of being out of earshot of their
sergeant.
"We-ll of all the hardened old cases! . . . Slavin sure does crown 'em!"
he muttered to his comrade.
"Hardened!" Yorke laughed grimly. "You should have seen him up in the
Yukon! The man's been handling these rotten morgue cases 'till he'd
qualify for the Seine River Police. He's got so he ascribes well-nigh
everything now to 'dhrink an' th' divil.'" His face softened, "but I
know the real heart of old Burke under it all."
About two miles down the trail Redmond halted.
"Here it is!" he said. And he indicated an irregular, blood-soaked,
clawed-up patch in the snow where the sanguinary swath ended. They
dismounted. Slavin drawing up alongside the coroner's cutter handed over
his lines to the teamster.
"Now!" said he, "let's shtart in! . . . Ye must have 'shpotted this on
yeh way up, Docthor?" He pointed to the patch.
The latter nodded. "Yes! we thought it must have happened here."
For some few seconds, with one accord the party stared about them at
their surroundings. The frozen landscape at this point presented a
singularly lonely, desolate aspect. Flat, and for the greater part
absolutely bare of brush; save where from a small coulee some half mile
to the left of the trail the tops of a cotton-wood clump were visible.
Far to the right-hand, more than a mile away, stretched the first of the
shelving benches, where the high ground sloped away in irregular jumps,
as it were, to the river.
"Best ye shtay fwhere ye all are," cautioned the sergeant, "'till I size
up th' lay av things a bit. I du not want th' thracks fouled up. H-mm!
let's see now!" He remained in deep, thoughtful silence a space.
"Thravellin' towards us," he muttered--"th' back av th' head!"
Hands clasped behind bent back, and with head thrust loweringly forward
from between his huge shoulders he paced slowly down the trail for some
hundred yards. That grim, intent face and the swaying gait reminded
Redmond of some huge bloodhound casting about for a scent.
Halting irresolutely a moment, Slavin presently faced about and returned.
"Wan harse on'y!" he vouchsafed to their silent looks of enquiry. "He
had not company. Must have been shot from lift or right av th' thrail."
He stared around him at the bare sweep of ground. "Now fwhere cud any
livin' man find cover here in th' full av th' moon, tu get th' range wid
a small arm? He wud show up agin' th' snow like th' ace av shpades an'
he thried."
Suddenly his jaw dropped and he stiffened. "Ah-hh!" His eyes rivetted
themselves on some object and his huge arm shot out. "Fwhat's yon?"
They all stared in the direction he indicated. Plastered with frosted
snow, until it was all but undiscernible against its white background,
lay an enormous boulder--a relic, perchance, of some vast pre-historic
upheaval. It was situated at an oblique angle to the trail, about a
hundred yards distant.
With stealthy, quickened steps Slavin made his way towards it. Tensely
they watched him. In each man's mind now was a vague feeling of
certainty of something, they knew not what. They saw him reach the
boulder, walk round it and stoop, peering at its base for a few moments.
Then suddenly he straightened up and beckoned to them.
"Thread in file," he called out warningly. Yorke led, and, treading
heedfully in each other's foot-marks, they reached the spot. Slavin
silently pointed downwards. There, plainly discernible on the surface of
the wind-packed, hard-crusted snow, were the corrugated imprints of
overshoed feet--coming and going apparently in the direction of the
previously mentioned coulee.
Redmond indicated two rounded impressions at the foot of the boulder,
with two smaller ones behind. "Must have hunched himself on his knees
behind, eh?" he queried in a low voice.
Slavin nodded. The rays of the westering sun coming from back of a cloud
glinted on something in the snow, a few feet away from the tracks. It
caught Yorke's eyes and with an exclamation he picked it up.
"_--gold, raw gold, the spent shell rolled--_"
he quoted. "Here you are, Burke!"
Slavin uttered a delighted oath as he examined the small, bottle-necked
shell of the automatic variety. ".38 Luger!" he said. "A high-pressure
'gat' like that is oncommon hereabouts!" Passing it on to the coroner he
whistled softly. "My God! Fwhativer sort av a gun-artist is ut
that--even allowin' for th' moonlight--can pick a man off thru' th' head
wid a revolver at this distance? . . . an' wan shell on'y? . . . 'Soapy
Smith' himself cu'dn't have beat this!"
He proceeded to sift some fine, crisp snow in one of the imprints, then,
producing an old letter from his pocket, he flattened out the
type-written sheets of foolscap therein. Placing the blank side of the
sheet face-downwards upon the imprint he pressed down smartly. The
result was a very fair impression of the footmark, which he immediately
outlined in pencil.
A strange ominous silence fell upon the group. Deep in wild, whirling
conjecture, each man gazed about him. The desolate, sinister aspect of
their surroundings struck them with a sudden chill. Yorke voiced the
general sentiment.
"My God!" he said in a low voice, "but it sure is dreary!"
With a final, self-satisfying survey at his "lay av things" Slavin
stepped well to the side of the incriminating foot-prints. "Come on!" he
said "get in file behint me! We will follow this up!"
Silently they obeyed and padded in his rear.
"D----d big feet, whoever owns 'em," remarked Redmond to Yorke.
Slavin heard him. "Ay!" he flung back grimly. "An' they will shtand on
th' dhrop yet--thim same feet!"
The tracks returning in the direction of the coulee presented a vast
contrast to the approaching imprints. Where the latter denoted an even,
steady stride, the former ran in queer, irregular fashion--sometimes
bunched together, and at others with wide spaces between.
"'On th' double!'" remarked Slavin observantly.
"Must have got scairt!"
"Ah!" murmured the coroner, reflectively, "though the Bible doesn't
expressly state so, I guess Cain, too, got on the 'double' as you call
it--after he killed Abel."
They finally reached the coulee where the tracks, debouching from the
steep edge, passed along its rim and presently descended the more shallow
end of the draw. Their leader eventually halted at the foot of a small
cotton-wood tree where the human foot-prints ended. There in the snow
they beheld a hoof-trampled space, which, together with broken twigs,
indicated a tethered horse.
This served for comment and speculation awhile.
The sergeant, producing a small tape measure dotted down careful
measurements of the over-shoed imprints and their length of stride, also
the size of the shod hoof-marks.
Redmond drew his attention to blood-stains in several of the latter.
"Shod with 'never-slip' calks, Sergeant!" he said. "Must have slipped
somewhere and 'calked' himself on the 'coronet,' I guess?"
"Eyah!" muttered Slavin approvingly, "Th' 'nigh-hind' 'tis, note,
bhoy! . . . 't'will serve good thrailin' that. Well, let's follow ut on!"
Wearily his companions plodded on in his wake. The tracks, after
following the draw for a short distance, suddenly wound up a steep,
narrow path on the left side of the coulee. Reaching the surface of the
level ground, they circled until they struck into the main trail east
again, about a mile below where the party had left their horses. Here,
merged amongst countless others on the well-travelled highway, they
became more difficult to trace, though occasionally the faint
blood-stains proclaimed their identity.
Slavin pulled up. "Luks as if he'd shtruck back tu Cow Run again," he
said with conviction. "Must have come from there, tu--thracks was goin'
and comin' an' ye noticed, fwhin we climbed out av th' coulee back there.
We must luk for a harse wid th' nigh-hind badly 'calked.' Yorkey! yu'
get back an' tell that Lanky Jones feller tu come on. Hitch yez own
harses behint our cutter an' take th' lines." He squinted at the sun and
pulled out his watch. "'Tis four o'clock, begob! Twill turn bitther
cowld whin th' sun goes down."
The coroner smiled knowingly. "Talking about 'calks'!" he remarked; and
diving into the deep recesses of his fur coat he produced a
comfortable-looking leather-encased flask. "A little 'calk' all round
won't hurt us after that tramp, Sergeant!" he observed kindly.
Their transport presently arriving, they proceeded on their way to Cow
Run, Yorke and Redmond watching carefully for any tracks debouching from
the main trail. Occasionally they dismounted to verify the incriminating
hoof-prints which still continued eastward. In this fashion they finally
drew to the level of the river, where the trail forked; one arm of it
following more or less the winding course of the Bow River back westward.
At this junction they searched narrowly until they found unmistakable
indication of the blood-tinged tracks still heading in the direction of
Cow Run.
"What was that case of yours, Yorkey?" enquired Redmond. "You know--what
Slavin was talking about?"
"Mix-up over that horse," replied Yorke laconically, "disputed ownership.
A chap named Moran tried to run a bluff over Larry that he'd lost the
horse as a colt. They got to scrapping and I ran 'em both up before
Gully, the J. P. here. Moran got fined twenty dollars and costs for
assaulting Blake. Say! look at that sky! Isn't it great?"
They turned in their saddles and looked westward. Clean-cut against a
pale yellow-ochre background and enveloped in a deep purple bloom, the
mighty peaks of the distant "Rockies" upreared their eternal snow-capped
glory in a salute to departing day. Above, where the opaline-tinted
horizon shaded imperceptibly into the deep ultramarine of evening, lay
glowing streamers of vivid crimson cloud-bank edged with the gleaming
gold of the sunset's after-glow.
It was a soul-filling sight. Against it the sordid contrast of the
sinister business in hand smote them like a blow from an unseen hand, as
they resumed their monotonous scanning of the trail on its either side.
Yorke presently voiced the impression in both their hearts. "My God'" he
murmured "the bitter irony of it! 'Peace on Earth, goodwill towards
men' . . . and this!--what?"