THE UNEXPECTED
It is a simple matter to see the obvious, to do the expected. Thetendency of the individual life is to be static rather than dynamic, andthis tendency is made into a propulsion by civilization, where theobvious only is seen, and the unexpected rarely happens. When theunexpected does happen, however, and when it is of sufficiently graveimport, the unfit perish. They do not see what is not obvious, areunable to do the unexpected, are incapable of adjusting theirwell-grooved lives to other and strange grooves. In short, when theycome to the end of their own groove, they die.
On the other hand, there are those that make toward survival, the fitindividuals who escape from the rule of the obvious and the expected andadjust their lives to no matter what strange grooves they may stray into,or into which they may be forced. Such an individual was EdithWhittlesey. She was born in a rural district of England, where lifeproceeds by rule of thumb and the unexpected is so very unexpected thatwhen it happens it is looked upon as an immorality. She went intoservice early, and while yet a young woman, by rule-of-thumb progression,she became a lady's maid.
The effect of civilization is to impose human law upon environment untilit becomes machine-like in its regularity. The objectionable iseliminated, the inevitable is foreseen. One is not even made wet by therain nor cold by the frost; while death, instead of stalking aboutgrewsome and accidental, becomes a prearranged pageant, moving along awell-oiled groove to the family vault, where the hinges are kept fromrusting and the dust from the air is swept continually away.
Such was the environment of Edith Whittlesey. Nothing happened. Itcould scarcely be called a happening, when, at the age of twenty-five,she accompanied her mistress on a bit of travel to the United States. Thegroove merely changed its direction. It was still the same groove andwell oiled. It was a groove that bridged the Atlantic withuneventfulness, so that the ship was not a ship in the midst of the sea,but a capacious, many-corridored hotel that moved swiftly and placidly,crushing the waves into submission with its colossal bulk until the seawas a mill-pond, monotonous with quietude. And at the other side thegroove continued on over the land--a well-disposed, respectable groovethat supplied hotels at every stopping-place, and hotels on wheelsbetween the stopping-places.
In Chicago, while her mistress saw one side of social life, EdithWhittlesey saw another side; and when she left her lady's service andbecame Edith Nelson, she betrayed, perhaps faintly, her ability tograpple with the unexpected and to master it. Hans Nelson, immigrant,Swede by birth and carpenter by occupation, had in him that Teutonicunrest that drives the race ever westward on its great adventure. He wasa large-muscled, stolid sort of a man, in whom little imagination wascoupled with immense initiative, and who possessed, withal, loyalty andaffection as sturdy as his own strength.
"When I have worked hard and saved me some money, I will go to Colorado,"he had told Edith on the day after their wedding. A year later they werein Colorado, where Hans Nelson saw his first mining and caught the mining-fever himself. His prospecting led him through the Dakotas, Idaho, andeastern Oregon, and on into the mountains of British Columbia. In campand on trail, Edith Nelson was always with him, sharing his luck, hishardship, and his toil. The short step of the house-reared woman sheexchanged for the long stride of the mountaineer. She learned to lookupon danger clear-eyed and with understanding, losing forever that panicfear which is bred of ignorance and which afflicts the city-reared,making them as silly as silly horses, so that they await fate in frozenhorror instead of grappling with it, or stampede in blind self-destroyingterror which clutters the way with their crushed carcasses.
Edith Nelson met the unexpected at every turn of the trail, and shetrained her vision so that she saw in the landscape, not the obvious, butthe concealed. She, who had never cooked in her life, learned to makebread without the mediation of hops, yeast, or baking-powder, and to bakebread, top and bottom, in a frying-pan before an open fire. And when thelast cup of flour was gone and the last rind of bacon, she was able torise to the occasion, and of moccasins and the softer-tanned bits ofleather in the outfit to make a grub-stake substitute that somehow held aman's soul in his body and enabled him to stagger on. She learned topack a horse as well as a man,--a task to break the heart and the prideof any city-dweller, and she knew how to throw the hitch best suited forany particular kind of pack. Also, she could build a fire of wet wood ina downpour of rain and not lose her temper. In short, in all its guisesshe mastered the unexpected. But the Great Unexpected was yet to comeinto her life and put its test upon her.
The gold-seeking tide was flooding northward into Alaska, and it wasinevitable that Hans Nelson and his wife should he caught up by thestream and swept toward the Klondike. The fall of 1897 found them atDyea, but without the money to carry an outfit across Chilcoot Pass andfloat it down to Dawson. So Hans Nelson worked at his trade that winterand helped rear the mushroom outfitting-town of Skaguay.
He was on the edge of things, and throughout the winter he heard allAlaska calling to him. Latuya Bay called loudest, so that the summer of1898 found him and his wife threading the mazes of the broken coast-linein seventy-foot Siwash canoes. With them were Indians, also three othermen. The Indians landed them and their supplies in a lonely bight ofland a hundred miles or so beyond Latuya Bay, and returned to Skaguay;but the three other men remained, for they were members of the organizedparty. Each had put an equal share of capital into the outfitting, andthe profits were to be divided equally. In that Edith Nelson undertookto cook for the outfit, a man's share was to be her portion.
First, spruce trees were cut down and a three-room cabin constructed. Tokeep this cabin was Edith Nelson's task. The task of the men was tosearch for gold, which they did; and to find gold, which they likewisedid. It was not a startling find, merely a low-pay placer where longhours of severe toil earned each man between fifteen and twenty dollars aday. The brief Alaskan summer protracted itself beyond its usual length,and they took advantage of the opportunity, delaying their return toSkaguay to the last moment. And then it was too late. Arrangements hadbeen made to accompany the several dozen local Indians on their falltrading trip down the coast. The Siwashes had waited on the white peopleuntil the eleventh hour, and then departed. There was no course left theparty but to wait for chance transportation. In the meantime the claimwas cleaned up and firewood stocked in.
The Indian summer had dreamed on and on, and then, suddenly, with thesharpness of bugles, winter came. It came in a single night, and theminers awoke to howling wind, driving snow, and freezing water. Stormfollowed storm, and between the storms there was the silence, broken onlyby the boom of the surf on the desolate shore, where the salt sprayrimmed the beach with frozen white.
All went well in the cabin. Their gold-dust had weighed up somethinglike eight thousand dollars, and they could not but be contented. Themen made snowshoes, hunted fresh meat for the larder, and in the longevenings played endless games of whist and pedro. Now that the mininghad ceased, Edith Nelson turned over the fire-building and thedish-washing to the men, while she darned their socks and mended theirclothes.
There was no grumbling, no bickering, nor petty quarrelling in the littlecabin, and they often congratulated one another on the general happinessof the party. Hans Nelson was stolid and easy-going, while Edith hadlong before won his unbounded admiration by her capacity for getting onwith people. Harkey, a long, lank Texan, was unusually friendly for onewith a saturnine disposition, and, as long as his theory that gold grewwas not challenged, was quite companionable. The fourth member of theparty, Michael Dennin, contributed his Irish wit to the gayety of thecabin. He was a large, powerful man, prone to sudden rushes of angerover little things, and of unfailing good-humor under the stress andstrain of big things. The fifth and last member, Dutchy, was the willingbutt of the party. He even went out of his way to raise a laugh at hisown expense in order to keep things cheerful. His deliberate aim in lifeseemed to be that of a maker of la
ughter. No serious quarrel had evervexed the serenity of the party; and, now that each had sixteen hundreddollars to show for a short summer's work, there reigned the well-fed,contented spirit of prosperity.
And then the unexpected happened. They had just sat down to thebreakfast table. Though it was already eight o'clock (late breakfastshad followed naturally upon cessation of the steady work at mining) acandle in the neck of a bottle lighted the meal. Edith and Hans sat ateach end of the table. On one side, with their backs to the door, satHarkey and Dutchy. The place on the other side was vacant. Dennin hadnot yet come in.
Hans Nelson looked at the empty chair, shook his head slowly, and, with aponderous attempt at humor, said: "Always is he first at the grub. Itis very strange. Maybe he is sick."
"Where is Michael?" Edith asked.
"Got up a little ahead of us and went outside," Harkey answered.
Dutchy's face beamed mischievously. He pretended knowledge of Dennin'sabsence, and affected a mysterious air, while they clamored forinformation. Edith, after a peep into the men's bunk-room, returned tothe table. Hans looked at her, and she shook her head.
"He was never late at meal-time before," she remarked.
"I cannot understand," said Hans. "Always has he the great appetite likethe horse."
"It is too bad," Dutchy said, with a sad shake of his head.
They were beginning to make merry over their comrade's absence.
"It is a great pity!" Dutchy volunteered.
"What?" they demanded in chorus.
"Poor Michael," was the mournful reply.
"Well, what's wrong with Michael?" Harkey asked.
"He is not hungry no more," wailed Dutchy. "He has lost der appetite. Hedo not like der grub."
"Not from the way he pitches into it up to his ears," remarked Harkey.
"He does dot shust to be politeful to Mrs. Nelson," was Dutchy's quickretort. "I know, I know, and it is too pad. Why is he not here? Pecausehe haf gone out. Why haf he gone out? For der defelopment of derappetite. How does he defelop der appetite? He walks barefoots in dersnow. Ach! don't I know? It is der way der rich peoples chases afterder appetite when it is no more and is running away. Michael haf sixteenhundred dollars. He is rich peoples. He haf no appetite. Derefore,pecause, he is chasing der appetite. Shust you open der door und youwill see his barefoots in der snow. No, you will not see der appetite.Dot is shust his trouble. When he sees der appetite he will catch it undcome to preak-fast."
They burst into loud laughter at Dutchy's nonsense. The sound hadscarcely died away when the door opened and Dennin came in. All turnedto look at him. He was carrying a shot-gun. Even as they looked, helifted it to his shoulder and fired twice. At the first shot Dutchy sankupon the table, overturning his mug of coffee, his yellow mop of hairdabbling in his plate of mush. His forehead, which pressed upon the nearedge of the plate, tilted the plate up against his hair at an angle offorty-five degrees. Harkey was in the air, in his spring to his feet, atthe second shot, and he pitched face down upon the floor, his "My God!"gurgling and dying in his throat.
It was the unexpected. Hans and Edith were stunned. They sat at thetable with bodies tense, their eyes fixed in a fascinated gaze upon themurderer. Dimly they saw him through the smoke of the powder, and in thesilence nothing was to be heard save the drip-drip of Dutchy's spilledcoffee on the floor. Dennin threw open the breech of the shot-gun,ejecting the empty shells. Holding the gun with one hand, he reachedwith the other into his pocket for fresh shells.
He was thrusting the shells into the gun when Edith Nelson was aroused toaction. It was patent that he intended to kill Hans and her. For aspace of possibly three seconds of time she had been dazed and paralysedby the horrible and inconceivable form in which the unexpected had madeits appearance. Then she rose to it and grappled with it. She grappledwith it concretely, making a cat-like leap for the murderer and grippinghis neck-cloth with both her hands. The impact of her body sent himstumbling backward several steps. He tried to shake her loose and stillretain his hold on the gun. This was awkward, for her firm-fleshed bodyhad become a cat's. She threw herself to one side, and with her grip athis throat nearly jerked him to the floor. He straightened himself andwhirled swiftly. Still faithful to her hold, her body followed thecircle of his whirl so that her feet left the floor, and she swungthrough the air fastened to his throat by her hands. The whirlculminated in a collision with a chair, and the man and woman crashed tothe floor in a wild struggling fall that extended itself across half thelength of the room.
Hans Nelson was half a second behind his wife in rising to theunexpected. His nerve processed and mental processes were slower thanhers. His was the grosser organism, and it had taken him half a secondlonger to perceive, and determine, and proceed to do. She had alreadyflown at Dennin and gripped his throat, when Hans sprang to his feet. Buther coolness was not his. He was in a blind fury, a Berserker rage. Atthe instant he sprang from his chair his mouth opened and there issuedforth a sound that was half roar, half bellow. The whirl of the twobodies had already started, and still roaring, or bellowing, he pursuedthis whirl down the room, overtaking it when it fell to the floor.
Hans hurled himself upon the prostrate man, striking madly with hisfists. They were sledge-like blows, and when Edith felt Dennin's bodyrelax she loosed her grip and rolled clear. She lay on the floor,panting and watching. The fury of blows continued to rain down. Dennindid not seem to mind the blows. He did not even move. Then it dawnedupon her that he was unconscious. She cried out to Hans to stop. Shecried out again. But he paid no heed to her voice. She caught him bythe arm, but her clinging to it merely impeded his effort.
It was no reasoned impulse that stirred her to do what she then did. Norwas it a sense of pity, nor obedience to the "Thou shalt not" ofreligion. Rather was it some sense of law, an ethic of her race andearly environment, that compelled her to interpose her body between herhusband and the helpless murderer. It was not until Hans knew he wasstriking his wife that he ceased. He allowed himself to be shoved awayby her in much the same way that a ferocious but obedient dog allowsitself to be shoved away by its master. The analogy went even farther.Deep in his throat, in an animal-like way, Hans's rage still rumbled, andseveral times he made as though to spring back upon his prey and was onlyprevented by the woman's swiftly interposed body.
Back and farther back Edith shoved her husband. She had never seen himin such a condition, and she was more frightened of him than she had beenof Dennin in the thick of the struggle. She could not believe that thisraging beast was her Hans, and with a shock she became suddenly aware ofa shrinking, instinctive fear that he might snap her hand in his teethlike any wild animal. For some seconds, unwilling to hurt her, yetdogged in his desire to return to the attack, Hans dodged back and forth.But she resolutely dodged with him, until the first glimmerings of reasonreturned and he gave over.
Both crawled to their feet. Hans staggered back against the wall, wherehe leaned, his face working, in his throat the deep and continuous rumblethat died away with the seconds and at last ceased. The time for thereaction had come. Edith stood in the middle of the floor, wringing herhands, panting and gasping, her whole body trembling violently.
Hans looked at nothing, but Edith's eyes wandered wildly from detail todetail of what had taken place. Dennin lay without movement. Theoverturned chair, hurled onward in the mad whirl, lay near him. Partlyunder him lay the shot-gun, still broken open at the breech. Spillingout of his right hand were the two cartridges which he had failed to putinto the gun and which he had clutched until consciousness left him.Harkey lay on the floor, face downward, where he had fallen; while Dutchyrested forward on the table, his yellow mop of hair buried in his mush-plate, the plate itself still tilted at an angle of forty-five degrees.This tilted plate fascinated her. Why did it not fall down? It wasridiculous. It was not in the nature of things for a mush-plate to up-end itself on the table, even if
a man or so had been killed.
She glanced back at Dennin, but her eyes returned to the tilted plate. Itwas so ridiculous! She felt a hysterical impulse to laugh. Then shenoticed the silence, and forgot the plate in a desire for something tohappen. The monotonous drip of the coffee from the table to the floormerely emphasized the silence. Why did not Hans do something? saysomething? She looked at him and was about to speak, when she discoveredthat her tongue refused its wonted duty. There was a peculiar ache inher throat, and her mouth was dry and furry. She could only look atHans, who, in turn, looked at her.
Suddenly the silence was broken by a sharp, metallic clang. Shescreamed, jerking her eyes back to the table. The plate had fallen down.Hans sighed as though awakening from sleep. The clang of the plate hadaroused them to life in a new world. The cabin epitomized the new worldin which they must thenceforth live and move. The old cabin was goneforever. The horizon of life was totally new and unfamiliar. Theunexpected had swept its wizardry over the face of things, changing theperspective, juggling values, and shuffling the real and the unreal intoperplexing confusion.
"My God, Hans!" was Edith's first speech.
He did not answer, but stared at her with horror. Slowly his eyeswandered over the room, for the first time taking in its details. Thenhe put on his cap and started for the door.
"Where are you going?" Edith demanded, in an agony of apprehension.
His hand was on the door-knob, and he half turned as he answered, "To digsome graves."
"Don't leave me, Hans, with--" her eyes swept the room--"with this."
"The graves must be dug sometime," he said.
"But you do not know how many," she objected desperately. She noted hisindecision, and added, "Besides, I'll go with you and help."
Hans stepped back to the table and mechanically snuffed the candle. Thenbetween them they made the examination. Both Harkey and Dutchy weredead--frightfully dead, because of the close range of the shot-gun. Hansrefused to go near Dennin, and Edith was forced to conduct this portionof the investigation by herself.
"He isn't dead," she called to Hans.
He walked over and looked down at the murderer.
"What did you say?" Edith demanded, having caught the rumble ofinarticulate speech in her husband's throat.
"I said it was a damn shame that he isn't dead," came the reply.
Edith was bending over the body.
"Leave him alone," Hans commanded harshly, in a strange voice.
She looked at him in sudden alarm. He had picked up the shot-gun droppedby Dennin and was thrusting in the shells.
"What are you going to do?" she cried, rising swiftly from her bendingposition.
Hans did not answer, but she saw the shot-gun going to his shoulder. Shegrasped the muzzle with her hand and threw it up.
"Leave me alone!" he cried hoarsely.
He tried to jerk the weapon away from her, but she came in closer andclung to him.
"Hans! Hans! Wake up!" she cried. "Don't be crazy!"
"He killed Dutchy and Harkey!" was her husband's reply; "and I am goingto kill him."
"But that is wrong," she objected. "There is the law."
He sneered his incredulity of the law's potency in such a region, but hemerely iterated, dispassionately, doggedly, "He killed Dutchy andHarkey."
Long she argued it with him, but the argument was one-sided, for hecontented himself with repeating again and again, "He killed Dutchy andHarkey." But she could not escape from her childhood training nor fromthe blood that was in her. The heritage of law was hers, and rightconduct, to her, was the fulfilment of the law. She could see no otherrighteous course to pursue. Hans's taking the law in his own hands wasno more justifiable than Dennin's deed. Two wrongs did not make a right,she contended, and there was only one way to punish Dennin, and that wasthe legal way arranged by society. At last Hans gave in to her.
"All right," he said. "Have it your own way. And to-morrow or next daylook to see him kill you and me."
She shook her head and held out her hand for the shot-gun. He started tohand it to her, then hesitated.
"Better let me shoot him," he pleaded.
Again she shook her head, and again he started to pass her the gun, whenthe door opened, and an Indian, without knocking, came in. A blast ofwind and flurry of snow came in with him. They turned and faced him,Hans still holding the shot-gun. The intruder took in the scene withouta quiver. His eyes embraced the dead and wounded in a sweeping glance.No surprise showed in his face, not even curiosity. Harkey lay at hisfeet, but he took no notice of him. So far as he was concerned, Harkey'sbody did not exist.
"Much wind," the Indian remarked by way of salutation. "All well? Verywell?"
Hans, still grasping the gun, felt sure that the Indian attributed to himthe mangled corpses. He glanced appealingly at his wife.
"Good morning, Negook," she said, her voice betraying her effort. "No,not very well. Much trouble."
"Good-by, I go now, much hurry," the Indian said, and without semblanceof haste, with great deliberation stepping clear of a red pool on thefloor, he opened the door and went out.
The man and woman looked at each other.
"He thinks we did it," Hans gasped, "that I did it."
Edith was silent for a space. Then she said, briefly, in a businesslikeway:
"Never mind what he thinks. That will come after. At present we havetwo graves to dig. But first of all, we've got to tie up Dennin so hecan't escape."
Hans refused to touch Dennin, but Edith lashed him securely, hand andfoot. Then she and Hans went out into the snow. The ground was frozen.It was impervious to a blow of the pick. They first gathered wood, thenscraped the snow away and on the frozen surface built a fire. When thefire had burned for an hour, several inches of dirt had thawed. Thisthey shovelled out, and then built a fresh fire. Their descent into theearth progressed at the rate of two or three inches an hour.
It was hard and bitter work. The flurrying snow did not permit the fireto burn any too well, while the wind cut through their clothes andchilled their bodies. They held but little conversation. The windinterfered with speech. Beyond wondering at what could have beenDennin's motive, they remained silent, oppressed by the horror of thetragedy. At one o'clock, looking toward the cabin, Hans announced thathe was hungry.
"No, not now, Hans," Edith answered. "I couldn't go back alone into thatcabin the way it is, and cook a meal."
At two o'clock Hans volunteered to go with her; but she held him to hiswork, and four o'clock found the two graves completed. They wereshallow, not more than two feet deep, but they would serve the purpose.Night had fallen. Hans got the sled, and the two dead men were draggedthrough the darkness and storm to their frozen sepulchre. The funeralprocession was anything but a pageant. The sled sank deep into thedrifted snow and pulled hard. The man and the woman had eaten nothingsince the previous day, and were weak from hunger and exhaustion. Theyhad not the strength to resist the wind, and at times its buffets hurledthem off their feet. On several occasions the sled was overturned, andthey were compelled to reload it with its sombre freight. The lasthundred feet to the graves was up a steep slope, and this they took onall fours, like sled-dogs, making legs of their arms and thrusting theirhands into the snow. Even so, they were twice dragged backward by theweight of the sled, and slid and fell down the hill, the living and thedead, the haul-ropes and the sled, in ghastly entanglement.
"To-morrow I will put up head-boards with their names," Hans said, whenthe graves were filled in.
Edith was sobbing. A few broken sentences had been all she was capableof in the way of a funeral service, and now her husband was compelled tohalf-carry her back to the cabin.
Dennin was conscious. He had rolled over and over on the floor in vainefforts to free himself. He watched Hans and Edith with glittering eyes,but made no attempt to speak. Hans still refused to touch the murderer,and sullenly watched Edith d
rag him across the floor to the men's bunk-room. But try as she would, she could not lift him from the floor intohis bunk.
"Better let me shoot him, and we'll have no more trouble," Hans said infinal appeal.
Edith shook her head and bent again to her task. To her surprise thebody rose easily, and she knew Hans had relented and was helping her.Then came the cleansing of the kitchen. But the floor still shrieked thetragedy, until Hans planed the surface of the stained wood away and withthe shavings made a fire in the stove.
The days came and went. There was much of darkness and silence, brokenonly by the storms and the thunder on the beach of the freezing surf.Hans was obedient to Edith's slightest order. All his splendidinitiative had vanished. She had elected to deal with Dennin in her way,and so he left the whole matter in her hands.
The murderer was a constant menace. At all times there was the chancethat he might free himself from his bonds, and they were compelled toguard him day and night. The man or the woman sat always beside him,holding the loaded shot-gun. At first, Edith tried eight-hour watches,but the continuous strain was too great, and afterwards she and Hansrelieved each other every four hours. As they had to sleep, and as thewatches extended through the night, their whole waking time was expendedin guarding Dennin. They had barely time left over for the preparationof meals and the getting of firewood.
Since Negook's inopportune visit, the Indians had avoided the cabin.Edith sent Hans to their cabins to get them to take Dennin down the coastin a canoe to the nearest white settlement or trading post, but theerrand was fruitless. Then Edith went herself and interviewed Negook. Hewas head man of the little village, keenly aware of his responsibility,and he elucidated his policy thoroughly in few words.
"It is white man's trouble," he said, "not Siwash trouble. My peoplehelp you, then will it be Siwash trouble too. When white man's troubleand Siwash trouble come together and make a trouble, it is a greattrouble, beyond understanding and without end. Trouble no good. Mypeople do no wrong. What for they help you and have trouble?"
So Edith Nelson went back to the terrible cabin with its endlessalternating four-hour watches. Sometimes, when it was her turn and shesat by the prisoner, the loaded shot-gun in her lap, her eyes would closeand she would doze. Always she aroused with a start, snatching up thegun and swiftly looking at him. These were distinct nervous shocks, andtheir effect was not good on her. Such was her fear of the man, thateven though she were wide awake, if he moved under the bedclothes shecould not repress the start and the quick reach for the gun.
She was preparing herself for a nervous break-down, and she knew it.First came a fluttering of the eyeballs, so that she was compelled toclose her eyes for relief. A little later the eyelids were afflicted bya nervous twitching that she could not control. To add to the strain,she could not forget the tragedy. She remained as close to the horror ason the first morning when the unexpected stalked into the cabin and tookpossession. In her daily ministrations upon the prisoner she was forcedto grit her teeth and steel herself, body and spirit.
Hans was affected differently. He became obsessed by the idea that itwas his duty to kill Dennin; and whenever he waited upon the bound man orwatched by him, Edith was troubled by the fear that Hans would addanother red entry to the cabin's record. Always he cursed Denninsavagely and handled him roughly. Hans tried to conceal his homicidalmania, and he would say to his wife: "By and by you will want me to killhim, and then I will not kill him. It would make me sick." But morethan once, stealing into the room, when it was her watch off, she wouldcatch the two men glaring ferociously at each other, wild animals thepair of them, in Hans's face the lust to kill, in Dennin's the fiercenessand savagery of the cornered rat. "Hans!" she would cry, "wake up!" andhe would come to a recollection of himself, startled and shamefaced andunrepentant.
So Hans became another factor in the problem the unexpected had givenEdith Nelson to solve. At first it had been merely a question of rightconduct in dealing with Dennin, and right conduct, as she conceived it,lay in keeping him a prisoner until he could be turned over for trialbefore a proper tribunal. But now entered Hans, and she saw that hissanity and his salvation were involved. Nor was she long in discoveringthat her own strength and endurance had become part of the problem. Shewas breaking down under the strain. Her left arm had developedinvoluntary jerkings and twitchings. She spilled her food from herspoon, and could place no reliance in her afflicted arm. She judged itto be a form of St. Vitus's dance, and she feared the extent to which itsravages might go. What if she broke down? And the vision she had of thepossible future, when the cabin might contain only Dennin and Hans, wasan added horror.
After the third day, Dennin had begun to talk. His first question hadbeen, "What are you going to do with me?" And this question he repeateddaily and many times a day. And always Edith replied that he wouldassuredly be dealt with according to law. In turn, she put a dailyquestion to him,--"Why did you do it?" To this he never replied. Also,he received the question with out-bursts of anger, raging and strainingat the rawhide that bound him and threatening her with what he would dowhen he got loose, which he said he was sure to do sooner or later. Atsuch times she cocked both triggers of the gun, prepared to meet him withleaden death if he should burst loose, herself trembling and palpitatingand dizzy from the tension and shock.
But in time Dennin grew more tractable. It seemed to her that he wasgrowing weary of his unchanging recumbent position. He began to beg andplead to be released. He made wild promises. He would do them no harm.He would himself go down the coast and give himself up to the officers ofthe law. He would give them his share of the gold. He would go awayinto the heart of the wilderness, and never again appear in civilization.He would take his own life if she would only free him. His pleadingsusually culminated in involuntary raving, until it seemed to her that hewas passing into a fit; but always she shook her head and denied him thefreedom for which he worked himself into a passion.
But the weeks went by, and he continued to grow more tractable. Andthrough it all the weariness was asserting itself more and more. "I amso tired, so tired," he would murmur, rolling his head back and forth onthe pillow like a peevish child. At a little later period he began tomake impassioned pleas for death, to beg her to kill him, to beg Hans toput him our of his misery so that he might at least rest comfortably.
The situation was fast becoming impossible. Edith's nervousness wasincreasing, and she knew her break-down might come any time. She couldnot even get her proper rest, for she was haunted by the fear that Hanswould yield to his mania and kill Dennin while she slept. Though Januaryhad already come, months would have to elapse before any trading schoonerwas even likely to put into the bay. Also, they had not expected towinter in the cabin, and the food was running low; nor could Hans add tothe supply by hunting. They were chained to the cabin by the necessityof guarding their prisoner.
Something must be done, and she knew it. She forced herself to go backinto a reconsideration of the problem. She could not shake off thelegacy of her race, the law that was of her blood and that had beentrained into her. She knew that whatever she did she must do accordingto the law, and in the long hours of watching, the shot-gun on her knees,the murderer restless beside her and the storms thundering without, shemade original sociological researches and worked out for herself theevolution of the law. It came to her that the law was nothing more thanthe judgment and the will of any group of people. It mattered not howlarge was the group of people. There were little groups, she reasoned,like Switzerland, and there were big groups like the United States. Also,she reasoned, it did not matter how small was the group of people. Theremight be only ten thousand people in a country, yet their collectivejudgment and will would be the law of that country. Why, then, could notone thousand people constitute such a group? she asked herself. And ifone thousand, why not one hundred? Why not fifty? Why not five? Whynot--two?
She was frightened at he
r own conclusion, and she talked it over withHans. At first he could not comprehend, and then, when he did, he addedconvincing evidence. He spoke of miners' meetings, where all the men ofa locality came together and made the law and executed the law. Theremight be only ten or fifteen men altogether, he said, but the will of themajority became the law for the whole ten or fifteen, and whoeverviolated that will was punished.
Edith saw her way clear at last. Dennin must hang. Hans agreed withher. Between them they constituted the majority of this particulargroup. It was the group-will that Dennin should be hanged. In theexecution of this will Edith strove earnestly to observe the customaryforms, but the group was so small that Hans and she had to serve aswitnesses, as jury, and as judges--also as executioners. She formallycharged Michael Dennin with the murder of Dutchy and Harkey, and theprisoner lay in his bunk and listened to the testimony, first of Hans,and then of Edith. He refused to plead guilty or not guilty, andremained silent when she asked him if he had anything to say in his owndefence. She and Hans, without leaving their seats, brought in thejury's verdict of guilty. Then, as judge, she imposed the sentence. Hervoice shook, her eyelids twitched, her left arm jerked, but she carriedit out.
"Michael Dennin, in three days' time you are to be hanged by the neckuntil you are dead."
Such was the sentence. The man breathed an unconscious sigh of relief,then laughed defiantly, and said, "Thin I'm thinkin' the damn bunk won'tbe achin' me back anny more, an' that's a consolation."
With the passing of the sentence a feeling of relief seemed tocommunicate itself to all of them. Especially was it noticeable inDennin. All sullenness and defiance disappeared, and he talked sociablywith his captors, and even with flashes of his old-time wit. Also, hefound great satisfaction in Edith's reading to him from the Bible. Sheread from the New Testament, and he took keen interest in the prodigalson and the thief on the cross.
On the day preceding that set for the execution, when Edith asked herusual question, "Why did you do it?" Dennin answered, "'Tis very simple.I was thinkin'--"
But she hushed him abruptly, asked him to wait, and hurried to Hans'sbedside. It was his watch off, and he came out of his sleep, rubbing hiseyes and grumbling.
"Go," she told him, "and bring up Negook and one other Indian. Michael'sgoing to confess. Make them come. Take the rifle along and bring themup at the point of it if you have to."
Half an hour later Negook and his uncle, Hadikwan, were ushered into thedeath chamber. They came unwillingly, Hans with his rifle herding themalong.
"Negook," Edith said, "there is to be no trouble for you and your people.Only is it for you to sit and do nothing but listen and understand."
Thus did Michael Dennin, under sentence of death, make public confessionof his crime. As he talked, Edith wrote his story down, while theIndians listened, and Hans guarded the door for fear the witnesses mightbolt.
He had not been home to the old country for fifteen years, Denninexplained, and it had always been his intention to return with plenty ofmoney and make his old mother comfortable for the rest of her days.
"An' how was I to be doin' it on sixteen hundred?" he demanded. "What Iwas after wantin' was all the goold, the whole eight thousan'. Thin Icud go back in style. What ud be aisier, thinks I to myself, than tokill all iv yez, report it at Skaguay for an Indian-killin', an' thinpull out for Ireland? An' so I started in to kill all iv yez, but, asHarkey was fond of sayin', I cut out too large a chunk an' fell down onthe swallowin' iv it. An' that's me confession. I did me duty to thedevil, an' now, God willin', I'll do me duty to God."
"Negook and Hadikwan, you have heard the white man's words," Edith saidto the Indians. "His words are here on this paper, and it is for you tomake a sign, thus, on the paper, so that white men to come after willknow that you have heard."
The two Siwashes put crosses opposite their signatures, received asummons to appear on the morrow with all their tribe for a furtherwitnessing of things, and were allowed to go.
Dennin's hands were released long enough for him to sign the document.Then a silence fell in the room. Hans was restless, and Edith feltuncomfortable. Dennin lay on his back, staring straight up at the moss-chinked roof.
"An' now I'll do me duty to God," he murmured. He turned his head towardEdith. "Read to me," he said, "from the book;" then added, with a glintof playfulness, "Mayhap 'twill help me to forget the bunk."
The day of the execution broke clear and cold. The thermometer was downto twenty-five below zero, and a chill wind was blowing which drove thefrost through clothes and flesh to the bones. For the first time in manyweeks Dennin stood upon his feet. His muscles had remained inactive solong, and he was so out of practice in maintaining an erect position,that he could scarcely stand.
He reeled back and forth, staggered, and clutched hold of Edith with hisbound hands for support.
"Sure, an' it's dizzy I am," he laughed weakly.
A moment later he said, "An' it's glad I am that it's over with. Thatdamn bunk would iv been the death iv me, I know."
When Edith put his fur cap on his head and proceeded to pull the flapsdown over his ears, he laughed and said:
"What are you doin' that for?"
"It's freezing cold outside," she answered.
"An' in tin minutes' time what'll matter a frozen ear or so to poorMichael Dennin?" he asked.
She had nerved herself for the last culminating ordeal, and his remarkwas like a blow to her self-possession. So far, everything had seemedphantom-like, as in a dream, but the brutal truth of what he had saidshocked her eyes wide open to the reality of what was taking place. Norwas her distress unnoticed by the Irishman.
"I'm sorry to be troublin' you with me foolish spache," he saidregretfully. "I mint nothin' by it. 'Tis a great day for MichaelDennin, an' he's as gay as a lark."
He broke out in a merry whistle, which quickly became lugubrious andceased.
"I'm wishin' there was a priest," he said wistfully; then added swiftly,"But Michael Dennin's too old a campaigner to miss the luxuries when hehits the trail."
He was so very weak and unused to walking that when the door opened andhe passed outside, the wind nearly carried him off his feet. Edith andHans walked on either side of him and supported him, the while he crackedjokes and tried to keep them cheerful, breaking off, once, long enough toarrange the forwarding of his share of the gold to his mother in Ireland.
They climbed a slight hill and came out into an open space among thetrees. Here, circled solemnly about a barrel that stood on end in thesnow, were Negook and Hadikwan, and all the Siwashes down to the babiesand the dogs, come to see the way of the white man's law. Near by was anopen grave which Hans had burned into the frozen earth.
Dennin cast a practical eye over the preparations, noting the grave, thebarrel, the thickness of the rope, and the diameter of the limb overwhich the rope was passed.
"Sure, an' I couldn't iv done better meself, Hans, if it'd been for you."
He laughed loudly at his own sally, but Hans's face was frozen into asullen ghastliness that nothing less than the trump of doom could havebroken. Also, Hans was feeling very sick. He had not realized theenormousness of the task of putting a fellow-man out of the world. Edith,on the other hand, had realized; but the realization did not make thetask any easier. She was filled with doubt as to whether she could holdherself together long enough to finish it. She felt incessant impulsesto scream, to shriek, to collapse into the snow, to put her hands overher eyes and turn and run blindly away, into the forest, anywhere, away.It was only by a supreme effort of soul that she was able to keep uprightand go on and do what she had to do. And in the midst of it all she wasgrateful to Dennin for the way he helped her.
"Lind me a hand," he said to Hans, with whose assistance he managed tomount the barrel.
He bent over so that Edith could adjust the rope about his neck. Then hestood upright while Hans drew the rope taut across the overhead branch.
<
br /> "Michael Dennin, have you anything to say?" Edith asked in a clear voicethat shook in spite of her.
Dennin shuffled his feet on the barrel, looked down bashfully like a manmaking his maiden speech, and cleared his throat.
"I'm glad it's over with," he said. "You've treated me like a Christian,an' I'm thankin' you hearty for your kindness."
"Then may God receive you, a repentant sinner," she said.
"Ay," he answered, his deep voice as a response to her thin one, "may Godreceive me, a repentant sinner."
"Good-by, Michael," she cried, and her voice sounded desperate.
She threw her weight against the barrel, but it did not overturn.
"Hans! Quick! Help me!" she cried faintly.
She could feel her last strength going, and the barrel resisted her. Hanshurried to her, and the barrel went out from under Michael Dennin.
She turned her back, thrusting her fingers into her ears. Then she beganto laugh, harshly, sharply, metallically; and Hans was shocked as he hadnot been shocked through the whole tragedy. Edith Nelson's break-downhad come. Even in her hysteria she knew it, and she was glad that shehad been able to hold up under the strain until everything had beenaccomplished. She reeled toward Hans.
"Take me to the cabin, Hans," she managed to articulate.
"And let me rest," she added. "Just let me rest, and rest, and rest."
With Hans's arm around her, supporting her weight and directing herhelpless steps, she went off across the snow. But the Indians remainedsolemnly to watch the working of the white man's law that compelled a manto dance upon the air.