Chapter XIV. What Came Of The Great Love Experiment
For an hour after he had gone to bed Philip lay awake thinking of thedoctor's story. He dreamed of it when he fell asleep. In a way for whichhe could not account, the story had a peculiar effect upon him, anddeveloped in him a desire to know the end. He awoke in the morninganxious to resume the subject with McGill, but the doctor disappointedhim. During the whole of the day he made no direct reference to hismission in the North, and when Philip once or twice brought him backto the matter he evaded any discussion of it, giving him to understand,without saying so, that the matter was a closed incident between them,only to be reopened when he was able to give some help in the search.The doctor talked freely of his home, of the beauty and the goodnessof his wife, and of a third member whom they expected in their littlefamily circle in the spring. They discussed home topics--politics, clubsand sport. The doctor disliked society, though for professional reasonshe was compelled to play a small part in it, and in this dislike thetwo men found themselves on common ground. They became more and moreconfidential in all ways but one. They passed hours in playing cribbagewith a worn pack of Pierre's cards, and the third night sang old collegesongs which both had nearly forgotten. It was on this evening that theyplanned to remain one more day in Pierre's cabin and then leave for FortSmith.
"You have hope--there," said Philip in a casual way, as they wereundressing.
"Little hope, but the search will begin from there," replied the doctor."I have more hope at Chippewayan, where we struck a clew. I sent back myIndian to follow it up."
They went to bed. How long he had slept Philip had no idea, when he wasawakened by a slight noise. In a sub-conscious sort of way, with hiseyes still closed, he lay without moving and listened. The sound cameagain, like the soft, cautious tread of feet near him. Still withoutmoving he opened his eyes. The oil lamp which he had put out on retiringwas burning low. In its dim light stood the doctor, half dressed, in atense attitude of listening.
"What's the matter?" asked Philip.
The professor started, and turned toward the stove.
"Nervousness, I guess," he said gloomily. "I was afraid I would awakenyou. I've been up three times during the last hour--listening for avoice."
"A voice?"
"Yes, back there in the bunk I could have sworn that I heard it callingsomewhere out in the night. But when I get up I can't hear it. I'vestood at the door until I'm frozen."
"It's the wind," said Philip. "It has troubled me many times out on thesnow plains. I've heard it wail like children crying among the dunes,and again like women screaming, and men shouting. You'd better go tobed."
"Listen!" The doctor stiffened, his white face turned to the door.
"Good Heavens, was that the wind?" he asked after a moment.
Philip had rolled from his bunk and was pulling on his clothes.
"Dress and we'll find out," he advised.
Together they went to the door, opened it, and stepped outside. Thesky was thick and heavy, with only a white blur where the moon wassmothered. Fifty yards away the gray gloom became opaque. Over thethousand miles of drift to the north there came a faint whistling wind,rising at times in fitful sweeps of flinty snow, and at intervals dyingaway until it became only a lulling sound. In one of these intervalsboth men held their breath.
From somewhere out of the night, and yet from nowhere that they couldpoint, there came a human voice.
"Pier-r-r-r-e Thoreau--Pier-r-r-r-e Thoreau--Ho, Pierre Thoreau-u-u-u!"
"Off there!" shivered the doctor.
"No--out there!" said Philip.
He raised his own voice in an answering shout, and in response therecame again the cry for Pierre Thoreau.
"I'm right!" cried the doctor. "Come!"
He darted away, his greatcoat making a dark blur in the night ahead ofPhilip, who paused again to shout through the megaphone of his hands.There came no reply. A second and a third time he shouted, and stillthere was no response.
"Queer," he thought. "What the devil can it mean?"
The doctor had disappeared, and he followed in the direction he hadgone. A hundred yards more and he saw the dark blur again, close to theground. The doctor was bending over a human form stretched out in thesnow.
"Just in time," he said to Philip as he came up. Excitement had gonefrom his voice now. It was cool and professional, and he spoke in acommanding way to his companion. "You're heavier than I, so take him bythe shoulders and hold his head well up. I don't believe it's the cold,for his body is warm and comfortable. I feel something wet and thick onhis shirt, and it may be blood. So hold his head well up."
Between them they carried him back to the cabin, and with the quickalertness of a man accustomed to every emergency of his profession thedoctor stripped off his two coats while Philip looked at the face of theman whom they had placed in his bunk. His own experience had acquaintedhim with violence and bloodshed, but in spite of that fact he shudderedslightly as he gazed on the unconscious form.
It was that of a young man of splendid physique, with a closely shavenface, short blond hair, and a magnificent pair of shoulders.
Beyond the fact that he knew the face wore no beard he could scarce havetold if it were white or black. From chin to hair it was covered withstiffened blood.
The doctor came to his side.
"Looks bad, doesn't he?" he said cheerfully. "Thought it wasn't thecold. Heart beating too fast, pulse too active. Ah--hot water if youplease, Philip!"
He loosened the man's coat and shirt, and a few moments later,when Philip brought a towel and a basin of water, he rose from hisexamination.
"Just in time--as I said before," he exclaimed with satisfaction. "You'dnever have heard another 'Pierre Thoreau' out of him, Philip," he wenton, speaking the young man's name as it he had been accustomed to doingit for a long time. "Wound on the head--skull sound--loss of blood fromover-exertion. We'll have him drinking coffee within an hour if you'llmake some."
The doctor rolled up his shirt sleeves and began to wash away the blood.
"A good-looking chap," he said over his shoulder. "Face clean cut, finemouth, a frontal bone that must have brain behind it, square chin--" Hebroke off to ask: "What do you suppose happened to him?"
"Haven't got the slightest idea," said Philip, putting the coffee pot onthe stove. "A blow, isn't it?"
Philip was turning up the wick of the lamp when a sudden startled crycame from the bedside. Something in it, low and suppressed, made himturn so quickly that by a clumsy twist of his fingers the lamp wasextinguished. He lighted it again and faced the doctor. McGill was uponhis knees, terribly pale.
"Good Heaven!" he gasped. "What's the matter?"
"Nothing, nothing, Phil--it was he! He let it out of him so unexpectedlythat it startled me."
"I thought it was your voice," said Philip.
"No, no, it was his. See, he is returning to consciousness."
The wounded man's eyes opened slowly, and closed again. He heaved agreat sigh and stretched out his arms as if about to awaken from a deepslumber. The doctor sprang to his feet.
"We must have ice, Phil--finely chopped ice from the creek down there.Will you take the ax and those two pails and bring back both pails full?No hurry, but we'll need it within an hour."
Philip bundled himself in his coat and went out with the ax and pails.
"Ice!" he muttered to himself. "Now what can he want of ice?"
He dug down through three feet of snow and chopped for half an hour.When he returned to the cabin the wounded man was bolstered up in bed,and the doctor was pacing back and forth across the room, evidentlyworked to a high pitch of excitement.
"Murder--robbery--outrage! Right under our noses, that's what it was!"he cried. "Pierre Thoreau is dead--killed by the scoundrels wholeft this man for dead beside him! They set upon them late yesterdayafternoon as Pierre and his partner were coming home, intending tokill them for their outfit. The murderers, who are a breed and a whitetrapp
er, have probably gone to their shack half a dozen miles up thecreek. Now, Mr. Philip Steele, here's a little work for you!"
MacGregor himself had never stirred Philip Steele's blood as did thedoctor's unexpected wards, but the two men watching him saw nothingunusual in their effect. He set down his ice and coolly took off hiscoat, then advanced to the side of the wounded man.
"I'm glad you're better," he said, looking down into the other's strong,pale face. "It was a pretty close shave. Guess you were a little out ofyour head, weren't you?"
For an instant the man's eyes shifted past Philip to where the doctorwas standing.
"Yes--I must have been. He says I was calling for Pierre, and Pierre wasdead. I left him ten miles back there in the snow." He closed his eyeswith a groan of pain and continued, after a moment, "Pierre and I havebeen trapping foxes. We were coming back with supplies to last us untillate spring when--it happened. The white man's name is Dobson, andthere's a breed with him. Their shack is six or seven miles up thecreek."
Philip saw the doctor examining a revolver which he had taken from thepocket of his big coat. He came over to the bunkside with it in hishand.
"That's enough, Phil," he said softly. "He must not talk any more foran hour or two or we'll have him in a fever. Get on your coat. I'm goingwith you."
"I'm going alone," said Phil shortly. "You attend to your patient."He drank a cup of coffee, ate a piece of toasted bannock, and with thefirst gray breaking of dawn started up the creek on a pair of Pierre'sold snow-shoes. The doctor followed him to the creek and watched himuntil he was out of sight.
The wounded man was sitting on the edge of the cot when McGill reenteredthe cabin.
His exertion had brought a flush of color back into his face, whichlighted up with a smile as the other came through the door.
"It was a close shave, thanks to you," he said, repeating Philip'swords.
"Just so," replied the doctor. He had placed a brace of short bulldogrevolvers on the table and offered one of them now to his companion.
"The shaving isn't over yet, Falkner."
They ate breakfast, each with a gun beside his tin plate. Now and thenthe doctor interrupted his meal to go to the door and peer over thebroadening vista of the barrens. They had nearly finished when he cameback from one of these observations, his lips set a little tighter, abarely perceptible tremor in his voice when he spoke.
"They're coming, Falkner!"
They picked up their revolvers and the doctor buttoned his coat tight upabout his neck.
For ten minutes they sat silent and listening.
Not until the crunching beat of snow-shoes came to their ears did thedoctor move. Thrusting his weapon into his coat pocket, he went to thedoor. Falkner followed him, and stood well out of sight when he openedit. Two men and a dog team were crossing the opening. McGill's dogs werefastened under a brush lean-to built against the cabin, and as the rivalteam of huskies began filling the air with their clamor for a fight,the stranger team halted and one of the two men came forward alone. Hestopped with some astonishment before the aristocratic-looking littleman waiting for him in Pierre's doorway.
"Is Pierre Thoreau at home?" he demanded.
"I'm a stranger here, so I can not say," replied the doctor, inspectingthe questioner with marked coolness. "It is possible, however, that heis--for I picked up a man half dead out in the snow last night, and I'mwaiting for him to come back to life. A smooth-faced, blond fellow, witha cut on his head. It may be this Pierre Thoreau."
The words were scarcely out of his mouth when the man kicked off hissnow-shoes and with an excited wave of his arm to his companion withthe dogs, almost ran past the doctor.
"It's him--the man I want to see!" he cried in a low voice. "My name'sDobson, of the--"
What more he had meant to say was never finished. Falkner's powerfularms had gripped his head and throat in a vise-like clutch from whichno smother of sound escaped, and three or four minutes later, when thesecond man came through the door, he found his comrade flat on hisback, bound and gagged, and the shining muzzles of two short andmurderous-looking revolvers leveled at his breast. He was a swarthybreed, scarcely larger than the doctor himself, and his onlyremonstrance as his hands were fastened behind his back was a briefoutburst of very bad and, very excited French which the professorstopped with a threatening flourish of his gun.
"You'll do," he said, standing off to survey his prisoner. "I believeyou're harmless enough to have the use of your legs and mouth." Witha comic bow the little doctor added, "M'sieur, I'm going to ask you todrive us back to Fort Smith, and if you so much as look the wrong wayout of your eyes I'll blow off your head. You and your friend are toanswer for the killing of Pierre Thoreau and for the attempted murderof this young man, who will follow us to Fort Smith to testify againstyou."
It was evident that the half-breed did not understand, and the doctoradded a few explanatory words in French. The man on the floor groanedand struggled until he was red in the face.
"Easy, easy," soothed the doctor. "I appreciate the fact that it ispretty tough luck, Dobson, but you'll have to take your medicine.Falkner, if you'll lend a hand in getting me off I won't lose much timein starting for Fort Smith."
It was a strange-looking outfit that set out from Pierre Thoreau's cabinhalf an hour later. Ahead of the team which had come that morning walkedthe breed, his left arm bound to his side with a babiche thong. On thesledge behind him lay an inanimate and blanket-wrapped bundle, which wasDobson; and close at the rear of the sledge, stripped of his greatcoatand more than ever like a diminutive drum-major, followed DudleyMcGill, professor of neurology and diseases of the brain, with a bulldogrevolver in his mittened hand.
From the door Falkner watched them go.
Six hours later Philip returned from the east. Falkner saw him coming upfrom the creek and went to meet him.
"I found the cabin, but no one was there," said Philip. "It has beendeserted for a long time. No tracks in the snow, everything insidefrozen stiff, and what signs I did find were of a woman!"
The muscles of Falkner's face gave a sudden twitch. "A woman!" heexclaimed.
"Yes, a woman," repeated Philip, "and there was a photograph of her on atable in the bedroom. Did this Dobson have a wife?"
Falkner had fallen a step behind him as they entered the cabin.
"A long time ago--a woman was there," he said. "She was a young woman,and--and almost beautiful. But she wasn't his wife."
"She was pretty," replied Philip, "so pretty that I brought her picturealong for my collection at home." He looked about for McGill. "Where'sthe doctor?"
Falkner's face was very white as he explained what had happened duringthe other's absence.
"He said that he would camp early this afternoon so that you couldovertake them," he finished after he had described the capture and thedoctor's departure. "The doctor thought you would want to lose no timein getting the prisoners to Fort Smith, and that he could get a goodstart before night. To-morrow or the next day I am going to follow withthe other team. I'd go with you if he hadn't commanded me to remain hereand nurse my head for another twenty-four hours."
Philip shrugged his shoulders, and the two had little to say as they atetheir dinners. After an hour's rest he prepared a light pack and tookup the doctor's trail. Inwardly he rankled at the unusual hand whichthe little professor was playing in leaving Pierre's cabin with theprisoners, and yet he was confident that McGill would wait for him. Mileafter mile he traveled down the creek. At dusk there was no sign of hisnew friend. Just before dark he climbed a dead stub at the summit of ahigh ridge and half a dozen miles of the unbroken barren stretched outbefore his eyes.
At six o'clock he stopped to cook some tea and warm his meat andbannock. After that he traveled until ten, then built a big fire andgave up the pursuit until morning. At dawn he started again, and notuntil the forenoon was half gone did he find where the doctor hadstopped to camp.
The ashes of his fire were still warm beneath and
the snow was trampledhard around them. In the north the clouds were piling up, betokening astorm such as it was not well for a man in Philip's condition of fatigueto face. Already some flavor of the approaching blizzard was carried tohim on the wind.
So he hurried on. Fortunately the storm died away after an hour or twoof fierce wind. Still he did not come up with McGill, and he campedagain for the night, cursing the little professor who was racing onahead of him. It was noon of the following day when he came in sightof the few log cabins at Fort Smith, situated in a treeless andsnow-smothered sweep of the plain on the other side of the Slave. Hecrossed the river and hurried past the row of buildings that led topost headquarters. In front of the company office were gathered a littlecrowd of men, women and children. He pushed his way through and stoppedat the bottom of the three log steps which led up to the door.
At the top was Professor McGill, coming out. His face was a puzzle.His eyes had in them a stony stare as he gazed down at Philip. Then hedescended slowly, like one moving in a dream. "Good Heavens," he saidhuskily, and only for Philip's ears, "do you know what I've done, Phil?"
"What?" demanded Philip.
The doctor came down to the last step.
"Phil," he whispered, "that fellow we found with a broken head played anice game on me. He was a criminal, and I've brought back to Fort Smithno less person than the man sent out to arrest him, Corporal Dobson,of the Mounted Police, and his driver, Francois Something-or-Other.Heavens, ain't it funny?"
That same afternoon Corporal Dobson and the half-breed set out again inquest of Falkner, and this time they were accompanied by Pierre Thoreau,who learned for the first time what had happened in his cabin. Thedoctor disappeared for the rest of the day, but early the next morninghe hunted Phil up and took him to a cabin half a mile down the river. Ateam of powerful dogs, an unusually large sledge, and two Indians wereat the door.
"I bought 'em last night," explained the doctor, "and we're going toleave for the south to-day."
"Giving up your hunt?" asked Philip.
"No, it's ended," replied McGill in a matter-of-fact way. "It endedat Pierre Thoreau's cabin. Falkner was the third man to work out myexperiment."
Philip stopped in his tracks, and the doctor stopped, and turned towardhim.
"But the third--" Philip began.
The little doctor continued to smile.
"There are more things in Heaven and earth, Philip," he quoted, "thanare dreamed of in your philosophy. This love experiment has turned outwrongly, as far as preconceived theories are concerned, but when I thinkof the broader, deeper significance of it all I am--pleased is not theword."
"What I can't see--" Philip was stopped by the doctor's lifted hand.
"You see, I am relying on your word of honor, Phil," he explained,laughing softly at the amazement which he saw in the other's face. "It'sall so wonderful that I want you to know the end of it, and how happilyit has turned out for me--and the little woman waiting for me backhome. It was I and not Falkner who cried out just before you turned thelamp-wick down. A letter had fallen from his coat pocket, and it wasone of my letters--sent through my agent. Understand? I sent you for theice, and while you were gone I told him who I was, and he told me why Ihad never heard from him, and why he was in Pierre Thoreau's cabin. Myagent had sent him north with five hundred dollars as a first payment.To cut a long story short, he got into a card game in Prince Albert--asthe best of us do at times--and as a result become mixed up in aquarrel, in which he pretty nearly killed a man. They've been afterhim ever since, and almost had him when we found him, injured by a blowwhich he received in an ugly fall earlier in the night. It's the lastand total wrecking of my theory."
"But the girl--" urged Philip.
"We're going to see her now, and she will tell you the whole story asshe told it to me," said the doctor, as calmly as before. "Ah, but it'swonderful, man--this great, big, human love that fills the world! Theytwo met at Nelson House, as I had planned they should, and four monthsafter that they smashed my theory by being married by a missionary fromYork Factory. I mean that they smashed the bad part of it, Phil, but allthree couples proved the other--that there exist no such things as 'soulaffinities,' and that two normal people of opposite sexes, if throwntogether under certain environment, will as naturally mate as two birds,and will fight and die for one another afterward, too. There may not beone in ten thousand who believes it, but I do--still. At the last momentthe man in Falkner triumphed over his love and he told her what he was,that up until the moment he met her he drank and gambled, and that forhis shooting a man in Prince Albert he would sooner or later get a termin prison. And she? I tell you that she busted my theory to a frazzle!She loved him, as I now believe every woman in the world is capable ofloving, and she married him, and stuck to him through thick and thin,fled with him when he was compelled to run--and her faith in him nowis like that of a child in its God. For a time they lived in that cabinabove Pierre Thoreau's, and perhaps they wouldn't have been found outif they hadn't come up to Fort Smith for a holiday. Falkner told me thathis pursuers would surely stop at Pierre's, and his wife. By this timehe has a good start for the States, and will be there by the time I gethis wife down."
Philip had not spoken a word. Almost mechanically he pulled thephotograph from his pocket.
"And this--" he said.
The doctor laughed as he took the picture from his hand.
"Is Mrs. William Falkner, Phil. Come in. I'm anxious to have you meether."