CHAPTER II
Outside Kent's window was Spring, the glorious Spring of the Northland,and in spite of the death-grip that was tightening in his chest hedrank it in deeply and leaned over so that his eyes traveled over widespaces of the world that had been his only a short time before.
It occurred to him that he had suggested this knoll that overlookedboth settlement and river as the site for the building which Dr.Cardigan called his hospital. It was a structure rough and unadorned,unpainted, and sweetly smelling with the aroma of the spruce trees fromthe heart of which its unplaned lumber was cut. The breath of it was athing to bring cheer and hope. Its silvery walls, in places golden andbrown with pitch and freckled with knots, spoke joyously of life thatwould not die, and the woodpeckers came and hammered on it as though itwere still a part of the forest, and red squirrels chattered on theroof and scampered about in play with a soft patter of feet.
"It's a pretty poor specimen of man that would die up here with allthat under his eyes," Kent had said a year before, when he and Cardiganhad picked out the site. "If he died looking at that, why, he justsimply ought to die, Cardigan," he had laughed.
And now he was that poor specimen, looking out on the glory of theworld!
His vision took in the South and a part of the East and West, and inall those directions there was no end of the forest. It was like avast, many-colored sea with uneven billows rising and falling until theblue sky came down to meet them many miles away. More than once hisheart ached at the thought of the two thin ribs of steel creeping upfoot by foot and mile by mile from Edmonton, a hundred and fifty milesaway. It was, to him, a desecration, a crime against Nature, the murderof his beloved wilderness. For in his soul that wilderness had grown tobe more than a thing of spruce and cedar and balsam, of poplar andbirch; more than a great, unused world of river and lake and swamp. Itwas an individual, a thing. His love for it was greater than his lovefor man. It was his inarticulate God. It held him as no religion in theworld could have held him, and deeper and deeper it had drawn him intothe soul of itself, delivering up to him one by one its guarded secretsand its mysteries, opening for him page by page the book that was thegreatest of all books. And it was the wonder of it now, the fact thatit was near him, about him, embracing him, glowing for him in thesunshine, whispering to him in the soft breath of the air, nodding andtalking to him from the crest of every ridge, that gave to him astrange happiness even in these hours when he knew that he was dying.
And then his eyes fell nearer to the settlement which nestled along theedge of the shining river a quarter of a mile away. That, too, had beenthe wilderness, in the days before the railroad came. The poison ofspeculation was stirring, but it had not yet destroyed. AthabascaLanding was still the door that opened and closed on the great North.Its buildings were scattered and few, and built of logs and roughlumber. Even now he could hear the drowsy hum of the distant sawmillthat was lazily turning out its grist. Not far away the wind-worn flagof the British Empire was floating over a Hudson Bay Company's postthat had bartered in the trades of the North for more than a hundredyears. Through that hundred years Athabasca Landing had pulsed with theheart-beats of strong men bred to the wilderness. Through it, workingits way by river and dog sledge from the South, had gone the preciousfreight for which the farther North gave in exchange its still moreprecious furs. And today, as Kent looked down upon it, he saw that sameactivity as it had existed through the years of a century. A brigade ofscows, laden to their gunwales, was just sweeping out into the riverand into its current. Kent had watched the loading of them; now he sawthem drifting lazily out from the shore, their long sweeps glinting inthe sun, their crews singing wildly and fiercely their beloved Chansondes Voyageurs as their faces turned to the adventure of the North.
In Kent's throat rose a thing which he tried to choke back, but whichbroke from his lips in a low cry, almost a sob. He heard the distantsinging, wild and free as the forests themselves, and he wanted to leanout of his window and shout a last good-by. For the brigade--a Companybrigade, the brigade that had chanted its songs up and down the waterreaches of the land for more than two hundred and fifty years--wasstarting north. And he knew where it was going--north, and stillfarther north; a hundred miles, five hundred, a thousand--and thenanother thousand before the last of the scows unburdened itself of itsprecious freight. For the lean and brown-visaged men who went with themthere would be many months of clean living and joyous thrill under theopen skies. Overwhelmed by the yearning that swept over him, Kentleaned back against his pillows and covered his eyes.
In those moments his brain painted for him swiftly and vividly thethings he was losing. Tomorrow or next day he would be dead, and theriver brigade would still be sweeping on--on into the Grand Rapids ofthe Athabasca, fighting the Death Chute, hazarding valiantly the rocksand rapids of the Grand Cascade, the whirlpools of the Devil's Mouth,the thundering roar and boiling dragon teeth of the Black Run--on tothe end of the Athabasca, to the Slave, and into the Mackenzie, untilthe last rock-blunted nose of the outfit drank the tide-water of theArctic Ocean. And he, James Kent, would be DEAD!
He uncovered his eyes, and there was a wan smile on his lips as helooked forth once more. There were sixteen scows in the brigade, andthe biggest, he knew, was captained by Pierre Rossand. He could fancyPierre's big red throat swelling in mighty song, for Pierre's wife waswaiting for him a thousand miles away. The scows were caught steadilynow in the grip of the river, and it seemed to Kent, as he watched themgo, that they were the last fugitives fleeing from the encroachingmonsters of steel. Unconscious of the act, he reached out his arms, andhis soul cried out its farewell, even though his lips were silent.
He was glad when they were gone and when the voices of the chantingoarsmen were lost in the distance. Again he listened to the lazy hum ofthe sawmill, and over his head he heard the velvety run of a redsquirrel and then its reckless chattering. The forests came back tohim. Across his cot fell a patch of golden sunlight. A stronger breathof air came laden with the perfume of balsam and cedar through hiswindow, and when the door opened and Cardigan entered, he found the oldKent facing him.
There was no change in Cardigan's voice or manner as he greeted him.But there was a tenseness in his face which he could not conceal. Hehad brought in Kent's pipe and tobacco. These he laid on a table untilhe had placed his head close to Kent's hearty listening to what hecalled the bruit--the rushing of blood through the aneurismal sac.
"Seems to me that I can hear it myself now and then," said Kent."Worse, isn't it?"
Cardigan nodded. "Smoking may hurry it up a bit," he said. "Still, ifyou want to--"
Kent held out his hand for the pipe and tobacco. "It's worth it.Thanks, old man."
Kent loaded the pipe, and Cardigan lighted a match. For the first timein two weeks a cloud of smoke issued from between Kent's lips.
"The brigade is starting north," he said.
"Mostly Mackenzie River freight," replied Cardigan. "A long run."
"The finest in all the North. Three years ago O'Connor and I made itwith the Follette outfit. Remember Follette--and Ladouceur? They bothloved the same girl, and being good friends they decided to settle thematter by a swim through the Death Chute. The man who came throughfirst was to have her. Gawd, Cardigan, what funny things happen!Follette came out first, but he was dead. He'd brained himself on arock. And to this day Ladouceur hasn't married the girl, because hesays Follette beat him; and that Follette's something-or-other wouldhaunt him if he didn't play fair. It's a queer--"
He stopped and listened. In the hall was the approaching tread ofunmistakable feet.
"O'Connor," he said.
Cardigan went to the door and opened it as O'Connor was about to knock.When the door closed again, the staff-sergeant was in the room alonewith Kent. In one of his big hands he clutched a box of cigars, and inthe other he held a bunch of vividly red fire-flowers.
"Father Layonne shoved these into my hands as I was coming up," heexplained, dropping them
on the table. "And I--well--I'm breakingregulations to come up an' tell you something, Jimmy. I never calledyou a liar in my life, but I'm calling you one now!"
He was gripping Kent's hands in the fierce clasp of a friendship thatnothing could kill. Kent winced, but the pain of it was joy. He hadfeared that O'Connor, like Kedsty, must of necessity turn against him.Then he noticed something unusual in O'Connor's face and eyes. Thestaff-sergeant was not easily excited, yet he was visibly disturbed now.
"I don't know what the others saw, when you were making thatconfession, Kent. Mebby my eyesight was better because I spent a yearand a half with you on the trail. You were lying. What's your game, oldman?"
Kent groaned. "Have I got to go all over it again?" he appealed.
O'Connor began thumping back and forth over the floor. Kent had seenhim that way sometimes in camp when there were perplexing problemsahead of them.
"You didn't kill John Barkley," he insisted. "I don't believe you did,and Inspector Kedsty doesn't believe it--yet the mighty queer part ofit is--"
"What?"
"That Kedsty is acting on your confession in a big hurry. I don'tbelieve it's according to Hoyle, as the regulations are written. Buthe's doing it. And I want to know--it's the biggest thing I EVER wantedto know--did you kill Barkley?"
"O'Connor, if you don't believe a dying man's word--you haven't muchrespect for death, have you?"
"That's the theory on which the law works, but sometimes it ain'thuman. Confound it, man, DID YOU?"
"Yes."
O'Connor sat down and with his finger-nails pried open the box ofcigars. "Mind if I smoke with you?" he asked. "I need it. I'm shot upwith unexpected things this morning. Do you care if I ask you about thegirl?"
"The girl!" exclaimed Kent. He sat up straighter, staring at O'Connor.
The staff-sergeant's eyes were on him with questioning steadiness. "Isee--you don't know her," he said, lighting his cigar. "Neither do I.Never saw her before. That's why I am wondering about Inspector Kedsty.I tell you, it's queer. He didn't believe you this morning, yet he wasall shot up. He wanted me to go with him to his house. The cords stoodout on his neck like that--like my little finger.
"Then suddenly he changed his mind and said we'd go to the office. Thattook us along the road that runs through the poplar grove. It happenedthere. I'm not much of a girl's man, Kent, and I'd be a fool to try totell you what she looked like. But there she was, standing in the pathnot ten feet ahead of us, and she stopped me in my tracks as quick asthough she'd sent a shot into me. And she stopped Kedsty, too. I heardhim give a sort of grunt--a funny sound, as though some one had hithim. I don't believe I could tell whether she had a dress on or not,for I never saw anything like her face, and her eyes, and her hair, andI stared at them like a thunder-struck fool. She didn't seem to noticeme any more than if I'd been thin air, a ghost she couldn't see.
"She looked straight at Kedsty, and she kept looking at him--and thenshe passed us. Never said a word, mind you. She came so near I couldhave touched her with my hand, and not until she was that close did shetake her eyes from Kedsty and look at me. And when she'd passed Ithought what a couple of cursed idiots we were, standing thereparalyzed, as if we'd never seen a beautiful girl before in our lives.I went to remark that much to the Old Man when--"
O'Connor bit his cigar half in two as he leaned nearer to the cot.
"Kent, I swear that Kedsty was as white as chalk when I looked at him!There wasn't a drop of blood left in his face, and he was staringstraight ahead, as though the girl still stood there, and he gaveanother of those grunts--it wasn't a laugh--as if something was chokinghim. And then he said:
"'Sergeant, I've forgotten something important. I must go back to seeDr. Cardigan. You have my authority to give McTrigger his liberty atonce!'"
O'Connor paused, as if expecting some expression of disbelief fromKent. When none came, he demanded,
"Was that according to the Criminal Code? Was it, Kent?"
"Not exactly. But, coming from the S.O.D., it was law."
"And I obeyed it," grunted the staff-sergeant. "And if you could haveseen McTrigger! When I told him he was free, and unlocked his cell, hecame out of it gropingly, like a blind man. And he would go no fartherthan the Inspector's office. He said he would wait there for him."
"And Kedsty?"
O'Connor jumped from his chair and began thumping back and forth acrossthe room again. "Followed the girl," he exploded. "He couldn't havedone anything else. He lied to me about Cardigan. There wouldn't beanything mysterious about it if he wasn't sixty and she less thantwenty. She was pretty enough! But it wasn't her beauty that made himturn white there in the path. Not on your life it wasn't! I tell you heaged ten years in as many seconds. There was something in that girl'seyes more terrifying to him than a leveled gun, and after he'd lookedinto them, his first thought was of McTrigger, the man you're savingfrom the hangman. It's queer, Kent. The whole business is queer. Andthe queerest of it all is your confession."
"Yes, it's all very funny," agreed Kent. "That's what I've been tellingmyself right along, old man. You see, a little thing like a bulletchanged it all. For if the bullet hadn't got me, I assure you Iwouldn't have given Kedsty that confession, and an innocent man wouldhave been hanged. As it is, Kedsty is shocked, demoralized. I'm thefirst man to soil the honor of the finest Service on the face of theearth, and I'm in Kedsty's division. Quite natural that he should beupset. And as for the girl--"
He shrugged his shoulders and tried to laugh. "Perhaps she came in thismorning with one of the up-river scows and was merely taking a littleconstitutional," he suggested. "Didn't you ever notice, O'Connor, thatin a certain light under poplar trees one's face is sometimes ghastly?"
"Yes, I've noticed it, when the trees are in full leaf, but not whenthey're just opening, Jimmy. It was the girl. Her eyes shattered everynerve in him. And his first words were an order for me to freeMcTrigger, coupled with the lie that he was coming back to seeCardigan. And if you could have seen her eyes when she turned them onme! They were blue--blue as violets--but shooting fire. I could imagineblack eyes like that, but not blue ones. Kedsty simply wilted in theirblaze. And there was a reason--I know it--a reason that sent his mindlike lightning to the man in the cell!"
"Now, that you leave me out of it, the thing begins to getinteresting," said Kent. "It's a matter of the relationship of thisblonde girl and--"
"She isn't blonde--and I'm not leaving you out of it," interruptedO'Connor. "I never saw anything so black in my life as her hair. It wasmagnificent. If you saw that girl once, you would never forget heragain as long as you lived. She has never been in Athabasca Landingbefore, or anywhere near here. If she had, we surely would have heardabout her. She came for a purpose, and I believe that purpose wasaccomplished when Kedsty gave me the order to free McTrigger."
"That's possible, and probable," agreed Kent. "I always said you werethe best clue-analyst in the force, Bucky. But I don't see where I comein."
O'Connor smiled grimly. "You don't? Well, I may be both blind and afool, and perhaps a little excited. But it seemed to me that from themoment Inspector Kedsty laid his eyes on that girl he was a little tooanxious to let McTrigger go and hang you in his place. A little tooanxious, Kent."
The irony of the thing brought a hard smile to Kent's lips as he noddedfor the cigars. "I'll try one of these on top of the pipe," he said,nipping off the end of the cigar with his teeth. "And you forget thatI'm not going to hang, Bucky. Cardigan has given me until tomorrownight. Perhaps until the next day. Did you see Rossand's fleet leavingfor up north? It made me think of three years ago!"
O'Connor was gripping his hand again. The coldness of it sent a chillinto the staff-sergeant's heart. He rose and looked through the upperpart of the window, so that the twitching in his throat was hidden fromKent. Then he went to the door.
"I'll see you again tomorrow," he said. "And if I find out anythingmore about the girl, I'll report."
He tried to laugh, but the
re was a tremble in his voice, a break in thehumor he attempted to force.
Kent listened to the tramp of his heavy feet as they went down the hall.