Murder Point Part 5

"Yes."

"What college?"

"Corpus."

"Did you row in the Eight?"

"Yes."

"I thought so. At what time?"

"When Corpus went up five places and b.u.mped the House on the last night."

"I was stroke in the 'Varsity boat that year, and rowed at six in the Christ Church Eight that night."

"Then you must be Strangeways?"

"Yes, Corporal Strangeways of the Northwest Mounted Police, but Strangeways of the Oxford boat at one time. I fancied I knew you; you rowed at seven for Corpus, and it was you who won that race."

"I and seven others," laughed Granger; "but what brings you up here at this time?"

"We'll talk about that later. At present I'm hungry; I've hardly had a meal since I left G.o.d's Voice."

"Then you're travelling in haste?"

"Yes, in haste."

Granger set to work to prepare a meal, while Strangeways talked to him of the Cornmarket, the Turl, and the Hinkseys, running over the familiar geography for the sheer pleasure of recalling kindly Oxford names. Presently he asked him if he remembered the little maid who had served in the river-inn of the King's Arms at Sanford. Granger had had a summer love-affair with that same maid, as had many a young water-man before and after him. One quiet Sunday evening, when her fickle pa.s.sion had reached its short-lived height, he had even been allowed the felicity of accompanying her to vespers at the quaint old Norman Church, which lay snuggled away in woods behind the Thames.

They had returned to the inn by a roundabout way, through the meadows beneath the twilight, speaking all manner of intense things, and, very wonderfully, believing both themselves and their sayings to be sincere. When he had entered his skiff and pushed out from the bank, she had called him back and royally permitted him to give her his first and, as it proved, only kiss. But he had not known that, and had rowed elated Oxfordwards between the hayfields, dreaming his ecstasy on into the future--when it had already achieved its climax, and slipped out of his life. Since then it had come to seem very simple and absurd, as do all love affairs, however august, which are lived down--for no love affair was ever outlived. So, because he had been fond of her, he was glad to listen to Strangeways, even when he related her newer conquests over more recent undergrads, and her later romantic history. By all accounts she was a modern Helen of Troy, uncontaminate, forever fair and forever juvenile.

And all the while he was listening, Granger was planning by what means he might detain Strangeways, and hazarding what progress Spurling had made by this time in his escape. "A life for a life," he thought; "and Spurling once saved my life. Until I have cancelled that debt, even though Mordaunt has been slain, I will stand by him."

Throughout the winter months all meals were the same at Murder Point, consisting of black tea, salt bacon, and bannocks, which are a kind of hard biscuit, made of flour and water mixed to a thick paste and then baked. This diet becomes pretty monotonous, but is the traveller's universal fare in Keewatin. In those far regions men are not particular how or what they eat; of necessity they abandon the refinements of civilisation as needless and c.u.mbrous. To-day, however, partly to protract his stay and so give Spurling time, partly to a.s.sert his waning gentility, the memory of which in its heyday Strangeways shared, he attempted to be lavish, to set a table, and to entertain. For cloth he spread a dress-length of gaudy muslin, such as Indians purchase for their squaws. He opened some tins of canned goods that he might provide his guest with more than one course. He built up his fire, and commenced to cook. All this used up time; and the expending of time was what he most desired.

When the meal was finished Strangeways rose up restlessly, as though he had just remembered his errand, and went to the door to see what progress the storm had made. The moment the door was opened the wind swept in, driving a fall of snow before it.

"It seems to me," said Granger, "that you're going to be snow-bound for a time. This'll make travelling dangerous, for the thaw has already weakened the ice in places and now the snow'll cover them over, making them appear safe. It's strange, for blizzards don't often happen so late as this."

"Well, there's one comfort," said Strangeways, "it's the same for all alike; if I'm delayed, so is someone else."

Granger turned his back on him, and walked over to the window where he stood tapping on the gla.s.s, attempting to dislodge the snow which had spread itself out like a blanket across the panes. "Poor devil," he said, "I pity him, whoever he is. He can find no place of shelter in all the three hundred and twenty miles which stretch between G.o.d's Voice and Crooked Creek, unless he comes here or falls in with some trapper's camp."

"Then you have had no one here lately?"

"No, I haven't seen an Indian for over a month. They don't visit me so late in the winter as this; they wait for the open season, when they can bring in their furs by water."

"But the man I'm speaking of is white. He drives a team of five grey huskies, the leader of which has a yellow face and a patch of brindled-brown upon its right hindquarters. Haven't you seen such an one go by within the last twenty-four hours?"

Granger shook his head; "Perhaps you've pa.s.sed him on the way," he suggested; "if he knew that you were following him, he may have dodged you purposely and doubled back."

"He knew all right; it was because he knew that I was following that he fled. I can hardly have pa.s.sed him, for he was seen by a half-breed ten miles from G.o.d's Voice, and I've travelled slowly and kept a careful watch between there and here. Besides I tracked his trail to within an hour's journey of the Point, until the snow came down and obliterated it. He was going weakly at the last; both man and dogs must have been spent."

"Then he must be somewhere to the westward, between the spot where you lost his trail and here."

"Perhaps, but the argument against that is that his trail was at least twelve hours old. Anyhow, I shall have to wait until this blizzard is over. During that time he may struggle in from the west, or, if he has gone by, may be driven back here for shelter by the gale."

Granger had not thought of that contingency, that Spurling might be driven back by the weather, might push open the door at any moment and give him the lie before Strangeways. Perhaps a look of fear pa.s.sed across his face, which betrayed him. At any rate, the next thing he heard was Strangeways, saying to him in a careless voice, "Of course, between gentlemen it is scarcely necessary to ask you whether you are telling the truth!"

"It is scarcely necessary."

"Then I beg your pardon for asking."

"You needn't. You've got to do your duty irrespective of caste; whatever I once was, you can see for yourself what I am."

"Yes, a gentleman down on his luck; but still a gentleman. Strange how one gets knocked about by life, isn't it? I little thought when I caught a glimpse of you, leaning on your oar exhausted at the end of that race, that the next time we should meet would be up here. It's curious the things a fellow remembers. Our boats were alongside, just off the Merton barge; the first thing I saw when I recovered and sat up on my slide was your face, deadly pale, almost within hand-stretch.

I don't recall ever to have seen you again until I struck that match an hour ago and held it to you, and you opened your eyes; then it all came back. When you were sleeping you looked haggard, just about the same as you did then. If I'd seen you awake, I don't suppose I should have remembered. . . . I didn't even know where Keewatin was in those days. If anyone had told me that it was a village near Jericho I should have believed him. I daresay you were nearly as ignorant; and now we're here in your shack."

Granger, anxious to keep Strangeway's attention from his pursuit, and his own thoughts occupied, inquired, "And what brought you into the Northwest Territories?"

"Oh, the usual thing--a girl. She was ward to my father, and was to inherit a considerable property when she came of age. I was in love with her, and my father was keen that I should marry her; there was only one hindrance, that her opinion didn't coincide with ours. I found out that my father was trying to break her spirit, and force her to his will. I couldn't allow that; so, having nothing better to do, I left home and came to Canada for a while. Mind you, I'm not condemning my father; he thought that he was doing the best for both our sakes.

But I wish he'd left us alone; if he had, I daresay it would have come out all right. She was one of those girls of whom the physiognomists say, 'Can be led by kindness, but cannot be driven.' The moment she was ordered to do a thing, which in the ordinary course of events she might have chosen to do of her own free will, she refused and hated it.

"When I got to Montreal I was confronted by that stupid superst.i.tion of the Canadians, that every young Englishman who has had a better education than themselves, and is possessed of a private income from the old country, must be a remittance-man and a ne'er-do-well--that he's been sent out because he wasn't wanted by his family. I tried to get employment; not that I needed it, but because I wanted to work.

The moment I opened my lips and didn't speak dialect or slang, and displayed hands which were not workman's hands, I was shown out. So I drifted west to Calgary and, after doing a little ranching there, enlisted in the Mounted Police."

"Do you like it?"

"Oh, yes, it's rather a lark, arresting the people who at first affected to despise you. I can always keep myself cheerful by the humour of that. If you've lost your sense of the ridiculous, you'd better join the Northwest Mounted Police--for an Englishman the cure's certain."

"And how about the girl?"

"She did a Gilbert and Sullivan trick. After I'd left home my father guessed the reason of my departure, and instead of giving her a rest, redoubled his efforts to make her marry me, that so he might bring me back. He was fond of both of us; we'd been brought up together, and he couldn't bear the idea of either of us being separated from himself.

He made an awful mess of things, poor old gentleman; he persecuted her with his arguments to such an extent that one morning he woke up and found that she had vanished. He made all sorts of inquiries, but to the day of his death could never get any news of her whereabouts."

Strangeways paused and commenced to light his pipe. Granger, who had become interested in the story, waited a minute for him to proceed, but when he had kindled his tobacco and still sat smoking in silence, "Well, and what next?" he asked.

"That is all," said Strangeways; "now tell me about yourself."

"I went into the Klondike with the gold-rush of nearly five years ago.

I travelled with a man named Spurling, and a young chap named Jervis Mordaunt, whom we chummed up with in our pa.s.sage over the Skaguay." He was conscious that Strangeways had jerked out his foot and was looking hard at him. He paid no attention to that, but proceeded leisurely with his tale. He conceived that it would answer his purpose better, in order that he might make the corporal unsuspicious of his share in Spurling's escape, to speak of him in a hostile manner, and to mention all the small and private faults which he could place to his discredit. He told a story of personal disputes between himself and his partners over the working of claims, which left the impression that Spurling and Mordaunt had always sided together against himself, and that finally he, getting sick of the climate, and quarrellings, and his continuous bad luck, had come outside, travelled to Winnipeg, and taken service with Garnier, Parwin, and Wrath, because he was in danger of starving. Of El Dorado, or his real reason for leaving the Yukon, he said nothing.

When he had ended, Strangeways, who had never for a second removed his gaze, inquired in a hoa.r.s.e, strained voice, "And this man Mordaunt, what was he like?"

"Oh, he was a slim little fellow; we nicknamed him 'The Girl' because of his ways, and because he was so slight."

"How old was he?"

"He couldn't have been more than eighteen when we first met him, for he never had to shave."