The Golden Snare Part 5

"I keel ze man at G.o.d's Lake because he steal ze knife--an' call me lie. I keel heem--lak that!"--and he s.n.a.t.c.hed up a stick and broke it into two pieces.

His weird laugh followed the words. He went to the meat and began carving off chunks for the pack, and for a long time after that one would have thought that he was dumb. Philip made greater effort than ever to rouse him into speech. He laughed, and whistled, and once tried the experiment of singing a s.n.a.t.c.h of the Caribou Song which he knew that Bram must have heard many times before. As he roasted his steak over the fire he talked about the Barren, and the great herd of caribou he had seen farther east; he asked Bram questions about the weather, the wolves, and the country farther north and west. More than once he was certain that Bram was listening intently, but nothing more than an occasional grunt was his response.

For an hour after they had finished their supper they continued to melt snow for drinking water for themselves and the wolves. Night shut them in, and in the glow of the fire Bram scooped a hollow in the snow for a bed, and tilted the big sledge over it as a roof. Philip made himself as comfortable as he could with his sleeping bag, using his tent as an additional protection. The fire went out. Bram's heavy breathing told Philip that the wolf-man was soon asleep. It was a long time before he felt a drowsiness creeping over himself.

Later he was awakened by a heavy grasp on his arm, and roused himself to hear Bram's voice close over him.

"Get up, m'sieu."

It was so dark he could not see Bram when he got on his feet, but he could hear him a moment later among the wolves, and knew that he was making ready to travel. When his sleeping-bag and tent were on the sledge he struck a match and looked at his watch. It was less than a quarter of an hour after midnight.

For two hours Bram led his pack straight into the west. The night cleared after that, and as the stars grew brighter and more numerous in the sky the plain was lighted up on all sides of them, as on the night when Philip had first seen Bram. By lighting an occasional match Philip continued to keep a record of direction and time. It was three o'clock, and they were still traveling west, when to his surprise they struck a small patch of timber. The clump of stunted and wind-snarled spruce covered no more than half an acre, but it was conclusive evidence they were again approaching a timber-line.

From the patch of spruce Bram struck due north, and for another hour their trail was over the white Barren. Soon after this they came to a fringe of scattered timber which grew steadily heavier and deeper as they entered into it. They must have penetrated eight or ten miles into the forest before the dawn came. And in that dawn, gray and gloomy, they came suddenly upon a cabin.

Philip's heart gave a jump. Here, at last, would the mystery of the golden snare be solved. This was his first thought. But as they drew nearer, and stopped at the threshold of the door, he felt sweep over him an utter disappointment. There was no life here. No smoke came from the chimney and the door was almost buried in a huge drift of snow. His thoughts were cut short by the crack of Bram's whip. The wolves swept onward and Bram's insane laugh sent a weird and shuddering echo through the forest.

From the time they left behind them the lifeless and snow-smothered cabin Philip lost account of time and direction. He believed that Bram was nearing the end of his trail. The wolves were dead tired. The wolf-man himself was lagging, and since midnight had ridden more frequently on the sledge. Still he drove on, and Philip searched with increasing eagerness the trail ahead of them.

It was eight o'clock--two hours after they had pa.s.sed the cabin--when they came to the edge of a clearing in the center of which was a second cabin. Here at a glance Philip saw there was life. A thin spiral of smoke was rising from the chimney. He could see only the roof of the log structure, for it was entirely shut in by a circular stockade of saplings six feet high.

Twenty paces from where Bram stopped his team was the gate of the stockade. Bram went to it, thrust his arm through a hole even with his shoulders, and a moment later the gate swung inward. For perhaps a s.p.a.ce of twenty seconds he looked steadily at Philip, and for the first time Philip observed the remarkable change that had come into his face.

It was no longer a face of almost brutish impa.s.siveness. There was a strange glow in his eyes. His thick lips were parted as if on the point of speech, and he was breathing with a quickness which did not come of physical exertion. Philip did not move or speak. Behind him he heard the restless whine of the wolves. He kept his eyes on Bram, and as he saw the look of joy and antic.i.p.ation deepening in the wolf-man's face the appalling thought of what it meant sickened him. He clenched his hands. Bram did not see the act. He was looking again toward the cabin and at the spiral of smoke rising out of the chimney.

Then he faced Philip, and said,

"M'sieu, you go to ze cabin."

He held the gate open, and Philip entered. He paused to make certain of Bram's intention. The wolf-man swept an arm about the enclosure.

"In ze pit I loose ze wolve, m'sieu."

Philip understood. The stockade enclosure was Bram's wolf-pit, and Bram meant that he should reach the cabin before he gave the pack the freedom of the corral. He tried to conceal the excitement in his face as he turned toward the cabin. From the gate to the door ran a path worn by many footprints, and his heart beat faster as he noted the smallness of the moccasin tracks. Even then his mind fought against the possibility of the thing. Probably it was an Indian woman who lived with Bram, or an Eskimo girl he had brought down from the north.

He made no sound as he approached the door. He did not knock, but opened it and entered, as Bram had invited him to do.

From the gate Bram watched the cabin door as it closed behind him, and then he threw back his head and such a laugh of triumph came from his lips that even the tired beasts behind him p.r.i.c.ked up their ears and listened.

And Philip, in that same moment, had solved the mystery of the golden snare.

CHAPTER IX

Philip had entered Bram Johnson's cabin from the west. Out of the east the pale fire of the winter sun seemed to concentrate itself on the one window of Bram's habitation, and flooded the opposite part.i.tion. In this part.i.tion there was a doorway, and in the doorway stood a girl.

She was standing full in the light that came through the window when Philip saw her. His first impression was that she was clouded in the same wonderful hair that had gone into the making of the golden snare.

It billowed over her arms and breast to her hips, aflame with the living fires of the reflected sun. His second impression was that his entrance had interrupted her while she was dressing and that she was benumbed with astonishment as she stared at him. He caught the white gleam of her bare shoulders under her hair. And then, with a shock, he saw what was in her face.

It turned his blood cold. It was the look of a soul that had been tortured. Agony and doubt burned in the eyes that were looking at him.

He had never seen such eyes. They were like violet amethysts. Her face was dead white. It was beautiful. And she was young. She was not over twenty, it flashed upon him--but she had gone through a h.e.l.l.

"Don't let me alarm you," he said, speaking gently. "I am Philip Raine of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police."

It did not surprise him that she made no answer. As plainly as if she had spoken it he had in those few swift moments read the story in her face. His heart choked him as he waited for her lips to move. It was a mystery to him afterward why he accepted the situation so utterly as he stood there. He had no question to ask, and there was no doubt in his mind. He knew that he would kill Bram Johnson when the moment arrived.

The girl had not seemed to breathe, but now she drew in her breath in a great gasp. He could see the sudden throb of her breast under her hair, but the frightened light did not leave her eyes even when he repeated the words he had spoken. Suddenly she ran to the window, and Philip saw the grip of her hands at the sill as she looked out. Through the gate Bram was driving his wolves. When she faced him again, her eyes had in them the look of a creature threatened by a whip. It amazed and startled him. As he advanced a step she cringed back from him. It struck him then that her face was like the face of an angel--filled with a mad horror. She reached out her bare arms to hold him back, and a strange pleading cry came from her lips.

The cry stopped him like a shot. He knew that she had spoken to him.

And yet he had not understood! He tore open his coat and the sunlight fell on his bronze insignia of the Service. Its effect on her amazed him even more than had her sudden fear of him. It occurred to him suddenly that with a two weeks' ragged growth of beard on his face he must look something like a beast himself. She had feared him, as she feared Bram, until she saw the badge.

"I am Philip Raine, of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police," he repeated again. "I have come up here especially to help you, if you need help. I could have got Bram farther back, but there was a reason why I didn't want him until I found his cabin. That reason was you. Why are you here with a madman and a murderer?"

She was watching him intently. Her eyes were on his lips, and into her face--white a few moments before--had risen swiftly a flush of color.

He saw the dread die out of her eyes in a new and dazzling excitement.

Outside they could hear Bram. The girl turned again and looked through the window. Then she began talking, swiftly and eagerly, in a language that was as strange to Philip as the mystery of her presence in Bram Johnson's cabin. She knew that he could not understand, and suddenly she came up close to him and put a finger to his lips, and then to her own, and shook her head. He could fairly feel the throb of her excitement. The astounding truth held him dumb. She was trying to make him comprehend something--in a language which he had never heard before in all his life. He stared at her--like an idiot he told himself afterward.

And then the shuffle of Bram's heavy feet sounded just outside the door. Instantly the old light leapt into the girl's eyes. Before the door could open she had darted into the room from which she had first appeared, her hair floating about her in a golden cloud as she ran.

The door opened, and Bram entered. At his heels, beyond the threshold, Philip caught a glimpse of the pack glaring hungrily into the cabin.

Bram was burdened under the load he had brought from the sledge. He dropped it to the floor, and without looking at Philip his eyes fastened themselves on the door to the inner room.

They stood there for a full minute, Bram as if hypnotized by the door, and Philip with his eyes on Bram. Neither moved, and neither made a sound. A curtain had dropped over the entrance to the inner room, and beyond that they could hear the girl moving about. A dozen emotions were fighting in Philip. If he had possessed a weapon he would have ended the matter with Bram then, for the light that was burning like a strange flame in the wolf-man's eyes convinced him that he had guessed the truth. Bare-handed he was no match for the giant madman. For the first time he let his glance travel cautiously about the room. Near the stove was a pile of firewood. A stick of this would do--when the opportunity came.

And then, in a way that made him almost cry out, every nerve in his body was startled. The girl appeared in the doorway, a smile on her lips and her eyes shining radiantly--straight at Bram! She partly held out her arms, and began talking. She seemed utterly oblivious of Philip's presence. Not a word that she uttered could he understand. It was not Cree or Chippewyan or Eskimo. It was not French or German or any tongue that he had ever heard. Her voice was pure and soft. It trembled a little, and she was breathing quickly. But the look in her face that had at first horrified him was no longer there. She had braided her hair and had coiled the shining strands on the crown of her head, and the coloring in her face was like that of a rare painting. In these astounding moments he knew that such color and such hair did not go with any race that had ever bred in the northland. From her face, even as her lips spoke, he looked at Bram. The wolf-man was transfigured. His strange eyes were shining, his heavy face was filled with a dog-like joy, and his thick lips moved as if he was repeating to himself what the girl was saying.

Was it possible that he understood her? Was the strange language in which she was speaking common between them! At first Philip thought that it must be so--and all the horrors of the situation that he had built up for himself fell about him in confusing disorder. The girl, as she stood there now, seemed glad that Bram had returned; and with a heart choking him with its suspense he waited for Bram to speak, and act.

When the girl ceased speaking the wolf-man's response came in a guttural cry that was like a paean of triumph. He dropped on his knees beside the dunnage bag and mumbling thickly as he worked he began emptying its contents upon the floor.

Philip looked at the girl. She was looking at him now. Her hands were clutched at her breast, and in her face and att.i.tude there was a wordless entreaty for him to understand. The truth came to him like a flash. For some reason she had forced herself to appear that way to the wolf-man. She had forced herself to smile, forced the look of gladness into her face, and the words from her lips. And now she was trying to tell him what it meant, and pointing to Bram as he knelt with his huge head and shoulders bent over the dunnage bag on the floor she exclaimed in a low, tense voice:

"Tossi--tossi--han er tossi!"

It was useless. He could not understand, and it was impossible for him to hide the bewilderment in his face. All at once an inspiration came to him. Bram's back was toward him, and he pointed to the sticks of firewood. His pantomime was clear. Should he knock the wolf-man's brains out as he knelt there?

He could see that his question sent a thrill of alarm through her. She shook her head. Her lips formed strange words, and looking again at Bram she repeated, "Tossi--tossi--han er tossi!" She clasped her hands suddenly to her head then. Her slim fingers buried themselves in the thick braids of her hair. Her eyes dilated--and suddenly understanding flashed upon him. She was telling him what he already knew--that Bram Johnson was mad, and he repeated after her the "Tossi-tossi," tapping his forehead suggestively, and nodding at Bram. Yes, that was it. He could see it in the quick intake of her breath and the sudden expression of relief that swept over her face. She had been afraid he would attack the wolf-man. And now she was glad that he understood he was not to harm him.

If the situation had seemed fairly clear to him a few minutes before it had become more deeply mysterious than ever now. Even as the wolf-man rose from his knees, still mumbling to himself in incoherent exultation, the great and unanswerable question pounded in Philip's brain: "Who was this girl, and what was she to Bram Johnson--the crazed outlaw whom she feared and yet whom she did not wish him to harm?"

And then he saw her staring at the things which Bram had sorted out on the floor. In her eyes was hunger. It was a living, palpitant part of her now as she stared at the things which Bram had taken from the dunnage bag--as surely as Bram's madness was a part of him. As Philip watched her he knew that slowly the curtain was rising on the tragedy of the golden snare. In a way the look that he saw in her face shocked him more than anything that he had seen in Bram's. It was as if, in fact, a curtain had lifted before his eyes revealing to him an unbelievable truth, and something of the h.e.l.l through which she had gone. She was hungry--FOR SOMETHING THAT WAS NOT FLESH! Swiftly the thought flashed upon him why the wolf-man had traveled so far to the south, and why he had attacked him for possession of his food supply.

It was that he might bring these things to the girl. He knew that it was s.e.x-pride that restrained the impulse that was pounding in every vein of her body. She wanted to fling herself down on her knees beside that pile of stuff--but she remembered HIM! Her eyes met his, and the shame of her confession swept in a crimson flood into her face. The feminine instinct told her that she had betrayed herself--like an animal, and that he must have seen in her for a moment something that was almost like Bram's own madness.

CHAPTER X