The Homesteaders Part 28

AN INQUEST--AND SOME EXPLANATIONS

The inquest party consisted of the coroner, who was the doctor that had already attended Allan; Sergeant Grey; six jurors, selected from the townspeople; the manager of the bank, whose suspicions had first been communicated to Grey; Travers; and Gardiner. In the early morning the policeman had ridden out to the ranch for Gardiner, but had met him on his way to town. News of the tragedy had reached him, he said, and he was hurrying in to see if he could be of some a.s.sistance to Travers, in arranging for a lawyer, or in any way that might be practicable. Grey told him that as yet no formal charge had been laid against Travers; that he was merely being held pending the finding of the coroner's jury, and suggested that if Gardiner would accompany him to the inquest he might be able, not only to throw some light on Travers' character, but also on his whereabouts on the night of the tragedy. To this Gardiner readily agreed.

It was noon when the party reached the Arthurses' ranch. Beulah counted them out with a field-gla.s.s while they were still miles down the valley, and a big table was set in the bunk-house where the cowboys were accommodated during the branding season. It was a matter of course that the men should be fed when they reached Arthurs'. At intervals in the setting of the table the girl returned to her field-gla.s.s, until she was quite sure of the straight figure riding beside the mounted policeman.

They swung into the yard amid a cloud of dust, the jingle of trappings, and the hearty exchange of greetings between Arthurs and his acquaintances from town. Gardiner was introduced to Arthurs, and shook hands without removing his gauntlets. He had learned that the party were to have dinner here, and he excused himself, saying that the long ride in the heat had upset him somewhat, and he thought he would be wiser to be in the shade for an hour or two before eating.

Arthurs pressed his hospitality upon him, but as Gardiner seemed fixed in his purpose he did not insist. Then the rancher walked over and shook hands with Travers. There were no signs of handcuffs now, and an outsider would not have known that the young man's position differed from that of the others present.

After the meal Gardiner joined them again, and the party, which now included Arthurs and Harris, proceeded up the valley to the scene of the tragedy. It was a great shock to Harris to find that the victim of Allan's gun was his old neighbour, Riles. He stood for a long time as one dazed by the discovery, but gradually out of the confusion a horrible fear took shape in his mind. Allan had shot this man, with whom they had an appointment at this spot; had shot him down, as far as could be shown, without excuse or provocation, before he had so much as entered the door. The body proved to be unarmed, and from its position had evidently fallen into the building after receiving the fatal charge.

The old man turned dry eyes from the gruesome thing across the warm, shimmering valleys. On the farther slopes, leagues distant through the clear air, ripening fields of wheat lay on the hillsides like patches of copper-plate, and farther still thin columns of smoke marked the points where steam-ploughs were wrapping the virgin prairie in her first black bridal of commerce. But he saw none of these. He saw Allan, and he saw bars, and a prisoner's dock. And there was something else that he would not see; he would close his eyes; he would not let its horrid gaunt ligaments thrust themselves into his vision!

After a thorough examination of the scene they laid the body in a democrat and returned to Arthurs', where the coroner held his court in the bunk-house.

Harris's evidence was first received. He found it difficult to give his story connectedly, but item by item he told of his acquaintance with Riles in the eastern province; of their decision to come west and take up more land; of the chance by which they had fallen with Gardiner, and the prospect he had laid before them of more profitable returns from another form of investment; of how his hesitation had finally been overcome by the a.s.surance that all he need do was have his money ready--he was to be under no obligation to go any further in the transaction unless entirely satisfied; of the offer wired by the New York capitalists; of the sale of his farm for a disappointing sum, and their journey with the money to the old shanty up the valley, where they were to be met by Riles and Gardiner, and also, as they expected, by the owner of the mine, with whom they would open direct negotiations, producing the money as proof of their desire and ability to carry out their undertaking; of how they hoped the owner would be induced to accept a deposit and accompany them back to town, where an option would be secured from him for a period sufficient to enable them to turn the property over to the New York investors at a handsome profit; of how he--Harris--wearied by the long ride in the bright, thin air, had gone to sleep confidently with Allan at his side, and of how he had suddenly been awakened by a shot and had heard Allan spring to his feet and rush across the floor of the old building. Then there had been another shot--a revolver shot this time--and everything was darkness, and he could hear only something struggling at the door. Then he told of his own fight; of how they had fallen and rolled about on the rotten floor, and how, in desperation, he had not hesitated to use his teeth on the hand of his a.s.sailant, who had finally broken away and disappeared in the darkness. Then he told the rest of his story; of his vigil with Allan, of the loss of the money, of the capture of Travers, and finally of the arrival of the policeman on the scene.

"Didn't it seem to you a foolish thing to go into the hills with all that money to meet a man you had never seen, and buy a property you had never examined?" asked the coroner.

"It wasn't foolishness; it was stark, raving madness, as I see it now," Harris admitted. "But I didn't see it that way then. It looked like a lot of easy money. I didn't care what the coal mine was like--I didn't care whether there was a coal mine at all or not, so long as we made our turn-over to the New York people."

"But did it not occur to you that the whole thing--coal mine and mine owner and New Yorkers and all--was simply a scheme hatched up to induce you away into the fastnesses of the foothills with a lot of money in your possession?"

A half-bewildered look came over Harris, as of a man gripped by a new and paralyzing thought. But he shook his head. "No, it couldn't have been that," he said. "You see, Riles was an old neighbour of mine, and Mr. Gardiner, too, I knew for a good many years. It wasn't like as if I had been dealing with strangers."

"We will go deeper into that matter after a little," said the coroner. "It's very fortunate Mr. Gardiner is here to add what light he can to the mystery. We will now adjourn to the room where the younger Mr. Harris lies and hear his evidence. It would be unwise to move him for some days yet."

They found Allan partly propped up in the white bed. His face was pale, and his hands were astonishingly thin and white, but his mind was clear, and he could talk without difficulty. He covered much the same ground as his father had done, up to the point where the elder Harris had fallen asleep in the old building.

"I can't tell you how it happened, Doctor," he said, turning his eyes, larger now in his pale face, upon the coroner, "but I think I got very homesick--I guess I was pretty tired, too--and I began thinking of things that had happened long ago, back when I was a little child, in a little sod shanty that the old shack in the valley some way seemed to bring to mind. And then I guess I fell asleep, too, but suddenly I sat up in a great fright. I'm not a coward," he said, with a faint smile. "When I'm feeling myself it takes more than a notion or a dark night to send the creeps up the back of my neck.

But I own I sat up there so frightened my teeth chattered. I had a feeling that I was going to be attacked--I didn't know by what--maybe by a wild beast--but something was going to rush in through that old blanket hanging in the door and pounce on me."

The sweat was standing on Allan's face, and he sank back weakly into the pillows. Beulah placed a gla.s.s to his lips, and the doctor told him to take his time with his story. The jurors stood about the bed in silence, looking from one to the other with expressions that suggested they were almost in the presence of the supernatural. If the black bag with the money had slowly risen out of the floor someone would have quietly set it in a corner until Allan was ready to continue his evidence.

"As the minutes went by," Allan continued, after an interval, "that terrible dread grew upon me, and my sense of danger changed from fear to certainty. Something was going to attack me through that door! I raised my gun and took careful aim. I saw the blanket swing a little; then I saw the fingers of a man's hand. Then I fired.

"Perhaps I am a murderer," he continued, simply, "but before G.o.d I know no more why I fired that shot than you do."

There were deep breathing and shuffling of feet as Allan completed this part of his statement, but only the coroner found his voice.

"Most remarkable evidence," he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "Most extraordinary evidence. I have never heard anything so obviously sincere and at the same time so altogether unexplainable."

"Perhaps it's not so unexplainable," said a quiet voice; and Mary Harris made her way through the circle of men to the side of the bed.

She sat down on the coverlet and took the boy's hand in hers. It mattered not how many were looking on; he was her little boy again.

"_You_ will understand, Doctor, and some of you men are parents," she began. "Allan will be twenty-five years old this coming winter. A little less than twenty-five years ago my husband was obliged to leave me alone for a considerable period in our little sod shanty on the homestead where we had located down in Manitoba. There were no near neighbours, as we count distance in well-settled districts, and I was altogether alone, I stood it all right for the first day or two, but my nerves were not what they should have been, and gradually a strange, unreasoning fear came upon me. I suppose it was the immensity of the prairies, the terrible loneliness of it all, and my own state of health, but the dread grew from day to day and from night to night. I tried to busy self, to keep my mind active, to throw off the spectre that haunted me, but day and night I was oppressed with a sense of impending danger. We had no wooden door on the house; we hadn't money to buy the boards to make one, and all my protection was a blanket hung in the doorway. I used to watch that blanket at night; I would light the lantern and sit in the corner and watch that blanket. My fear gradually pictured to itself an attack through that doorway--I didn't know by what; by white man, or Indian, or wild beast, or ghost, or worse, if that is possible; my mind could not balance things; nothing seemed too unreasonable or terrible to expect. So I took the gun, and sat in the corner, and waited.

"And then at last it came. I didn't see anything, and I didn't hear anything, but I knew it was there. I still remember how frightened and yet how cool I was in that last moment. I held the gun to my shoulder and waited for _It_ to thrust itself against the blanket. In another moment I am sure I should have fired. But before that moment I heard my name called, and I knew my husband's voice, and I came out of the nightmare."

She brought her eyes slowly from the face of the doctor over the group of men a.s.sembled in the room, and then dropped them to meet Allan's. He was breathing her name softly. "If it was a wrong thing for Allan to shoot this man," she said, "don't blame Allan for it.

Let me pay any price that must be paid."

"Most extraordinary," the coroner repeated, after a silence. "It seems to account for the shooting of Riles, but it leaves us as much as ever--more than ever, I should say--in the dark concerning the disappearance of the money, and the part which has implicated the young man Travers in the affair."

The banker gave his evidence. It was not unusual, he said, for considerable sums in bank-notes to be handled among speculators and land buyers, but the amount withdrawn by Harris was so great that it had left him somewhat ill at ease, and as Sergeant Grey had happened his way he had mentioned the matter to him.

The policeman shed little new light on the case. He had followed the party into the hills as best he could, taking the off chance of something sinister afoot. He had found Harris, with his wounded son, and a prisoner, and a man dead in the doorway. He had notified the coroner and taken Travers in charge. Here his eyes met Beulah's. "I don't think there is anything more to be said," he concluded.

During the hearing of the various witnesses Gardiner had attempted an air of impersonal interest, but with no great success. His demeanour, studied though it was, betrayed a certain anxiety and impatience. He was dressed just as he had dismounted from his horse, having removed only his hat. But he smiled confidently when asked for his evidence, and told his story calmly and connectedly.

It is quite true that he was a.s.sociated with Riles and Mr. Harris in the coal-mine investment. He was acting for the owner of the property; but had seen that a large profit was to be made from the turn-over, and had been glad to place the opportunity in the way of two old friends. The offer from the New York concern was entirely bona fide; he had the telegram in his pocket at that moment, notwithstanding the suggestion made by the coroner, which, if he might say so, he thought was hardly warranted, and would not have been made with a full knowledge of the circ.u.mstances. The owner of the mine could be produced at the proper moment, if that became necessary.

"I feel a grave responsibility in this whole matter," Gardiner protested, with some emotion. "I feel that I am, at least indirectly, responsible for the serious loss that has befallen Mr. Harris, and for the injury to his son. But when you have heard the whole circ.u.mstances you will agree that the situation was one I could not possibly have foreseen. Let me give them to you in some detail.

"The day before yesterday, in company with Riles, I met Mr. Harris and his son, and found that their money had arrived. The remittance was not as large as they expected, but I believed that I could raise some money privately, and that we would still be able to put the deal through. I advised against losing any time, as I knew that if the owner should meet anyone else interested in a proposition of a similar nature we would find it much harder to make a bargain with him. It was arranged that the two Mr. Harrises were to drive ahead, taking the money with them, and that Riles and I would follow. We were to overtake them at the old building where this unfortunate tragedy occurred. As it happened, I had a sick horse at the ranch, and, as I was delayed in getting some medicine for him, Riles suggested that he would ride out to the ranch--that is, where I live--and wait for me there. Up to that time I had no suspicions, and I agreed to that.

"Well, when I reached the ranch, I could find nothing of Riles, and, on further search, I could find nothing of Travers, who was working for me. Their riding horses were gone, and so were their saddles and bridles. I found that Travers had taken his revolver out of the house. I confess my suspicions were then somewhat aroused, but I found myself with the sick horse on my hands, and I could not very well leave the place. Of course, I never thought of anything so bad as has happened, or I would not have considered the horse, but I admit I was at a loss to understand their conduct. But when I heard, early this morning, what had happened, it was all clear to me."

During the latter part of this evidence Travers had fixed his eyes on Gardiner, but the witness had steadily avoided him. Jim was now convinced that he was the victim, not of a coincidence, but a plot.

Of course, he could give his evidence, which would be directly contradictory to that of Gardiner, but he was already under suspicion, and anything he might say would be unconsciously discounted by the jurors. But he began calmly, a quiet smile still playing about his thin lips and clean teeth. "I am sorry I cannot corroborate all the last witness has said," he commenced. "I did not leave the ranch with Riles; on the contrary, I was fishing down by the river when I saw Riles and Gardiner ride by. Gardiner was talking, and I heard him mention Mr. Harris's name. I worked for Mr.

Harris not long ago, but I did not know he was in this part of the country. I heard Gardiner say--" Jim coloured a little, and stopped.

"Well, what did you hear him say?" said the coroner. "That is what we are anxious to know."

"I heard him say something about Mr. Harris losing all his money that night, in the old shanty up the river road. 'Strange things have happened up there, Riles,' he said. That made me suspicious, and I hurried back to the ranch, determined to follow them. I found that my revolver had been taken. I armed myself as best I could, and set out.

When I came near the building which Gardiner had mentioned I dismounted and approached it carefully. It was very dark. Suddenly I was attacked from behind. A sack was thrown over my head, and I was overpowered, and bound. I don't know how long I was kept in that condition, but when at last the sack was removed I was in the presence of Sergeant Grey."

With the progress of Travers' narrative all eyes had turned to Gardiner, but, whatever his inward emotions, he outwardly showed no signs of discomfiture. "This seems to be a day of strange tales," he said to the coroner, "and the last we have heard is stranger than the first. Of course, it is quite absurd on the face of it. The suggestion that I would be a party to robbing Mr. Harris of twenty thousand dollars, and so balk a transaction in which I stood to make a profit of more than twice that amount, is too ridiculous for discussion. I didn't say so before, because it didn't seem to bear on the case, but I have at home a telegram which I received a few days ago from the New York investors, offering me a personal commission of twenty per cent, on the transaction if I was able to get this property for them at the price they had offered. So, from a purely selfish point of view, you see where my interests lay. But there are other reasons for this fine tale which you have just heard. To spare the feelings of some present, I intended to say nothing of them, but if I must tell what I know, why, I must tell what I know. This man Travers was a farm hand working for Harris on his farm back in Manitoba. Harris is--or was--well-to-do, and Travers accordingly mustered up an attachment for his daughter. This the young lady, it seems, was foolish enough to return. They--"

"That'll do, Gardiner," interrupted Travers, in a quiet, vibrant voice. "You are getting away from the subject."

"On the contrary, I'm getting close to the subject--a little too close for your comfort, it seems."

"I am not investigating any family closets," said the coroner. "You will have to show the connection between these matters and the inquiry we are making."

"I will do that in a moment, sir," Gardiner returned. "But I cannot show the connection until I have shown the events that are connected.

Travers had trouble with Harris and had a fight with Allan. Then he and the young lady ran away. They have both been in this part of the country for some time. But Travers' plan to inherit the Harris property was upset on account of the girl quarrelling with her parents, and his ardour seems to have cooled off noticeably. But he was as keen for the property as ever. Riles was a weakling in the hands of a man like Travers, and no doubt he betrayed the fact that Harris was taking his money with him into the hills. Then the two of them framed up the plan which has resulted in the death of one and the arrest of the other." During these exchanges the sympathies of the jurors seemed to veer from side to side. The theories propounded were so contradictory that opinions wavered with each sentence of evidence. But a new bolt was ready for the shooting.

"Mr. Coroner," said Beulah, rising and pointing at Gardiner, "will you make that man take his gauntlets off?"

There seemed an instant recession of the blood from Gardiner's face.

But it was for the instant only. "My hat is off," he said, with a smile. "Is not that sufficient?"

"Make him take them off!" Beulah insisted.

"There is no rule against wearing gauntlets in a coroner's court,"

said the coroner. "I do not see the point of your objection."