"You condemned jumper! These are honest men," he said, pointing to those who followed him. "We'll go back and camp up yonder, boys."
It was close on midnight when Seaforth crept up to Alton, who lay huddled against a cedar in the smoke of the fire. His face showed drawn and puckered in the flickering light.
"Don't take it too hard, Harry," he said.
Alton smothered a groan. "I'm feeling very mean tonight," he said. "Lord, what a mess I've made of everything. Every ranch in Somasco mortgaged to the last rod, the new mill not finished, roads half made, and not another dollar to be had in the city. And there's not a man or woman who believed in me but I've dragged them down."
"I think," said Seaforth, "they believe in you still. You did all that any man could have done, Harry."
"No," said Alton. "I stayed down in Vancouver when I should have been here. That can never be quite wiped out—but what could I do?"
Seaforth laid his hand on his comrade's shoulder. "Don't worry too much about what is done with, but look forward. You'll find your friends behind you yet."
Alton shook off his grasp. "My friends! I've done them harm enough, but you are right. This thing isn't finished yet."
Seaforth smiled a little. "That is a good deal better, Harry. One wins at the last round now and then."
Alton looked at him steadily. "You don't understand. All that was worth winning has gone already—but Hallam must fight."
Seaforth saw the smouldering fire in the half-closed eyes, and the instinctive closing of the lean, hard fingers, and went back to his lair in the wet undergrowth contented. Hallam had won hitherto, but he knew his comrade, and the struggle was not over yet.
CHAPTER XXX
SEAFORTH'S REINSTATEMENT
There is on the road between Vancouver and New Westminster a strip of primeval bush. Beyond it the Fraser meadows stretch, open to wind and sun, westwards to the sea, but beneath the great black pines it is dim and shadowy, and Seaforth was glad of that as he stood leaning against a hemlock one sunny afternoon. He would have found the task he had undertaken almost impossible in the glare of the white road that ran straight under the open sky, but the stillness of that green realm of shadow where all things were softened in the faint half-light had made it a trifle easier. Also, the essence of the spring, which had come suddenly, was in the scent of pine and cedar, and it had given him courage, and set his pulses throbbing faster. It is possible that the man did not realize all the influences that upheld him then, but something that sprang from the steaming earth and the life that was stirring in every towering pine reacted upon him, and he gathered hope when he saw the reflex of it in the eyes of his companion.
She sat a pace or two apart from him on a cedar-trunk, and a dusty bicycle rested against the farther end of it. The dust was also thick upon her simple dress and the cotton gloves that lay in her hands. Her fingers had tightened upon them, and there was a flush in her cheeks when for a moment she glanced at the man. His face was a trifle colourless, but the girl looked aside again as she saw the tense anxiety in his eyes.
"And that is all," he said, with a little tremble in his voice. "You will think it is horribly too much?"
Nellie Townshead glanced away into the shadows of the bush, and there was pain and a trace of shrinking in her face, but it had vanished when she turned again, and her voice had a little imperious ring.
"And what made you tell me now?"
Seaforth spread his hands out with a little deprecatory gesture. "I expected this. The story I have told you should have shown you what I am—and while I wanted to tell it earlier I was afraid."
The colour was a trifle plainer in the cheeks of the girl, and her voice slightly more imperious still.
"That leaves the question unanswered. I still want to know what gave you the courage now?"
Seaforth understood her, and knew her pride. "I think Harry gave me some of it. You see, I never had a great deal."
"Harry?" said Miss Townshead, with a trace of astonishment that was not quite free from disdain.
Seaforth moved his head. "Yes," he said. "What I have told you I told him, and he seemed to think that one could live—even that kind of thing—down. He is, you see, a somewhat exacting man, and that gave me the hope that you would be as merciful."
"Still, you have not answered me."
Seaforth flushed a little. "I know what you mean—but would even what
I have told you warrant you thinking that of me?"
"I must know," said the girl.
Seaforth was silent a moment. "There is a distinction—but it is difficult to draw," he said. "Well, I could not bear to think of you struggling on down here alone with everything against you. There were times when it almost maddened me, and at last, though I knew it might cost me all I hoped for, I had to speak."
The girl's face softened. "And there was nothing else. You did not think that—because of anything which had happened—I should be more apt to listen?"
Seaforth was usually undemonstrative in bearing and speech, but he stood up stiffly, and his voice was a trifle strained. "That is what I have been trying to make clear, and I can only give you my word that I did not," he said. "If I had had more courage I would have told you that story long ago."
Nellie Townshead's eyes were very gentle now. "I felt I must make quite sure, because had it been otherwise I should never have forgiven you."
"And," said Seaforth slowly, "you can forgive the rest. I can make no protestations, but if I have gone straight in this country it was you who helped me, and I should never have gone down into the mire if I had known you in the other one. And now I have nothing, not even moderate prosperity to offer you."
"You think that would have counted?" said the girl.
"No," said Seaforth quietly, "not with you. It is because I have so little to offer I venture to ask so much. All the giving must be done by you."
Seaforth had, though not an eloquent man, pleaded his cause efficaciously, for although his words might have been better chosen, the inference behind them was plain; and while parts of his story had brought the colour to the cheeks of his companion, his blameless life in Canada was a very acceptable offering since he owed it to her. It is pleasant to feel oneself a refining influence, but it was not gratified vanity which stirred the girl. She had a wide charity, and was one of those whose mission is to give without looking for a return. She rose up slowly, and stood before him with eyes that had grown a trifle hazy.
"All that counts the most is yours still," she said. "And as to the rest—I think it is done with, Charley. You have lived it down."
Seaforth stretched out his hands and drew her to him. "God bless you, my dear, but you are wrong," he said, "All I had was yours two years ago."
It was some little time later when a creaking wagon swung round a bend of the road, and the bronzed rancher on the driving-seat laughed softly to himself as he saw Miss Townshead sitting demurely but with downcast face on one end of the cedar, and Seaforth, who appeared suspiciously unconcerned, at least six feet away. That was not just how he had seen them when with the soft dust muffling the rattle of wheels he and his team came out of the shadows which hung athwart the bend. The wagon was old and weather-scarred, the harness rudely patched with hide, but it is possible there was room in the life of strenuous toil the bushman lived for the romance that brightens everything, and he shouted a mirthful greeting to them as he whipped his team. Then as the wagon jolted on out under the sombre archway into the brightness of the sun there came drifting back to them the refrain of a song. It was one sung often in the bush of that country at the time, and the two who sat listening in the green stillness that sunny afternoon grasped the verity that underlay its crude sentimentality. Shorn of its harshness, by the distance the voice rang bravely through the thud of hoofs and rattle, of wheels, and there was in the half-heard words and jingling rhythm what there was in the sunshine and scent of steaming earth, the life and hope of the eternal spring.
Seaforth laughed a little as he stretched his hand out to the girl, but the light which shone back at him from her eyes was softer than that of mirth.
"I think that man knows what we know," he said. "Come out into the sunlight. The world is not what it was an hour ago."
They were plodding down the dazzling road, one on either side of the dusty bicycle under the open sky when he spoke again.
"All this makes me sorry for Harry."
"Yes," said the girl reflectively, for she saw there was more to follow.
Seaforth bent his head. "He has so little now. Hallam has beaten us all round, and Harry's face takes my sleep away. Everything he hoped for has been taken from him, and he is lame, you see."
Nellie Townshead glanced at him swiftly. "One would scarcely notice it. You have something in your mind, Charley."
Seaforth's face was troubled as he answered her. "It is a little difficult to put into words, and if it was anybody else than Harry I would not try. Still, Alice Deringham is almost as much to him as you are to me—and I don't think she knows the truth, you see."
Nellie Townshead flushed a little, and there was a trace of anger in her eyes. "If Miss Deringham is punished for her wicked pride what is that to you?"
"Nothing," said Seaforth quietly. "Still—because of what I saw at the ranch—I am sorry for her, and Harry, who has been a very good friend to me, is being punished too. We have so much, you and I, and he has nothing now."
The girl did not answer him for at least a minute, and appeared concerned about something that rattled in the bicycle. Then she stopped and looked up at the man with a great tenderness in her eyes.
"You want to tell her? Well, it will be very difficult, but I will do it for you."
Seaforth stooped and kissed the little ungloved hand on the bicycle reverentially. "I don't know how I asked you, and knowing how much has been given me I am almost afraid," he said.
Nellie Townshead smiled at him, but she said nothing further until they parted, and Seaforth turned back towards Vancouver city. He was brimming over with good-will to everybody when he reached it, and as it happened found storekeeper Horton, who came down there occasionally, waiting for him. Horton was by no means a genius or well versed in legal procedure, but he had a ready wit, and Seaforth felt prompted to tell him the story of their first disastrous march, which Alton had hitherto but partially narrated, though he suppressed its final incident. Horton listened gravely with his most magisterial air.
"Harry's no fool, but he don't know everything," he said. "Now I see where you and me can take a hand in."
"Yes?" said Seaforth thoughtfully.
Horton nodded. "It was Damer who recorded your claim."
"Damer?" said Seaforth. "That was the man Harry pitched into the river at Somasco."
Horton chuckled. "You're right. Harry's just a trifle too handy at slinging folks into rivers and down stairways. Well, the fellow was hanging round my store, and I thought I knew him and wasn't sure, but when I saw his name down on the Crown mining record that fixed me. Now you're quite ready, you and Tom, to swear to the story you told me?"
"Of course, but still I don't see——"
Horton's eyes twinkled. "You will presently. That's where being a magistrate comes in. I'm going to take hold of Damer for horse-stealing."
A thought came swiftly into Seaforth's mind, and he smote the table.
"But I can't swear it was Damer. You would never convict him."
Horton laughed the bushman's almost silent laugh. "I don't know that I want to. Anyway, I can keep on remanding him, and when I sent him up for trial it would be a rancher's jury. That's going to give us a pull on Mr. Hallam, who is standing in somewhere behind the whole thing—and I kind of fancy there's another man with him."
Seaforth's face grew grave. "Then, as Harry wouldn't like it and there's nothing in it, I'd get rid of that fancy. Now, of course, you know what you can do, but isn't it playing a little too much into your own hand? And you see folks might get talking about the thing."
Horton put on his most impressive air. "There's justice by statute, and there's equity, as well as a lot more you never heard about," said he.
Seaforth could not check his smile. "And which of them is what we're going to do?"
"This," said Horton solemnly, "is—all of them. It's the square thing. Is there any reason why a man shouldn't do what is right because it suits him? Anyway, it needn't worry you, because you can just sit up and watch the circus begin."
"Just one question. Was Damer the man who rode out for the railroad one snowy night, shortly before I started after Harry?"
Horton nodded, and wondered a little at the change in his companion, for there was a little flash in Seaforth's eyes and his voice had a ring. "Then," he said grimly, "I'm going to take a hand in, but there are several good reasons why we should not tell Harry."
It was a week later when Forel came home one night looking somewhat anxious and depressed. He said little during the evening meal, but after it spoke to his wife alone, and Mrs. Forel came upon Alice Deringham soon after she left him.
"I'm not going to get the new ponies after all," she said. "Poor Tom has been unfortunate again."
"I am sorry," said Alice Deringham. "You mean in the city?"
"Yes," said Mrs. Forel with a little sigh. "He is always a trifle sanguine, and he put a good many dollars into a venture Mr. Alton recommended. Tom expected a good deal from it—but the dollars have all gone."
Alice Deringham did not look at the speaker. "They have lost the money?"
"Well," said Mrs. Forel, "I believe they will do. I don't understand all of it, but Tom tells me that he can't see any hope for Alton unless a new railroad's built, or the Government does something for the Somasco country, and that does not seem likely."
"Please tell me all you know."
Mrs. Forel looked thoughtful. "It isn't a great deal. The land and ranches up at Somasco are not worth very much just now, but Alton persuaded Tom they would be presently, and he helped Alton to borrow more dollars from everybody who would lend them. Then they built mills and things which will not be much use to anybody unless a railroad comes in. The people would only lend him the money for a little while, and Alton had hoped to pay them out of a silver mine, but Hallam, it seems, has been working against him and got somebody to relocate the mine because Alton did not get there in time. Now unless Alton and his company can pay those dollars back the other people will take all he has away from him, and if the railroad is ever built it is they or Hallam, who has been trying to buy the mortgages from them, who will benefit."
"But," said Alice Deringham, "how was it that Mr. Alton did not make sure of the mine?"
"That is just what puzzles Tom. He stayed down here too long, and then there was a flood or something that delayed him. Still, if he had gone when he intended he would have been in time."
Mrs. Forel glanced at her companion curiously, but the girl sat very still with her face turned aside. It was almost a minute before she spoke again.
"And Mr. Alton takes it hardly?"
"Tom doesn't seem to know. Alton, he thinks, must be beaten, but he told him he meant holding on until the last dollar had gone. After all, I can't help feeling sorry for him. It must be hard to get oneself crippled and then lose everything, while Tom declares there was nothing in that other affair about the girl."
Alice Deringham said nothing, but Mrs. Forel saw the blood creep into the polished whiteness of her neck, and wished that she would look up. The girl's rigid stillness was, she fancied, a trifle unnatural, and suggested that there was a good deal behind it.
"Well," she said presently, "that is all I know, and I think Tom is waiting for me."
Mrs. Forel went away, and Alice Deringham sat where she had left her, white in face now, with something that was not wholly unlike horror in her eyes.
"And," she said, "I kept him."
Half an hour passed, and she did not move. Anger against her father and horror of herself were held in check as yet by a tense anxiety as to the end of the struggle she had plunged the man who loved her in. She could picture him standing with his grave quietness face to face with ruin, and holding on until the last faint hope had gone. Still, it seemed almost impossible that he should be beaten, and the curious confidence she had had in him reasserted itself and crept as a ray of brightness into the darkness of her humiliation. That might be borne or grappled with afterwards if Alton came out triumphant, but in the meanwhile she dare not think of herself or what she had done. Presently there was a tapping at the door, and a maid came in.
"There's a lady—Miss Townshead—waiting to see you, miss," she said.
Now Alice Deringham was the reverse of a timid woman, but for a few moments she felt her courage fail. Every instinct in her shrank from that meeting, but the maid had no cause to suspect it when she rose languidly and followed her. The interview was not of long duration, and nobody ever heard all that passed between the two, but when Seaforth, who had been waiting anxiously, handed Miss Townshead into the cars her eyes were misty.
"Was it very hard?" he said.
"No," the girl said slowly; "not after the beginning. I was angry when I went in, and I came away only sorry for her. There is a great deal more that is lovable in Miss Deringham than I ever fancied there could be."
"Yes," said Seaforth sapiently. "But it's much better when there's nothing else, which is the case with somebody I know. I like my gold free from alloy."
It was the next day when Deringham found his daughter alone in the sunny corner of the verandah. He carried a handful of papers, and the girl noticed that while he looked ill and haggard there was relief in his face. It was, however, with a vacant curiosity she waited for him to speak, for she had risen heavy-eyed and listless after a sleepless night. Deringham leaned against the balustrade in front of her, and appeared to find it somewhat difficult to begin.
"I have just spent an hour with Mr. Alton and a lawyer, and have something of importance to tell you," he said.
"I am listening," said the girl languidly, though Deringham fancied there were signs of a sudden intentness in her face.
"We will commence at the beginning. Alton appears to have been doubtful respecting his right to Carnaby, and seems to have felt in the first place that it would not be fitting for him to receive as a favour what was his father's by right. I do not know that many men would have regarded it in that light."
"I think," said the girl with a little quickening of her pulses, "that
Mr. Alton's view was right!"
"Well," said Deringham, with a little smile that seemed to indicate that the point was not important, "that brings us to his other motive, which displays a very creditable feeling. Tristan Alton, as you know, only relented upon his deathbed, when, as I pointed out to our kinsman, his senses were, in the opinion even of those who signed his will, a trifle clouded, and Alton was reluctant to profit by a half-delirious fancy which deprived us, or to be more literal, you, of what was virtually your own. As I told him no man in the possession of all his wits would have made such a will, and there was a probability that it could he successfully contested."
"Then I think you blundered, father," said the girl.
Deringham raised his hand as though to indicate that he did not purpose to discuss the question. "I have been trying to show you that Alton never regarded Carnaby as his. You follow me?"
"No. I go farther," said the girl with a curious smile. "All that you have told me was quite clear to me some while ago."
"Now we come to the present. Alton has proved to myself and the lawyer that he is solvent. That is if he sold everything he could just pay his debts, but because he does not intend to sell, he stands figuratively speaking with his back to the wall, and appears to consider that financial ruin may overtake him. That being so he has while he has the power made over all his rights in Carnaby to you."
Alice Deringham rose up with a little gasp, quivering. "Father," she said in a strained voice, "I don't think I can forgive you."
Deringham smiled deprecatingly. "I think that is beside the point," he said. "It seems to me that Alton has acted most becomingly, and if he survives his difficulties we could, of course, come to some amicable understanding with him respecting the partition of the property."
The girl's face grew a trifle plainer, for one word had an ominous ring.
"There is more than you have told me," and once more it struck her that
Deringham was curiously haggard.
"Well," he said, "life is always a trifle uncertain, and Alton has twice met with disaster in the ranges."
The girl stood still looking at him steadily with a vague terror in her eyes. Then she said slowly, "And I am the mistress of all the Carnaby property. It is mine to do what I like with. I could borrow money upon it, or sell it?"
"Under conditions," said Deringham with a little smile of relief, though his face grew clouded again. "Alton has made it yours, almost too absolutely."
Alice Deringham did not remember what next passed between them or how she dismissed her father, but presently she sat alone staring down across the blue inlet with eyes that saw nothing. She was numbly sensible of a horrible humiliation, but that troubled her the least. Alton was standing with his back to the wall and in some vague peril of his life, and it was she who had helped to betray him. She almost hated her father, and she loathed herself, and yet a ray of hope shone through her fears. Carnaby was wholly hers, and with it she held the power to help him. That something which would test her courage to the uttermost must be done before he would accept help from her she knew, but the pride which had been a curse to her was in the dust, and when the vague project slowly grew into shape she rose and sought Forel. She was very composed in speech and bearing, but when the merchant heard what she asked him he gasped with astonishment.
"I want it done as soon as possible," she said.
CHAPTER XXXI
"THE THIRD TIME"
Horton was essentially practical, and once he saw his way usually set about the following of it without any of the misgivings which might have proved a hindrance to more intellectual men. There were, however, times when Seaforth wondered uneasily whether he was doing well, but he decided that as the outlook could not be much more unfavourable any variation would almost of necessity be an improvement, and that one could not afford to be over-scrupulous in a struggle with a man of Hallam's description. Accordingly he hoped for the best, and resigned himself to Horton, who grew more assured of the beneficence and legality of his proceedings during the journey to Somasco, where Seaforth accompanied him, and as soon as he arrived there sent round demanding the attendance of all the ranchers in that vicinity at his store, in the name of the law. He, however, contrived that the summons should not reach the few who, having refused to join the Somasco Consolidated, were suspected of complicity with Hallam, until it was too late, and though Seaforth ventured a few protestations, appeared perfectly contented with himself.
"I'm put right here to scare off malefactors and encourage honest men, and I'm doing it, the best way I can," he said.
The ranchers came, as did Captain Andersen, the venerable Scandinavian constable, whose duties had hitherto consisted in keeping his neighbours' gardens free of depredating hogs and improving his own land. Horton also made a speech to them, and appeared somewhat offended when some of them broke into the bushman's silent chuckle.
"We have," he said, "no use for fooling. This is the most serious and solemn kind of thing."
"Oh, yes," said one of the assembly. "That's just what it's going to be if Damer's friends stand by him. Damer isn't going to come along to prison because Andersen tells him."
Horton regarded the speaker with a gravity that was tempered by semi-contemptuous pity. "Then," he said, "because I'm going to swear you in as special constables, you and the boys will make him."
There was another lapse into half-audible laughter and one of the men touched Seaforth's shoulder. "I'm wondering what Harry would think of this," said he. "It would sound kind of curious in the old country."
Seaforth smiled as he made a little gesture of resignation. "The point is that he doesn't know. Anyway, we haven't done much to be proud of while we acted sensibly, and now and then foolishness seems to pay as well as wisdom."
"Well," said the other, grinning, "I wouldn't call old Horton a fool altogether."
Horton interrupted him by calling up six of the biggest men, and very gravely swearing them in, after which he produced a paper. "This," he said, "is a warrant for the apprehension of one Roger Damer for horse-stealing, and all you have to do is to go up and get him. You will meet here at daylight to-morrow, every man with a horse and provisions, but while I'll do the best I can for you I'm not quite sure the Government will pay for them."
Once more there was soft laughter, but early next morning six silent men, whose bronze faces bore no trace of merriment now, rode out of the settlement, with rifles slung behind them, and four more followed later leading heavily-laden horses by the bridle. Time was not of vital importance, and though all of them were at home in the bush they prospected for the easiest road, which led them through valleys few men of their race had ever set foot in before. Twice a few of the Siwash, who come down the rivers with the spring, awoke when the moon was in the sky, and heard a trampling of horses high up amidst the pines that shut in a lonely valley, and once a solitary prospector, camping close beneath the snow, rose drowsily beside his fire, and wondered whether he was dreaming as he saw a line of mounted men with rifles flit by and vanish beyond a black hill shoulder. They rode in silence, and save for the muffled ring of iron and faint jingle of steel, he could have taken them for disembodied spirits in place of living men.
Horton, however, had in him a trace of the general, and did what his mind could grasp with a grim thoroughness, while, as the result of it, there was blank astonishment one morning in a mining camp as he and the men who followed him appeared as by magic from amidst the pines surrounding it. They were also armed, and the miners, who rose from their breakfast, stared at them motionless in silence, that is, all save one, who slipped into a tent and afterwards out through the back of it. Horton, however, saw him, and his command was to the point—"Stop him."
There was a rustle of branches, and Tom of Okanagan rose out of the thicket the fugitive had almost gained, with a rifle in his hand. He laughed somewhat grimly as he said, "Stop right where you are."
Then there was for a space a somewhat impressive tableau, that had in it humorous as well as tragic possibilities. Hallam's men had doubtless been chosen because of qualities which are more tolerated farther south than they are in that country, but they had nothing handy to enforce their protests with beyond their camp utensils, and it did not appear advisable to make a move in search of more effective weapons. Accordingly they stood silent, with the smoke drifting about them, all save one of them, who, with impotent fury in his face, backed step by step into the opening before their shanty, as Tom of Okanagan beckoned him. Nobody else moved at all, for Horton's company were commandingly posted beneath the surrounding pines, and there was a grim twinkle in the eyes of one who carried a rifle, and had risen out of the undergrowth between the shovels and axes and their legitimate owners. How long the spectacle would have lasted Seaforth did not know, but at last the man, who had backed away before Okanagan, tripped on a tent line and went down headlong. That broke the silence, and the big man, who had on a previous occasion spoken with Alton, stepped forward.
"Now what the —— is all this about?" he said.
"Stand back," said Horton solemnly as he drew out a paper. "It's the hand of the law. Here's a warrant for Roger Damer, and it's his body we've come for. You will put the handcuffs on him, Constable Andersen, and if he tries to stop you Tom has full authority to pound the wickedness out of him."
"Hold on," said the big man. "That's your way of it. Now has it struck you that there are things we might do?"
"Oh, yes," said Horton with undiminished gravity. "You're going to stop where you are, like lawful citizens, because there are enough of us to make you if you don't want to."
The argument was incontrovertible, and there was only a growl of protest as the venerable Scandinavian did his duty. Then while two men stood on guard over their prisoner Horton turned for the last time to the miners.
"I'm kind of sorry I don't know quite enough about you to take the rest of you along," he said. "Still, if I can find out anything we'll come back for you again. Well, boys, we'll be going. Hitch that lariat on to the prisoner's wrists, and keep a good hold on it, Constable Andersen."
Nothing more was said, for Horton's men marched out of camp as silently as they had come, and it was only when the pines had closed about them that a hoarse laugh went back in answer to the volley of vituperation that rose out of the hollow behind them. Damer spoke no word to any man all that day or the next, but when they camped on the second night high up on the hillside he signed to Seaforth, who passed the fire where he lay a little apart from the rest.
"Somebody is going to be sorry for this," he said. "Now a sensible man would wonder what you expect to make by it."
"You mean that we can't connect you with the horse-stealing?"
"Yes," said the man, "if there was any. Now there are men behind me who will make you and Horton very sorry you ever fooled with me."
Seaforth smiled outwardly and with his eyes, for he surmised that the prisoner was willing to bargain for his freedom, but his lips were set and he found it difficult to restrain the rage that welled up within him.
"Well," he said, "I don't know that it is of any great importance whether we do or not. It will be enough to hold you by until we find out all that happened one snowy night when somebody fixed a lariat across a trail, and there was another affair up in the bush."
The light of the fire was on them, and the man's face betrayed him, though his words were bold enough. "You don't take me with a hand like that!"
Seaforth trembled a little as his anger shook him, for he had seen enough. "I think you are the man we want," he said.
He had desired to make quite certain and succeeded, but he afterwards regretted it, for the effect of that speech upon the prisoner, who did not answer him, was considerably more than he had anticipated. The man, who appeared, as Seaforth decided later, suspiciously cowed and dejected, said nothing to any of his captors all next day, and lay down at night in apathetic sullenness, but when the rancher who slept beside him awoke in the morning he had gone, and by way of ironical farewell somebody had hung a pair of rusty handcuffs whose snap-spring was evidently defective upon a neighbouring tree. One man had kept watch beside the fire, which he had left for a few minutes to bring in more wood, and another by the horses; but while neither of them had seen or heard anything, the fact that their captive was no longer with them remained, and half-an-hour spent in very pointed and personal recriminations did nothing to solve the mystery. It was Horton who terminated the discussion.
"We've no use for more talking, boys," he said. "The man was here last night, and he isn't now, and it don't count for very much how he got away. Head right away for the railroad, two of you. Another two will strike for the pass in the main divide, and if you get through quick enough you'll turn him off into the back country. The rest of you will stop right here and help Okanagan to pick up his trail."
There was a hurried saddling of horses, four mounted men went crashing through the undergrowth downhill at the risk of neck and limbs, and an hour later Seaforth and Okanagan stopped a few moments breathless beside a frothing stream.
"He'll have gone this way for the river, sure," said the latter. "You can tell Horton to send Thomson and Andersen across to watch the canon."
Seaforth looked at the bushman, and his face was curiously grim. "You know who he is, Tom? We must have him at any cost, and I think it is my fault he got away."
Okanagan laughed a little almost silent laugh that had no mirth in it. "If the boys can head him off from the railroad I'll find him sure," he said. "Oh, yes, I think I know him. When we get him I'm figuring we'll find the marks of Harry's knife on him."
Okanagan found the trail again lower down the valley, and he and another tireless man headed for the river through a country no horse could traverse all that day, leaving Seaforth behind them worn-out at noon. He sat down to wait for Horton considerably disturbed in mind, and his anxieties would not have been diminished had he known that Alton was starting for Somasco by the Atlantic express that afternoon.
It was next day when Alton reached the settlement and found the few women there in a state of excitement, while when he had heard their story he borrowed the best horse he could find and rode out at a gallop towards the ranges. He had also spent several days in the bush without finding any trace of the party when he camped one evening on the edge of one of the many deep ravines the torrents wear out of the hillsides. It stretched, a dim shadowy chasm, across his path, and looking down he could faintly see the firs that clung here and there to the sides of it loom faintly black through the drifting mist. It was too dark to seek for a way of descending or round the head of it, and he decided to remain where he was until the morning. Twenty minutes sufficed to make his simple camp, and he sat with his back to a cedar-trunk and a can of green tea beside him, while the shadows crept higher up the hillsides and night tame down to meet them out of the dimness of the east.
The fire crackled joyously. There was hope in all the smells of spring, and the stir of life in every growing thing, while the chill that came down from the white peaks fired the blood like wine; but Alton sighed as he glanced up at the stars above him and his face was sombre. There was, it seemed, no possibility of the railroad being built to Somasco, he could only see disaster in front of him, and knew that with the hope of prosperity a brighter one had gone. He would be a poor man, and was a cripple, and—for he had not forgotten his deficiencies—could have laughed at the folly which had led him to grasp at that which could never be his. Then his slow, enduring stubbornness came to his help again as he remembered that there yet remained to him the fight with Hallam.
"I was a fool. She only wanted to be kind," he said.
Still, he groaned in a fit of passion as the memory of one moment at midnight in Somasco ranch returned to him, for all his pulses throbbed feverishly as he felt in fancy the warm white arm steal round his neck.
"I must have dreamt it—with the rest," he said. "And if I didn't, that was enough to remember. God bless her for her gentleness."
Again he flung the memories from him with an effort that brought a dew to his face, but the conflict which must be fought every day was over, and he stretched his long limbs amidst the soft cedar-twigs and lay down to sleep with a stolid acquiescence that if wholly free from bitterness was but little brightened by the victory. The man's life had been a struggle almost since its beginning, and he was stubborn, but his own headstrong passions had been the most obdurate enemy he had ever brought into subjection.
Sleep came and brought him forgetfulness. The fire sank to a lambent flicker above the white-flecked embers, the pines sang their mystic songs about him as a little breeze awoke, and their soft sighing was answered by the growl of the torrent far down in the ravine. Now and then the horse stamped restlessly and tugged at the lariat that was pegged down within reach of Alton's arm, and once came up and looked down on him. Alton usually slumbered lightly in the bush, but man's primitive instincts reassert themselves in the wilderness, and because it is possible that his senses were not wholly dormant and there was some subtle sympathy between him and the beasts that served him he did not awaken.
Then the horse grew restless and pricked its ears, stood still snorting, and backed away to the length of its tether as a face looked out from the undergrowth. The sinking light of the fire was on it, and it was an evil face with the stamp of hunger on it, and malevolence in the staring eyes. Again the horse snorted and trembled as an arm was thrust out of the bushes and something glinted in the hand, but Alton still lay motionless with the pack saddle under his shoulders.
Then a man crawled clear of the undergrowth, rose up, and stooped over the lariat with a knife in his hand. He needed a horse badly, and one stroke with the blade would give him one; but he needed food and a saddle almost as much, and moving forward a few paces gazed at the sleeping man. He saw the pack that had been seized to the saddle, and guessed that there were several days' provisions inside it, while a wolfish gleam came into his eyes as he straightened himself and stood very still listening. His garments hung in thorn-rent rags about him, weariness was in his very attitude, but his face had written on it the cunning and courage of desperation, for he had been hunted by tireless men who were then close behind him, and had travelled for the most part starving and without sleep. With a good horse and provisions he could yet escape his enemies, and the man looked scarcely human as he stood watching the sleeper with a sullen glow in his eyes.
There was nothing audible but the sighing of the pines and the faint sound of breathing, and moving a pace nearer he stopped again. The man he watched was very still, but a little breeze fanned the fire, and when the flickering radiance passed across his face the watcher almost betrayed himself with a cry as he recognized him. There was only one course open to him now, and with the muscles of his right arm contracting and the lean soil-stained fingers he had clawed his way up the ravine with closing on the knife, he crept forward another pace. He had no great fear of anything Horton and the ranchers could do without the help of this man who could condemn him, and he knew his capabilities. Now one swift thrust would silence him forever, and once he could reach the railroad there was a man who for his own sake would help him safely out of the country with as many dollars as he might demand. Still, he slipped out of the firelight next second, and the knife shook a little in his hand.
Alton had lain with his right arm under him, and the starched shirt he had worn when he left the city showing white where the jacket and blanket had fallen apart, but now the arm was stretched across his body. Still, his eyes were closed, and the man who surmised that he must have moved while he glanced at the provisions closed with him swiftly, crouching. He stopped again, stooping further, for the arm and blanket were in the way, and he knew he might have no opportunity for a second thrust. Something must be risked, and moving his eyes from the sleeper's face he endeavoured to draw the blanket gently aside.
That was a blunder, for the soil-stained fingers had scarcely touched the fabric when a fist was dashed full in his face, and as he staggered backwards something hove itself partly upright and fell upon him. After that neither of them knew all that had happened, but the knife fell from a hand whose wrist yielded under a crushing grasp, and was kicked away and trampled on. Then breathing stertorously they reeled into a fir, and the assailant's hand was free again, while stones rattled beneath them as Alton, half-suffocated, flung him almost at arm's length from him. Then the ground seemed to slip away beneath him, and he wound an arm about his adversary as he smote again.
Faint as he was with the blow, Alton did not, however, strive to shake him off now, but grappled with him the more closely, and next moment they had rolled crashing through a juniper. Then the other man came down undermost and struck a stone, there was a swift glissade over rattling shingle and through smashing undergrowth, and Alton lay still alone, while something rolled on down the slope beneath him, until hearing a splash below he rose with a little hoarse cry and swung himself off the ledge which had arrested him. He rolled over several times, but came down, as he discovered later, whole in limb, for he could think of nothing then as he groped in and out amidst the pools and boulders for his enemy. When he found him the man lay with his face apparently in the water, and only moaned a little when Alton shook him.
Then suddenly his passion fell from him, and with a gentleness that was in no way akin to pity he dragged the limp body from the water, and sat down to wait for morning with the wet head upon his knee. The morning was also a very long while coming, but at last, when the stars were paling and the dark pines slowly grew into shape and form, there was a sound of footsteps on the heights above and a voice he recognized came down:
"Come right along. Here's his fire, but the man has gone."
"Charley!" cried Alton, and there was an exclamation of astonishment followed by a scrambling, and presently Seaforth stopped with a little gasp by his comrade. Alton's face showed drawn and grey in the creeping light, and there was another more blanched one in the wet fern beside him.
"Good Lord!" said Seaforth. "What's the meaning of this, Harry?"
"Look at him," said Alton gravely. "You should know him. I think this is the third time."
"Damer!" said Seaforth hoarsely. "We were trailing him, and knew he couldn't be far off when we saw your fire. We took it for his. Is he dead?"
"No," said Alton gravely, "I hope not. We have some use for him. Go back and get the lariat, and we'll try to heave him up."
CHAPTER XXXII
ALTON HOLDS HIS HAND
It was very quiet and somewhat chilly in the little back room of Horton's hotel when Damer, who lay on a trestle-cot, moved his head a trifle and made a feeble sign. The fire had sunk in the stove, and it was then towards two o'clock in the morning, when man's vitality is at its lowest. The young doctor Horton had brought in from a distant settlement shivered a little as he rose and stooped over the bed.
Damer glanced at him out of glazing eyes, and made a faint gesture. "I have no use for you," he said. "It's Alton I want."
The doctor crossed over to Horton, who sat in a corner. "If there is anything you want to ask him lose no time," he said. "The man can't last until the morning."
"Well," said Horton gravely, "it would be a favour if you went down for Neilson, the surveyor. He's sitting up waiting. You see we want some witnesses not connected with the thing in case he's going to tell us anything. Harry, you'd better talk to him."
Alton crossed the room and sat down by the bed. He had, as it happened, come out almost scatheless from the fall into the ravine, which was not the case with his assailant, who had been carried down to the settlement with the life just clinging to his crushed body. All that was possible had been done for him, and now Alton waited with intense suspense, with something akin to compassion in his eyes, and his anger diverted from the dying wretch to the man who had made use of him.
"You're going to talk?" he said. "Well, it's only square to warn you that it will be all put down."
Damer glanced at Horton, who sat with a pen in his hand and a paper on his knee, and from him to the surveyor holding one or two Government appointments, who came quietly in.
"That's all right," he said very slowly. "Well, I wanted to kill you, but I don't know that I've a great deal against you now. You and the boys did what you could for me, and it was a man in the city who held me to it. Oh, yes, he's sitting down there raking in the dollars, and don't care two cents that the man he sent up to make them is dying here. The thing's not square, anyway."
Alton was sensible of a faint disgust, but he remembered that he could not afford to be fastidious, because the men he had drawn into his venture must stand or fall with him.
"We want to know who he is," he said.
There was a glimmer of malice in Damer's face. "Well," he said, and the strained voice grew clearer, "it was Hallam of the Tyee. There was something I did that gave him a pull on me, and that man has no mercy for anybody."
Alton heard the scratching of Horton's pen. "And Hallam hired you to murder me?"
"Yes," and Damer glanced at Horton. "You have got that down? At first he only hired me to go up to Somasco and watch you while I worked for you. You're a tolerably smart man, Harry Alton, but it's kind of curious you didn't know me."
Alton stared at the drawn face with a bewildered expression, and then moved a trifle in his chair. "Good Lord!" he said. "Black Nailer's partner! Well, I didn't see you that often—and it was dark when——"
Damer's face went awry with pain, but his gesture implied comprehension.
"Yes," he said feebly. "When you got him with the axe. Nailer had been on the whisky, and that gun of his was a little stiff on the magazine-spring; but he was the best partner I ever had, and I left a good claim behind when you and the boys chased me right out of that part of Washington. Now you've got the beginning. Give me a little more brandy."
The doctor came forward softly and held a glass to the cracked lips, then lifted the dying man a little. After that there was silence for at least five minutes, and Alton sat rigidly still, choking down his fierce impatience as he saw his last hope slipping away from him. Then he drew in his breath with a quivering sigh as the feeble voice commenced again.
"Get it down. You haven't much time."
Horton's pen scratched and spluttered, as sinking now and then almost beyond hearing, the disjointed words fell from the lips that could scarcely frame them; but it was nevertheless with a horrible vividness that Damer told his story, and those who sat listening gasped with relief when at last it was finished and everything was plain. Then he signed to the doctor, who raised his head a trifle and once more held a glass to his lips.
"Read it. I want to see you've got it straight," he said. For a space Horton's voice rose and fell monotonously as he read in haste. Then he approached the bed with the paper, and the dying man seized the pen. He traced a few straggling characters upon the document, and let it fall again, watched with strained impatience while Horton and the surveyor signed, and then turned his head from the light.
"Now," he said, "I guess I've fixed the man who held the whip over me up quite tight."
It was probably ten minutes before he moved again, and then he signed to Alton very feebly with his fingers, while a curious look that afterwards puzzled the rancher, who could not forget it, crept into his eyes. There was vindictiveness in it, but whether there was more than this he could never tell.
"There's just another thing," he said in a hoarse, strained whisper as Alton bent over him. "Come nearer—a little nearer still. Now there was another man as well as Hallam."
Alton glancing round saw that the others had not heard, and stooped a trifle further as the cracked lips moved again. Nobody caught what Damer told him, but when he straightened himself again his face was white and grim, and he went out without a word to any one. Then the flicker of a smile came into the eyes of the dying man, and he moved his head so that his face was hidden. The doctor, crossing over softly, looked down on him and signed to the others that they might leave the room.
"He may last an hour or two, but I don't think he will speak again," he said.
In the meanwhile Alton strode with hands clenched into the shadows of the silent pines. He had long been troubled by vague suspicions, and had driven them away, but he could not doubt what Damer had told him, and groaned as he stood face to face with the verity. He had been too proud to stoop at any time to take an unfair advantage of an enemy, but he could not lightly forget a wrong, and there was a trace of stubborn vindictiveness within him. Hallam had brought him down to ruin, and thrice struck at his life by treachery, and now Damer's testimony had placed his enemy in his hand. He had but to close it and crush him, but he also realized with fierce anger what this would cost him, for Hallam had, it seemed, protected himself effectively. If he dragged Hallam down Deringham must fall with him, and while that consideration alone would not have stayed him in spite of the curious pride of race and family which he had become sensible of of late, it was evident that his daughter must suffer too. She had done no wrong, and Alton, who thought of her with a great tenderness, dare not contemplate all that the revelation would cost her.
It would have been bitter to let his enemy go free, had he stood alone, but that was, he realized, what no man can do, and there were behind him with their future linked to his the ranchers of Somasco whose safety demanded that he should put it out of Hallam's power to do them a further injury. It would also be so simple. He had but to hold his hand, and Horton would take all the action that was needful.
Then it became more plain to him that even at the cost of his loyalty to his comrades he could not allow the woman he loved to suffer with the guilty. He knew her pride and that the blow would crush her, but again through all his pity for her a gust of rage shook him, and he ground the soft cedar-twigs viciously beneath his heel. He could not face the thought of the woman's humiliation. Everything must go, his pride, his faith, his vengeance, before that came about, and he stopped in his restless pacing and leaned against a pine as the conflicting emotions gave place to a quiet resolution. At last he could see the stars between the great branches high above him, and shivered a little as a chilly breeze sighed across the silent bush. Something in its stillness reacted upon him, and the last trace of his passion melted away. If he did wrong he alone would be responsible, and at least his enemy's daughter should not suffer.
Walking very slowly he went back to the hotel, and found Horton writing. He glanced at Alton curiously and then answered the unasked question.
"Yes," he said; "he's out on the trail now, and one would kind of wonder where it was taking him. Where have you been all this time, Harry?"
"How long have I been?" said Alton.
"Two hours, anyway. Well, you needn't tell me if you don't want to, but it's quite easy to see that something is worrying you."
Alton concealed his astonishment. "I've had things to think about," said he. "Wasn't there a paper you took from Damer?"
"Oh, yes," and Horton flung him several crumpled sheets across. "Nothing much to be made of that. It has been given him to send cipher telegrams with."
Alton glanced at the paper with apparently vague curiosity, but his brain was busy and he had a good memory.
"I think I'd let the folks in Vancouver have it," he said with a yawn. "Now I want a few hours' rest, because we're going back at sun up to restake the claim."
Horton looked thoughtful. "I'm not quite sure you could hold it. It hasn't been declared open."
Alton laughed a little. "Well, I think I can," he said. "Damer hadn't got his patent, anyway, and it's scarcely likely that the man who sent him will protest against me."
Then he slowly strolled away, but once the door closed behind him moved with quick resolute steps to his room. There he sat busy with pen and paper for several minutes, and then descending softly found Okanagan in the store.
"Get your horse as quietly as you can, and ride in to the railroad with this message as if the devil was after you," he said.
Okanagan stretched himself sleepily. "Horton's sending in at sun up."
"Yes," said Alton dryly. "I want my message on the wires some hours before his, but nobody need know of it beyond you and me."
Okanagan nodded, and in another five minutes Alton looked into the room where Horton was still writing.
"I fancied I heard somebody riding down the trail, but it's not quite easy being a magistrate, and my head's got kind of mixed," said the latter. "Still, I've nearly got this thing fixed, and if the folks down in Vancouver don't fool over it, when Hallam hears what's happened to his partner he'll be under lock and key."
"Oh, yes," said Alton. "We'll hope for the best, though that man's kind of slippery."
In the meanwhile Tom of Okanagan was riding at a gallop down the trail, with the thin mist whirling by him and the stars above him growing dim, and there were several leagues between him and the settlement when daylight crept slowly into the valley. Thus it happened that Horton's dispatches to the police at Vancouver were not the first that left the station, and that evening Deringham, who was sitting with his daughter on the verandah of Forel's house, turned from the girl with a little closing of his lips as he saw Hallam coming up the pathway. His movements suggested nervous haste, and though he was usually neat in dress, his unbuttoned coat had evidently been flung on, while the glance he cast behind him towards the wharf where one of the Sound steamers was about to sail savoured of apprehension. This did not escape Alice Deringham.
"Mr. Hallam seems to be in a hurry," she said. "I wish he had not come now, because I do not like that man, and you have not been well lately. You will not let him disturb you?"
Deringham rose and looked down on her with a curious little smile. "I don't know that it can be helped, but I am no more pleased to see Mr. Hallam than you seem to be," he said.
For a moment, and though the breach between them had not been healed, the girl's heart smote her. Deringham had beguiled her into an action whose memory would, she fancied, always retain its sting, but he was her father, and seemed very worn and ill. Also some instinctive impulse prompted her to detain him.
"Father," she said pleadingly, "don't see him. Go in at once, and I will tell him that quietness is necessary to you."
Deringham had almost yielded to the hand upon his arm when Hallam glanced in their direction and signed to him. Then he shook off the girl's grasp and she shivered a little for no apparent reason as they went in together. There was nobody else about, for Mrs. Forel and her husband had gone down to the city, and she sat alone on the verandah while a murmur of voices reached her through an open window. Though his words were inaudible her father appeared to be expostulating. Then he came out, and as she noticed there was an unusual pallor in his face and that his hands were trembling, she remembered he had looked as he did then once before when a partial failure of the heart's action had almost cost him his life.
"You must send Mr. Hallam away at once," she said.
Deringham made a gesture of impatience. "I shall be rid of him altogether in a few more minutes. You have some money by you?"
"Yes," said the girl. "I am not fond of going to the bank, and got Mr. Forel to change my English cheque into currency, but why do you want it?"
"Hallam has to catch the steamer, and the banks are shut. Don't ask questions now, but get me the money quick."
Alice Deringham went in, and returned with a little satchel. "This is all I have, and I don't feel very willing to lend it Mr. Hallam," she said.
Deringham took the satchel from her and moved away; then, as though acting under impulse, he stopped and looked back at her.
"Thank you, my dear," he said, with a curious gentleness. "It has relieved me of a good deal of anxiety."
He went away, and Alice Deringham, hearing the door close behind him, wondered a little. When she next looked up she saw Hallam swinging with hasty strides down the road, and a little later the roar of a whistle rang about the pines as a big white steamer moved out into the inlet. A cloud of yellow vapour rolled from her funnel, there was a frothing wash beneath her towering sides, and the girl watched her languidly until the pines which shroud the Narrows shut the great white fabric from her sight and left only a moving trail of smoke.
Then she felt happier. The steamer had at least taken Hallam away, and her father was not now the courtly though somewhat reserved gentleman who had treated her with indulgent kindness until Hallam crossed his path. It was a fine evening, and she sat still on the verandah wondering how the rift had imperceptibly widened between them, until again the blood crept to her forehead as she remembered that it was at his instigation she had detained Alton. Still, though she realized that this could not be wholly forgotten, she took her part of the blame, and felt sorry for the harassed man whose anxieties were intensified by his solicitude for her welfare. He was in difficulties, his health was failing, and she decided upon an attempt at reconciliation. The respect she had cherished for him could never be quite restored, but she could be a more sympathetic daughter, and help him to bear his troubles. Then as she glanced down across the inlet with eyes that grew softer, Forel and his wife came up through the garden.
"Still alone?" he said. "Where is your father?"
"I think he is in your room," said the girl. "Mr. Hallam came in to see him."
"Hallam? Now I wonder——" said Forel, and stopped, but Alice
Deringham had seen his face, and being a woman took instinctive warning.
"I don't think he wanted anything of importance, and he was only in a minute or two," she said.
They went in together, but Forel was behind the girl, when she pushed open a door and then stopped just inside it. Deringham was sitting before a table, and there was something that perplexed her in his attitude. He seemed curiously still, and his head had fallen forward.
"Father," she said, and her heart beat a trifle faster, for Deringham did not move.
His face was not visible, and moving forward she grew suddenly faint and cold as she touched his shoulder. There was no response from the man, and she now noticed that he seemed huddled together; but she saw nothing more, for just then a hand was laid upon her arm. Shaking off the grasp, she turned and saw her growing horror reflected in Forel's face.
"You must come away, my dear," he said hoarsely.
Alice Deringham shivered, but she stood very straight a moment, staring down with dilated eyes at the grim figure in the chair.
"Touch him. Speak to him," she said in a voice that set Forel's nerves on edge, and then as the last faint hope died away, stretched out her hands with a little half-choked cry.
"Come away," said Forel very huskily.
He was sensible that the girl's hand was very cold as he drew her from the room, but he left her with his wife on the verandah and then went back hastily. Forel was a kindly man, but he knew that speculation in Western mines has its under-side, and it was for the girl's sake he stripped off the top sheet of the blotting-pad, which had a recent impression on it, and afterwards poured the remaining contents of a wineglass out into the stove. Then he glanced all round the room before he went out to send for a doctor. It was an hour later when he found his wife alone.
"How is she?" he said.
Mrs. Forel's eyes were hazy. "I think she has given way at last—it was awful at first when she would only sit and look at me," she said; and then her voice sank a little, "How did it happen, Tom?"
"Heart disease," said Forel. "The doctor is quite sure of that."
"But," said Mrs. Forel, "what brought it on?"
"Well," said Forel slowly, "anything that upsets one is apt to prove perilous in cases like his, and I rather fancy that Deringham had a quarrel with Hallam. They had dealings together, and I think Deringham must have lost a good deal of money. You will not, however, mention it to anybody."
Mrs. Forel looked at her husband curiously, "No, of course," she said.
"I wish I knew what to do for the girl."