AN EPILOGUE
Two days later, into the trading room of the Hudson's Bay Company's post on God's Lake, burst Orcutt, white of face, shaken of nerves, and with his disheveled garments bespeaking a frenzied dash through the timber.
"What's the meaning of this?" he cried, holding out a telegram.
McNabb reached for the message and read it. "It means just what it says," he answered. "Cameron has stated it plain."
"But where is Cameron? Where is the three hundred and fifty thousand I paid him? Where is Wentworth?"
"Cameron is not here. He left after turning over your money to Wentworth. He said he held a paper that constituted Wentworth your legal representative."
"But—where is Wentworth?" gasped Orcutt.
"He left the night he got the money—a week ago to-night, wasn't it,
Dugald?"
"Good God!" The words were a groan. "I'm ruined. Ruined, I tell you!
There's just one chance. John, the material that's on your mill site.
Will you take it over?"
"Sure, I'll take it," answered McNabb. "On the same terms you offered for my tote-road. Ten cents on the dollar, wasn't it, Orcutt?"
"But, man, you don't understand!"
"I understand that the shoe is on the other foot," answered McNabb, coldly. "Listen to me, Orcutt; by your own admission you've been trying for more than twenty years to ruin me. I've let you go, never turning out of my way to injure you. I'm not turning out of my way now. If you're squeezed it is because of your own deeds—not mine."
"Squeezed!" sobbed the banker hysterically. "I'm ruined! It means the bank—my home—everything! It means—more. I was so sure—I—I'm into the bank's money for thousands! It means—the penitentiary!"
McNabb looked at the cringing man, whose knees seemed to sag beneath the weight of his woe. Coldly his eyes traveled the length of him: "Maybe ye're right," he said, and his words cut icy cold. Then, deliberately he turned his back upon the man and strode through the door.
Upon that same day, also came Corporal Downey, of the Royal North West Mounted Police, and in his custody he held a man. The man was the half-breed Alex Thumb.
"We've got the goods on him this time," Downey told the factor. "And a damned peculiar case. I picked him up a few miles south of the lake. I heard a shot, and an hour later I located him and crept up through the brush. He had just finished burying Wentworth's body all but the heart—that was dryin' on a little stick beside the fire. There was an empty shell in his rifle. But—what I can't make out is this." He paused and withdrew from his pocket a small tin box, and opening it, disclosed a handful of ashes and the half of a United States gold certificate for ten thousand dollars. "He was holdin' it over a little fire," explained the officer. "I located him by the smoke smell. I covered him, and he dropped this last fragment to throw up his hands. It's money. I didn't know they made 'em so big. But why in hell should he burn it?"
Murchison examined the fragment with its burned edge. "Alex Thumb was canny," he muttered. "The bills was too big. He didn't dare to spend 'em."
THE END
End of Project Gutenberg's The Challenge of the North, by James Hendryx