So the day came when the outfit of John Kars "pulled out." There had been no change in his plans as the result of Alec Mowbray's murder. There could be no change in them, so long as hundreds of miles divided this man from the girl who had come to mean for him all that life contained. The old passion for the trail still stirred him. The Ishmaelite in him refused to change his nature. But since his manhood had responded to natural claims, since the twin gray stars had risen upon his horizon, a magnetic power held him to a definite course which he had neither power nor inclination to deny.
The days before the departure had been busy indeed. They had been rendered doubly busy by the affairs surrounding Alec Mowbray's death. But all these things had been dealt with, with an energy that left a course of perfect smoothness behind as well as ahead.
Everything, humanly possible, would be done to hunt down the instigator and perpetrator of the crime, and a small fortune was placed at the disposal of Kars' trusted attorneys for that purpose. For the rest he would be personally responsible. In Bill Brudenell he had a willing and sagacious lieutenant. In Abe Dodds, and in the hard-living expert prospector, Joe Saunders, he had a staff for his enterprise on Bell River beyond words in capacity and loyalty.
But the "outfit." It was called "outfit," as were all such expeditions. It resembled an army in miniature, white and colored. But more than all else it resembled a caravan, and an extensive one. The preparations had occupied the whole of the long winter, and had been wrapped in profound secrecy. The two men who had carried them out, under Bill Brudenell's watchful eye, had labored under no delusions. They were preparing for a great adventure in the hunt for gold, but they were also preparing for war on no mean scale. Their enthusiasm rejoiced in both of these prospects, and they worked with an efficiency that left nothing to be desired.
The dispositions at departure were Kars' secret. Nor were they known until the last moment. The warlike side of the expedition was dispatched in secret by an alternative and more difficult trail than the main communication with Fort Mowbray. It carried the bulk of equipment. But its way would be shorter, and it would miss Fort Mowbray altogether, and take up its quarters at the headwaters of Snake River, to await the coming of the leaders. Abe and Saunders would conduct this expedition, while Kars and Bill traveled via Fort Mowbray, with Peigan Charley, and an outfit of packs and packmen such as it was their habit to journey with.
The start of the expedition was without herald or trumpet. It left its camp in the damp of a gray spring morning, when, under cover of a gradually lightening dawn, it struck through a narrow valley, where feet and hoofs sank deep into a mire of liquid mud.
To the west the hills rose amidst clouds of saturating mist. To the east the rolling country mounted slowly till it reached the foot of vast glacial crests, almost at the limit of human vision. The purpling distance to the west suggested fastnesses remote enough from the northern man, yet in those deep canyons, those wide valleys, along creek-bank and river bed, the busy prospector was ruthlessly prosecuting his quest for the elusive "color," and the mining engineer was probing for Nature's most deeply hidden secrets.
This was the Eldorado John Kars had known since his boyhood's days, when the fierce fight against starvation had been bitter indeed. Few of the secrets of those western hills were unknown to him. But now that his pouch was full, and the pangs of hunger were only a remote memory, and these hills claimed him only that he was lord of properties within their heart which yielded him fortune almost automatically, his eyes were turned to the north, and to the hidden world eastwards.
It was a trail of mud and washout. It was a trail of landslide and flood. It was a dripping land, dank with melting mists, and awash with the slush of the thaw. The skies were pouring out their flood of summer promise, those warming rains which must always be endured before the hordes of flies and mosquitoes swarm to announce the real open season.
But these men were hard beyond all complaint at physical discomfort. If they cursed the land they haunted, it was because it was their habit so to curse. It was the curse of the tongue rather than of the heart. For they were men who owed all that they were, or ever hoped to be, to this fierce country north of "sixty."
Spring was over all. The northern earth was heaving towards awakening from its winter slumber. As it was on the trail, so it was on Snake River, where the old black walls of Fort Mowbray gazed out upon the groaning and booming glacial bed, burying the dead earth beyond the eyes of man. The fount of life was renewing itself in man, in beast, even in the matter we choose to regard as dead.
Jessie Mowbray was watching the broken ice as it swept on down the flooding river. She was clad in an oilskin which had only utility for its purpose. Her soft gray eyes were gazing out through the gently falling rain with an awe which the display of winter's break up never failed to inspire in her.
The tremendous power of Nature held her spellbound. It was all so vast, so sure. She had witnessed these season's changes since her childhood and never in her mind had they sunk to the level of routine. They were magical transformations wrought by the all-powerful fairy, Nature. They were performed with a wave of the wand. The iron of winter was swept away with a rush, and the stage was instantly set for summer.
But the deepest mystery to her was the glacier beyond the river. Every spring she listened to its groaning lamentation with the same feelings stirring. Her gentle spirit saw in it a monster, a living, moving, heaving monster, whose voice awoke the echoes of the hills in protest, and whose enveloping folds clung with cruel tenacity to a conquered territory laboring to free itself from a bondage of sterility which it had borne for thousands of years. To her it was like the powers of Good battling with influences of Evil. It was as though each year, when the sun rose higher and higher in the sky, these powers of Good were seeking vainly to overthrow an evil which threatened the tiny human seed planted in the world for the furthering of an All-wise Creator's great hidden purpose.
The landing was almost awash with the swollen waters. The booming ice-floes swept on. They were moving northwards, towards the eternal ice-fields, to melt or jamb on their way, but surely to melt in the end. And when they had all gone it would be summer. And life—life would be renewed at the post.
Renewal of the life at the post meant only one thing for Jessie. It meant the early return of John Kars. The thought of it thrilled her. But the thrill passed. For she knew his coming only heralded his passing on.
She sighed and her soft eyes grew misty. Nor had the mist to do with the rain which was saturating the world about her. Oh, if there were to be no passing on! But she knew she could not hope for so much. There was nothing for him here. Besides, he was wedded to the secrets of the long trail.
Wedded! Her moment, of regret passed, and a great dream filled her simple mind. It was her woman's dream of all that could ever crown her life. It was the springtime of her life and all the buoyant hope of the break from a dead winter was stirring in her young veins. She put from her mind the "passing on," and remembered only that he would soon return.
Her heart was full of a gentle delight as at last she turned back from the river, and sought her home in the clearing.
Her eyes were shining radiantly when she encountered Father José passing over to his Mission from his ministrations to a sick squaw.
"Been watching the old ice go?" he inquired, smiling into the eyes which looked into his from under the wide brim of a waterproof hat.
Jessie nodded.
"It's spring—isn't it?" she said smiling.
Her reply summed up her whole mood. The priest understood.
"Surely. And it's good to see the spring, my child. It's good for everybody, young and old. But," he added with a sigh, "it's specially good for us up here. The Indians die like flies in winter. But your mother's asking for you."
The girl hurried on. Perhaps second to her love for John Kars came her affection for her brave mother.
Ailsa Mowbray met her at the threshold.
"Murray's asking for you," she said, in her simply direct fashion. "He's got plans and things he needs to fix. He told me this morning, but I guess he needs to explain them himself. Will you go along up to the Fort?"
There was nothing in the mother's manner to invite the quick look of doubt which her words inspired.
Murray had only arrived from Leaping Horse two days before. Since that time he had been buried under an avalanche of arrears of work. Even his meals had had to be sent up to him at the Fort. He had brought back reports of Alec's well-being for the mother and sister. He had brought back all that abounding good-nature and physical and mental energy which dispelled the last shadows of winter loneliness from these women. Ailsa Mowbray had carried on the easy work of winter at the store, but she was glad of the relief from responsibility which Murray's return gave her.
But he had laid before her the necessity of a flying visit up country at once, and had urged her to again carry on the store duties in his absence. Furthermore he had suggested that Jessie's assistance should be enlisted during his absence, since Alec was away, and the work would be heavier now that spring was opening.
The mother had reluctantly agreed. For herself she had been willing enough. But for Jessie she had stipulated that he should place the matter before her himself. She had no desire that the one child remaining to her should be made to slave her days at the Fort. She would use none of her influence. Her whole interest in the trade which had been her life for so long was waning. There were times when she realized, in the loneliness which had descended upon them with Alec's going, that only habit kept her to the life, and even that held her only by the lightest thread. It was coming to her that the years were passing swiftly. The striving of the days at the side of her idolized husband had seemed not only natural, but a delight to her. Since his cruel end no such feeling had stirred her. There were her children, and she had realized that the work must go on for them. But now—now that Alec had gone to the world outside her whole perspective had changed. And with the change had come the realization of rapidly passing years.
There were times, even, when she speculated as to how and where she could set up a new home for her children. A home with which Alec could find no fault, and Jessie might have the chances due to her age. But these things were kept closely to herself. The habit of years was strong upon her, and, for all her understanding of her wealth, it was difficult to make a change.
"Can't you tell me, mother? I'd rather have you explain!"
The likeness between mother and daughter was very strong. Even in the directness with which they expressed their feelings. Jessie's feelings were fully displayed in the expression of her preference.
"Why don't you want to see Murray?"
The mother's question came on the instant. It came with a suggestion of reproach.
"Oh, I'm not scared, mother," the girl smiled. "Only I don't just see why Murray should ask me things you don't care to ask me. That's all."
"Is it?" The mother's eyes were searching.
"Nearly."
Jessie laughed.
"Best tell me the rest."
The girl shook her head decidedly.
"No, mother. There's no need. You're wiser than you pretend. Murray's a better friend and partner—in business—than anything else. Guess we best leave it that way."
"Yes, it's best that way." The mother was regarding the pretty face before her with deep affection. "But I told Murray he'd have to lay his plans before you—himself. That's why he wants to see you up at the Fort."
The girl's response came at once, and with an impulsive readiness.
"Then I'll go up, right away," she said. Nor was there the smallest display of any of the reluctance she really felt.
The girl stood framed in the great gateway of the old stockade. The oilskin reached almost to her slim ankles. It was dripping and the hat of the same material which almost entirely enveloped her ruddy brown head was trailing a stream of water on to her shoulders.
Murray McTavish saw her from the window of his office. He saw her pause for a few moments and gaze out at the distant view. He remembered seeing her stand so once before. He remembered well. He remembered her expressed fears, and all that which had happened subsequently. The smile on his round face was the same smile it had been then. Perhaps it was a smile he could not help.
This time he made no move to join her. He waited. And presently she turned and passed round to the door of the store.
"Mother said you wanted to see me about something. Something you needed to explain—personally. That so?"
Jessie was standing beside the trader's desk. She was looking down squarely into the man's smiling face. There was a curious fearlessness in her regard that was not quite genuine. There was a brusquerie in her manner that would not have been there had there been any one else present.
She removed the oilskin hat, and laid it aside on a chair as she spoke, and the revelation of her beautiful chestnut hair, and its contrast with her gray eyes, quickened the man's pulses. He was thinking of her remarkable beauty even as he spoke.
"Say, it's good of you to come along. You best shed that oilskin."
He rose from his desk to assist. But the girl required none of his help. She slipped out of the garment before he could reach her. He accepted the situation, and drew forward the chair from the desk at which Alec had been wont to work.
"You'll sit," he said, as he placed it for her.
But Murray's consideration and politeness had no appeal for Jessie. She was anxious to be done with the interview.
"That's all right," she said, with a short laugh. "The old hill doesn't tire me any. I got the school in an hour, so, maybe, you'll tell me about things right away."
"Ah, there's the school, and there's a heap of other things that take your time." Murray had returned to his desk, and Jessie deliberately moved to the window. "It's those things made me want to talk to you. I was wondering how you could fix them so you could hand us a big piece of time up here."
"You want me to work around the store?"
The girl had turned. Her questioning eyes were regarding him steadily. There was no unreality about her manner now. Murray's smile would have been disarming had she not been so used to it.
"Just while I'm—away."
There was the smallest possible twist of wryness to the man's lips as he admitted to himself the necessity for the final words.
"I see."
The girl's relief was so obvious that, for a moment, the man's gaze became averted.
Perhaps Jessie was unaware of the manner in which she had revealed her feelings. Perhaps she knew, and had even calculated it. Much of her mother's courage was hers.
"You'd better make it plain—what you want. Exactly. If it's in the interest of things, why, I'll do all I know."
Murray's remarkable eyes were steadily regarding her again. His mechanical smile had changed its character. It was spontaneous now. But its spontaneity was without any joy.
"Oh, it's in the interest of—things, or I wouldn't ask it," he said. "Y'see," he went on, "I got right back home here to get news of things happening north that want looking into. I've got to pull right away before summer settles down good, and get back again. That being so it sets everything on to your mother's shoulders—with Alec away. Your mother's good grit. We couldn't find her equal anywhere when it comes to handling this proposition. But she doesn't get younger. And it kind of seems tough on her." He sighed, and his eyes had sobered to a look of real trouble. "Y'see, Jessie, she's a great woman. She's a mother I'd have been proud to call my own. But she's yours, and that's why I'm asking that you'll weigh in and help her out—the time I'm away. It's not a lot when you see your mother getting older every day, is it? 'Specially such a mother. She's too big to ask you herself. That's her way. It makes me feel bad when I get back to find her doing and figgering at this desk when she ought to be sitting around at her ease after all she's done in the past. It's that, or get white help in from down south. And it don't seem good getting white help in, not while we can keep this outfit going ourselves. There's things don't need getting 'outside,' or likely we'll get a rush of whites that'll leave us no better than a bum trading post of the past. It wouldn't be good for us sitting around at this old post, not earning a grub stake, while other folks were eating the—fruit we'd planted."
The girl had remained beside the window the whole time he was talking. But her eyes were on him, and she was filled with wonder, and not untouched by the feeling he was displaying. This was a side to his character she had never witnessed before. It astounded. But it also searched every generous impulse she possessed.
Her answer came on the instant.
"You don't need to say another word," she cried. "Nothing matters so I can help mother out. I know there's secrets and things. I've every reason to know there are. The good God knows I've reason enough. We all have. What those secrets are I can only guess, and I don't want even to do that—now. I hate them, and wish they'd never been."
"Your mother would never have been the wealthy woman she is without them."
"No, and I'd be glad if that were so."
There was a world of passionate sincerity in the girl's denial. It came straight from her heart. The loss of a father could find no compensation in mere wealth. She understood the grasping nature of this man. She understood that commercial success stood out before everything in his desires.
Her moment of more kindly feeling towards him passed, and a breath of winter chilled her warm young heart.
"Would you?"
The man's smile had returned once more. His questioning eyes had a subtle irony in their burning depths.
"Sure. A thousand times I'd have us be just struggling traders as we once were. Then I'd have my daddy with us, and mother would be the happy woman I've always remembered her—before those secrets."
The man stirred with a movement almost of irritation.
"There's things I can't just see, child," he said, with a sort of restrained impatience. "You're talking as if you guessed life could be controlled at the will of us folk. You guess your father could have escaped his fate, if he'd left our trade on Bell River alone. Maybe he could, on the face of things. But could he have escaped acting the way he acted? Could any of us? We all got just so much nature. That nature isn't ours to cut about and alter into the shape we fancy. What that nature says 'do,' we just got to do. Your nature's telling you to get around and help your mother out. My nature says get busy and see to things up north. Well, a landslide, or a blizzard, or any old thing might put me out of business on the way. A storm, or fire might cost you your life right here in this Fort. It's the chances of life. And it's the nature of us makes us take the chances. We just got to work on the way we see, and we can't see diff'rent—at will. If we could see diff'rent at will, there's a whole heap I'd have changed in my life. There's many things I'd never have done, and many things I figger to do wouldn't be done. But I see the way I was born, and I don't regret a thing—not a thing—except the shape Providence made me. I'm going to live—not die—a rich man, doing the things I fancy, if Life don't figger to put me out of business. And I don't care a curse what it costs. It's how I'm born, and it's the nature of me demands these things. I'm going to do all I've set my mind to do, and I'll do it with my last kick, if necessary. Do you understand me? That's why I'm glad of those secrets we're talking of. That's why I'll work to the last to hold 'em. That's why I don't mean to let things stand in my way that can be shifted. That's why I'm asking you to help us get busy. Our interests I guess are your interests."
It was another revelation of the man such as Jessie had had at intervals before, and which had somehow contrived to tacitly antagonize her. Her nature was rebelling against the material passion of this man. There was something ruthlessly sordid underlying all he said.
"I'm glad it doesn't need those feelings to make me want to help my mother," she said quietly. "Interests? Say, interests of that sort don't matter a thing for me. Thought of them won't put an ounce more into the work I'll do to help—my mother. But she counts, and what you said about her is all you need say. The other talk—is just talk."
"Is it?" The man had risen from his chair. Jessie surveyed him with cool measuring eyes. His podgy figure was almost ludicrous in her eyes. His round, fleshy face became almost contemptible. But not quite. He was part of her life, and then those eyes, so strange, so baffling. So alive with an intelligence which at times almost overwhelmed her.
"It isn't just talk, Jessie," he said approaching her, till he, too, stood in the full light of the window. "Maybe you don't know it, but your interests are just these interests I'm saying. It'll come to you the moment you want to do a thing against 'em. Oh, I'm not bullying, my dear. I'll show you just how. If a moment came in your life when you figgered to carry out something that appealed to you, and your sense told you it would hurt your mother's proposition right here, you'd cut it out so quick you'd forget you thought of it. Why? Because it's you. And you figger that no hurt's going to come to your mother from you. There isn't a thing in the world to equal a good woman's loyalty to her mother. Not even the love of a girl for a man. There's a whole heap of women-folk break up their married lives for loyalty to a—mother. That's so. And that's why your interests are surely the interests I got back of my head—because they're the interests of your mother."
But the girl was uninfluenced by the argument. His words had come rapidly. But she saw underneath them the great selfish purpose which was devouring the man. Her antagonistic feeling was unabated. She shook her head.
"You can't convince me with that talk," she said coldly. "I wouldn't do a thing to hurt my mother. That's sure. But interests to be personal need to be backed by desire. I hate all that robbed me of a father."
The man shook his head.
"We most always get crossways," he said. "And it's the thing I just hate—with you." Suddenly he laughed aloud. "Say, Jessie, I wonder if you'd feel different to my argument if I didn't carry sixty pounds too much weight for my size? I wonder if I stood six feet high, and had a body like a Greek statue, you'd see the sense of my talk."
The girl missed the earnestness lying behind the man's smiling eyes. She missed the passionate fire he masked so well. She too laughed. But her laugh was one of relief.
"Maybe. Who knows," she said lightly.
But, in a moment, regret for her unguarded words followed.
"Before God, Jessie, if I thought by any act of mine I could get you to feel diff'rent towards me, I'd rake out all the ashes of the things I've figgered on all these years, to please you. I'd break up all the hopes and objects, and ambitions I've set up, if it pleased you I should act that way. I'd live the life you wanted. I'd act the way you chose.
"Say, Jessie," he went on, with growing passion, "I've wanted to tell you all there is in the back of my head for months. I've wanted to tell you the work I'm doing, the driving towards great wealth, is just because I've sort of built up a hope you'd some day help me spend it. But you've never given me a chance. Not a chance. I had to tell you this to-day. It's got to be now—now—or never. I'm going away on work that has to be done, and I can't just wait another day till I've told you these things.
"If you'd marry me, Jessie," the man continued, while the girl remained mute, dumbfounded by the suddenness with which the passionate outburst had come, "I'd hand you all you can ever ask in life. We'd quit this God-forgotten land, and set up home where the sun's most always shining, and our money counts for all that we guess is life. Don't turn me down for my shape. Think of what it means. We can quit this land with a fortune that would equal the biggest in the world. I know. I hold the door to it. Your mother and I. I just love you with a strength you'll never understand. All those things I've talked of are just nothing to the way I love you. Say, child——"
The girl broke in on him with a shake of the head. It was deliberate, final. Even more final than her spoken words which sought for gentleness.
"Don't—just don't say another word," she cried.
She started. For an instant her beautiful eyes flashed to the window. Then they came back to the dark eyes which were glowing before her. In a moment it seemed to her they had changed from the pleading, burning passion to something bordering on the sinister.
"I don't love you. I never could love you, Murray," she said a little helplessly.
There was the briefest possible pause, and a sound reached them from outside. But the man seemed oblivious to everything but the passion consuming him. And the manner of that seemed to have undergone a sudden change.
"I know," he broke out with furious bitterness and brutal force. "It's because of that man. That Kars——"
"Don't dare to say that," Jessie cried, with heightened color and eyes dangerously wide. "You haven't a right to speak that way. You——"
"Haven't I?" There was no longer emotion in the man's voice. Neither anger, nor any gentler feeling. It was the tone Jessie always knew in Murray McTavish. It was steady, and calm, and, just now, grievously hurtful.
"Well, maybe I haven't, since you say so. But I'm not taking your answer now. I can't. I'll ask you again—next year, maybe. Maybe you'll feel different then. I hope so."
He swung about with almost electrical swiftness as his final words came with a low, biting emphasis. And his movement was in response to the swift opening of the door of the office.
John Kars was standing in its framing.
It was a moment of intensity such as rarely fails to leave a landmark in the lives of those concerned. For Murray McTavish it was as though every fear that had ever haunted him from the rivalry of John Kars had suddenly been translated into concrete form. For Jessie the hero of all her dreams had magically responded to her unspoken appeal for succor. John Kars felt something approaching elation at the unerring instinct which had prompted his visit to the Fort on the instant of arrival. Bill Brudenell looked on as usual with eyes calm in their passionless wisdom. To him fortune's wheel was distinctly revolving in their favor.
Passing the window both he and Kars had caught and read the girl's half terrified glance. Both of them had seen Murray standing before her, and realized something of the passionate urgency of manner he was laboring under. Their interpretation of the scene remained each to himself. No word passed between them. Only had Kars' gait increased as he hurried round towards the door.
Now Kars' tone gave his friend and supporter infinite satisfaction. Bill even felt he had miscalculated the primal instincts which governed this man. He knew he was exercising a powerful restraint. And it pleased as well as astonished him.
"Why, say, you folks, I'm glad to have found you right away," Kars said, with perfect cordiality. "We just pulled in on the trail, and came right along up while Charley fixes things. We weren't sure of getting Murray this time of year."
Murray was completely master of himself. He was smiling his usual greeting while John Kars shook hands with Jessie. Nor was his smile any the less that his rival's words were for Jessie rather than for him. He watched the new look born in the girl's eyes at sight of Kars without a sign of emotion. And though it roused in him a fury of jealousy his response only seemed to gain in cordiality. He laughed.
"You're kind of lucky, too," he said. "I only got in from Leaping Horse two days back, and I'm pulling out north right away."
It was Bill who answered him. Jessie had picked up her oilskin, and Kars was assisting her into it.
"You only got in two days back?" Bill's brows were raised questioningly. "You didn't drive as hard in the trail as folks guess."
His shrewd eyes were twinkling as he watched the shadow of annoyance pass swiftly across the trader's face. But Murray excused himself, and his excuse seemed to afford Dr. Bill a certain amusement.
"The trail was fierce," he said, with a shrug. "The devil himself couldn't have got a hustle on."
"No. We came the same trail."
Kars seemed oblivious to what was passing between the two men. He seemed to have no concern for any one but Jessie.
"You going right down home now?" he asked.
His eyes were smiling gently into the girl's upturned face, for all that his mind was full of the tragic news he had yet to convey.
He was so big as he stood there fastening the coat about her neck. His rugged face was a picture of strength as he searched out the fastening of the collar and secured it. His fur-lined pea-jacket, stained and worn, his loose, travel-stained trousers tucked into his heavy knee boots. These things aggravated his great bulk, and made him a very giant of the world it was his whim to roam.
The girl's moment of fear had entirely passed. There could be no shadow for her where he was. Nor had the rapid beatings of her heart anything to do with the scene through which she had just passed. It was the touch of his great hands that stirred her with a thrill exquisite beyond words.
"Why, yes," she answered readily. "I've got school at the Mission. I came up to get Murray's plans he needed to fix. He's going north, as he said, and guessed I ought to help mother right here while he's away. You see, we haven't got Alec now."
"No."
The smile passed out of Kars' eyes. The girl's final words shocked him momentarily out of his self-command. There was one other at least who held his breath for what was to follow that curt negative. But Bill Brudenell need have had no fear.
"But you'll be through after a while," Kars went on with a swift return to his usual manner. "I'll be along down to pay my respects to your mother. Meanwhile Bill and I need a yarn with Murray here. We're stopping a while."
While he was speaking he accompanied the girl to the door and watched her till she had passed the angle of the building in the direction of the gates of the stockade. Then he turned back to the trader, who was once more seated at his desk.
His whole manner had undergone a complete change. There was no smile in his eyes now. There was a stern setting of his strong jaws. He glanced swiftly at Bill, who had moved to the window. Then his eyes came back to the mechanical smile on Murray's face.
"Alec's out," he said. "He was shot up in the dance hall at the Elysian Fields. It happened the night of the day you pulled out. He ran foul of a 'gunman' who'd been set on his trail. He did the 'gunman' up. But he was done up, too. It's one of the things made us come along up to you right away."
John Kars made his announcement without an unnecessary word, without seeking for a moment to lessen any effect which the news might have on this man. He felt there was no need for any nicety.
The effect of his announcement was hardly such as he might have expected. There was a sort of amazed incredulity in Murray's dark eyes and his words came haltingly.
"Shot up? But—but—you're fooling. You—you must be. God! You—must be!"
Kars shrugged.
"I tell you Alec is dead. Shot up." There was a hard ring in his voice that robbed his words of any doubt.
"God!" Then came a low, almost muttered expression of pity. "The poor darn women-folk."
The last vestige of Murray's mechanical smile had gone. An expression of deep horror had deadened the curious light in his eyes. He sat nerveless in his chair, and his bulk seemed to have become flabby with loss of vitality. Bill was watching the scene from the window.
"Yes. It's going to be terrible—for them."
Kars spoke with a force which helped disguise his real emotions. By a great effort Murray pulled himself together.
"It's—it's Shaunbaum," he said. Then he went on as though to himself: "It's over—that woman. And I warned him. Gee, I warned him for all I knew! Josh Wiseman was right. Oh, the crazy kid!"
Kars, looking on, remembered that this man had lied when he had said that he had urged Alec to quit his follies. He remembered that he had given Alec money, his money, to help him the further to wallow in the muck of Leaping Horse. He remembered these things as he gazed upon an outward display of grief, and listened to words of regrets which otherwise must have carried complete conviction.
He saw no necessity to add anything. And in a moment Murray had started into an attitude of fierce resentment, and crashed his fleshy fist down upon the pages of the ledger before him.
"I warned him," he cried fiercely, his burning eyes fixed on the emotionless face of his rival. "God! I warned him. I had it from Josh Wiseman the 'gunmen' were around. Shaunbaum's 'gunmen.' Say, Kars," he went on, reaching out with his clenched fist for emphasis, "that boy was in my hotel to tell me he was quitting the city on a big play for a great stake. And I tell you it was like a weight lifted right off my shoulders. I saw him getting shut of Shaunbaum and that woman. I told him I was glad, and I told him Josh Wiseman's yarn. I told him they reckoned Shaunbaum meant doing him up some way. An' he laffed. Just laffed, and—guessed he was glad. And now—they've got him. It's broke me all up. But the women. Jessie! His mother! Say, it's going to break their hearts all to pieces."
Kars stirred in his chair.
"We figgered that way," he said coldly. "That's why we came around to you first. I'm going to tell the women-folk. And when I've told 'em I guess you'll need to stop around a while. That's if you reckon this place is to—— Say, they'll need time—plenty. It's up to you to help them by keeping your hand on the tiller of things right here."
Murray leaned back in his chair. His forcefulness had died out under Kars' cold counsel.
"Yes, it's up to me," he said with a sort of desperate regret.
Presently he looked up. A light of apprehension had grown in his dark eyes.
"You said you'd tell them?" he demanded eagerly. "Say, I couldn't do it. I haven't the grit."
"I'm going to tell them."
There was no relaxing of manner in Kars.
A deep relief replaced Murray's genuine dread. And presently his fleshy chin sank upon his broad bosom in an attitude of profound dejection. His eyes were hidden. His emotion seemed too deep for further words. Bill, watching, beheld every sign. Nothing escaped him.
For some moments the silence remained. Then, at last, it was Murray who broke it. He raised his eyes to the cold regard of the man he had so cordially come to hate.
"Shaunbaum isn't going to get away with it?" he questioned. "The p'lice? They've got a cinch on him?"
"Shaunbaum won't get away with it."
"They've—arrested him?"
Kars shook his head.
"No. Shaunbaum didn't shoot him. The boy did the 'gunman' up. You see, it was the outcome of a brawl. There's no one to arrest—yet."
"Who did shoot him up? The other 'gunman'? Josh spoke of two. Can't he be got? He could give Shaunbaum away—maybe."
"That's so. Guess that's most how it stands. Maybe it was the other 'gunman.'"
Murray's satisfaction was obvious. He nodded.
"Sure. It's Shaunbaum's play. There's no question. Everybody got it ahead. It wouldn't be his way to see another feller snatch his dame without a mighty hard kick. It's Shaunbaum—sure."
He bestirred himself. All his old energy seemed to spring suddenly into renewed life. Again came that forceful gesture of the fist which Bill watched with so much interest, and the binding of the ledger creaked under its force.
"By God! I hope they get him and hang him by his rotten vulture neck! He's run his vile play too long. He's a disease—a deadly, stinking, foul disease. Maybe it was a 'gunman' did the shooting. But I'd bet my life it was Shaunbaum behind him. And to think these poor lone women-folk, hundreds of miles away from him, should be the victims. See here, Kars, I'm no sort of full-fledged angel. I don't set myself up as any old bokay of virtue. There's things count more with me, and one of 'em's dollars. I'm out after all I can get of 'em. But I'd give half of all I possess to see a rawhide tight around Shaunbaum's neck so it wouldn't give an inch. I haven't always seen eye to eye with young Alec. Maybe our temperaments were sort of contrary. But this thing's got me bad. Before God, there's not a thing I wouldn't do to save these poor women-folk hurt. They're right on their lonesome now. Do you get all that means to women-folk? There isn't a soul between them and the world. You ask me to stand by. You ask me to keep my hand on the tiller of things. I don't need the asking—by any one. I was Allan's partner, and Allan's friend. It's my duty and my right to get in between these poor folk and a world that would show them small enough mercy. And I don't hand my right to any man living. I got to thank you coming along to me. But it don't need you, or any other man, to ask me to get busy for the sake of these folk. You can reckon on me looking after things right here, Kars. I'm ready to do all I know. And God help any one who'd rob them of a cent. Allan left his work only half done. It was for them. And I'm going to carry it through. The way he'd have had it."
The rain had ceased. A watery sunshine had broken through the heavy clouds which were reluctantly yielding before a bleak wintry wind. It was the low poised sun of afternoon in the early year, and its warmth was as ineffectual as its beam of light. But it shone through the still tightly sealed double windows of Ailsa Mowbray's parlor, a promise which, at the moment, possessed neither meaning nor appeal.
The widowed mother was standing near the wood stove which radiated a welcome warmth, and still roared its winter song through its open dampers. John Kars was leaning against the centre table. His serious eyes were on the ruddy light shining under the damper of the stove. His strong hands were gripping the woodwork of the table behind him. His grip was something in the nature of a clutching support. His fixed gaze was as though he had no desire to shift it to the face of the woman on whom he had come to inflict the most cruel agony a woman may endure.
"You have come to talk to me of Alec? Yes? What of him?" Ailsa Mowbray's eyes, so steady, so handsome, eyes that claimed so much likeness to Jessie's, were eager. Then, in a moment, a note of anxiety found expression. "He—is well?"
The man's own suffering at that moment was lacerating. All that was in him was stirred to its deepest note. It was as though he were about to strike this woman down, a helpless, defenceless soul, and all his manhood revolted. He could have wept tears of bitterness, such as he had never dreamed could have been wrung from him.
"No."
"What—has happened? Quick! Tell me!"
The awful apprehension behind the mother's demand found no real outward sign. She stood firmly—unwaveringly. Only was there a sudden suppressed alarm in her voice.
Kars stirred. The jacket buttoned across his broad chest seemed to stifle him. A mad longing possessed him to reach out and break something. The pleasant warmth of the room had suddenly become unbearable. He could no longer breathe in the atmosphere. He raised his eyes to the mother's face for one moment. The next they sought again the ruddy line of the stove.
"He—is dead."
"Dead? Oh, no! Not that! Oh—God help me!"
Kars had no recollection of a mother's love. He had no recollection of anything but the hard blows in a cruel struggle for existence, beside a man whose courage was invincible, but in whom the tender emotions at no time found the smallest display. But all that which he had inherited from the iron man who had founded his fortunes had failed to rob him of any of the gentler humanity which his unremembered mother must have bestowed upon him. His whole being shrank under the untold agony of this mother's denial and ultimate appeal.
Now he spoke rapidly. The yearning to spare this woman, who had already suffered so much, urged him. To prolong the telling he felt would be cruelty unthinkable. He felt brevity to be the only way to spare her.
"He was shot by a tough," he said. "It was at the Elysian Fields. He was dancing, and there was a quarrel. If blame there was for Alec it was just his youth, I guess. Just sit, and I'll hand it you—all."
He moved from the table. He came to the mother's side. His strong hand rested on her shoulder, and somehow she obeyed his touch and sank into the chair behind her. It was the chair from which she had watched her little world grow up about her, the chair in which she had pondered on the first great tragedy of her life.
Her lips were unmoving. Her eyes terrible in their stony calm. They mechanically regarded the man before her with so little understanding that he wondered if he should proceed.
Presently, however, he was left no choice.
"Go on," she said, and her hands clasped themselves in her lap with a nerve force suggesting the physical clinging which remained her only support.
And at her bidding the man talked. He told his story in naked outline, smothering the details of her boy's delinquencies, and sparing her everything which could wound her mother's pride and devotion. His purpose was clearly defined. The wound he had to inflict was well-nigh mortal, but no word or act of his should aggravate it. His story was a consummate effort of loyalty to the dead and mercy to the living.
Even in the telling he wondered if those wide-gazing, stricken eyes were reading somewhere in the depths of his soul the real secrets he was striving so ardently to withhold. He could not tell. His knowledge of women was limited, so limited. He hoped that he had succeeded.
At the conclusion of his pitiful story he waited. His purpose was to leave the woman to her grief, believing that time, and her wonderful courage, would help her. But it was difficult, and all that was in him bade him stay, and out of his own great courage seek to help her.
He stirred. The moment was dreadful in its hopelessness.
"Jessie will be along," he said.
The mother looked up with a start.
"Yes," she said. "She's all I have left. Oh, God, it will break her young heart."
There was no thought of self in that supreme moment. The mother was above and beyond her own sufferings, even when the crushing grief was beating her down with the full force of merciless blows. Her thought for the suffering of her one remaining child was supreme.
The man's hands gripped till his nails almost cut the hard flesh of his palms. He had no answer for her words. It was beyond his power to answer such words.
He turned with a movement suggesting precipitate flight. But his going was arrested by the voice he knew and loved so well.
"What—what—will break her young heart?"
Jessie was standing just within the room, and the door was closed behind her. Her eyes were on the drawn face of her mother, but, somehow, it seemed to Kars that her words were addressed to him.
In the agony of his feelings he was about to answer. Perhaps recklessly. For somehow the dreadful nature of his errand was telling on a temper unused to such a task. But once again the fortitude of the elder woman displayed itself, and he was saved from himself.
"I'll tell you, Jessie, when—he's gone." And the handsome, tragic eyes looked squarely into the man's.
For a moment the full significance of the mother's words remained obscure to the man. Then the courage, the strength of them made themselves plain. He realized that this grief-stricken woman was invincible. Nothing—just nothing could break her indomitable spirit. In the midst of all her suffering she desired to spare him, to spare her one remaining child.
There could be no reply to such a woman. Nor could he answer the girl—now. He came towards her. Resting one great hand on the oilskin covering her shoulders, he looked down into her questioning, troubled eyes with infinite tenderness.
"Jessie, there's things I can say to you I can't say even to your mother. I want to say them now, with her looking on. I can't put all I feel into words. Those things don't come easy to me. You see, I've never had anything beyond my own concerns to look after, ever before in my life. Other folks never kind of seemed to figger with me. Maybe I'm selfish. It seems that way. But now—why, now that's all changed. Things I always guessed mattered don't matter any longer. And why? Why? Because there's just two women in the world got right into my heart, and everything else has had to make way for them. Do you get me, child? Maybe you don't. Well, it's just that all I am or ever hope to be is for you. It don't matter the miles between us, or the season. When I get your call I'll answer—right away."