Next morning, the mail-carrier, who drove up to the homestead half-frozen and white all over out of a haze of falling snow, brought Agatha a note from Gregory. It was brief, and she read it with a smile of half-amused contempt, though she admitted that, considering everything, he had handled the somewhat embarrassing situation gracefully. This, however, was only what she had expected of him, and she recognised that it was equally characteristic of the man that he had written releasing her from her engagement instead of coming himself. Gregory, as she realised now, had always taken the easiest way, and it was evident that he had not even the courage to face her. She quietly dropped his note—it did not seem worth while to fling it—into the stove.
She could forgive him for choosing Sally. Though she was very human in most respects, that scarcely troubled her, but she could not forgive him for persisting in his claim to her while he was philandering—and this seemed the most fitting term—with her rival. Had he only been honest, she would not have let Wyllard go away without some assurance of her regard which would have cheered him on his perilous journey, and it was clear to her that he might never come back again. Her face grew hard when she thought of it, and she had thought of it of late very frequently. For that, at least, she felt she almost hated Gregory.
A month passed drearily, with Arctic frost outside on the prairie, and little to do inside the homestead except to cook and gorge the stove, and endeavour to keep warmth in one. Water froze solid inside the building, stinging draughts crept in through the double windows, and there were evenings when Mrs. Hastings and Agatha, shivering close beside the stove, waited anxiously for the first sign of Hastings and the hired man, who were bringing back a sled loaded with birch logs from a neighbouring bluff. It was only a couple of miles away, but men sent out to cut fuel in the awful cold snaps in that country have now and then sunk down in the snow with the life frozen out of them. There were other days when the wooden building seemed to rock beneath the buffeting of the icy hurricane, and it was a perilous matter to cross the narrow open space between it and the stables through the haze of shirling snow.
The weather, however, moderated a little by and bye, and one afternoon soon after it did so Mrs. Hastings drove off to Lander's with the one hired man they kept through the winter. Her husband, who insisted upon her taking him, had set out earlier for the bluff, and as the Scandinavian maid had recently been married, Agatha was left in the house with the little girls.
It was bitterly cold, even inside the dwelling, but Agatha was busy baking, and she failed to notice that the frost had once more become almost Arctic, until she stood beside a window as evening was closing in. A low, dingy sky hung over the narrowing sweep of prairie which stretched back, gleaming lividly, into the creeping dusk, but a few minutes later a haze of snow whirled across it and cut the dreary scene in half. Then the light died out suddenly, and she and the little girls drew their chairs close up to the stove. The house was very quiet, but she could hear the mournful wailing of the wind about it, and now and then the soft swish of driven snow upon the walls and roofing shingles.
The table was laid for supper, and a kettle was singing cheerfully upon the stove, but there was no sign of the others, and by and bye Agatha commenced to feel a little anxious. Mrs. Hastings, she fancied, would stay the night at Lander's if there was any unfavourable change in the weather, which seemed to be the case, but she wondered what could be detaining Hastings. It was not very far to the bluff, and as he could not have continued chopping in the darkness it seemed to her that he should have reached the homestead already.
He did not come, however, and she grew more uneasy as the time slipped by, while the wail of the wind grew louder and the stove crackled more noisily, until at last one of the little girls rose with a cry, and she fancied she heard a dull beat of hoofs. It grew plainer until she was sure of it, but soon after that the sound ceased abruptly, and she could not hear the rattle of flung down logs which she had expected. This struck her as curious, since she knew that Hastings generally unloaded the sled before he led the team to the stable. She waited a moment or two, but except for the doleful wind nothing broke the silence now, and when it became oppressive she moved towards the door.
The wind tore it from her grasp when she opened it, and flung it against the wall with a jarring crash, while a fine powder that stung the skin unbearably drove into her face. For a few moments she could see nothing but a filmy, whirling haze, and then, as her eyes became accustomed to the change of light, she dimly made out the blurred white figures of the horses standing still, with the load of birch logs rising a shapeless mass behind them. There seemed to be nobody with them, and though she twice called sharply no answer came out of the sliding snow. Then she recognised the significant fact that the team had come home alone.
It was difficult to close the door, and before she accomplished it her hands had stiffened and grown almost useless, and the hall was strewn with snow, but it was very evident that there was something for her to do. It cost her three or four minutes to slip on a blanket skirt, and soft hide moccasins, with gum boots over them, and then, muffled shapeless in her furs, she reassured the little girls, and opened the door again. When she had contrived to close it, the cold struck through her to the bone as she floundered towards the team. There was nobody she could look to for assistance, but that could not be helped, and it was evident to her that some misfortune had befallen Hastings.
The first thing necessary was to unload the sled, and, though the birches seldom grow to any size in a prairie bluff, some of the logs were heavy. She was gasping with the effort when she had flung a few of them down, after which she discovered that the rest were held up by one or two stout poles let into sockets. Try as she would, she could not get them out, and then she remembered that Hastings kept a whipsaw in a shed close by. She contrived to find it, and attacked the poles in breathless haste, working clumsily with mittened hands, until there was a crash and rattle as she sprang clear. Then she started the team, and the rest of the logs rolled off into the snow.
That was one difficulty overcome, but the next appeared more serious. She must find the bluff as soon as possible, and in the snow-filled darkness she could not tell where it lay. Even if she could have seen anything of the kind, there was no landmark on the desolate level waste between it and the homestead. She, however, remembered that she had one guide. Hastings and his hired man had of late hauled a good many loads of birch logs in, and as this had made a worn-out trail it seemed to her just possible that she might trace it back to the bluff. No great weight of snow had fallen as yet.
Before she set out she had a struggle with the team, for the beasts had evidently no intention of making another journey if they could help it, but at length she swung them into the narrow riband of trail, and plodded away into the darkness at their heads. It was then she first clearly realised what she had undertaken. Very little of her face was left bare between her fur-cap and collar, but every inch of uncovered skin tingled as though it had been lashed with thorns or stabbed with innumerable needles. The air was thick with a fine powder that filled her eyes and nostrils, the wind buffeted her, and there was an awful cold—the cold that taxes the utmost strength of mind and body of those who are forced to face it on the shelterless prairie.
Still she struggled on, feeling with half-frozen feet for the depression of the trail, and grappling with a horrible dismay when she failed to find it for moments together. Indeed, she was never sure to what extent she guided the team, and how far they headed for the bluff from mere force of habit, but as the time went by, and there was nothing before her but the whirling snow, she grew feverishly apprehensive. The trail was becoming fainter and fainter, and now and then she could find no trace of it for several minutes.
The horses, however, floundered on, blurred shapes as white as the haze they crept through, and at length she felt that they were dipping into a hollow. Then a faint sense of comfort crept into her heart as she remembered that a shallow ravine which seamed the prairie ran through the bluff. She called out, and started at the faintness of her voice. It seemed such a pitifully feeble thing. There was no answer, nothing but the soft fall of the horses' hoofs and the wail of the wind, but the latter was reassuring, for the volume of sound suggested that it was driving through a bluff close by.
A few minutes later she cried out again, and this time she felt the throbbing of her heart, for a faint sound came out of the whirling haze. She pulled the horses up, and as she stood still listening, a blurred object appeared almost in front of them. It shambled forward in a curious manner, stopped, and moved again, and in another moment or two Hastings lurched by her with a stagger and sank down into a huddled white heap on the sled. She turned back towards him, and he seemed to look up at her.
"Turn the team," he said.
Agatha did it, and sat down beside him when the horses moved on again.
"A small birch I was chopping fell on me," he said. "I don't know if it smashed my ankle, or if I twisted it wriggling clear—the thing pinned me down. It's badly nipped, any way."
He spoke disconnectedly and hoarsely, as if in pain, and Agatha, who noticed that one of his gum boots was almost ripped to pieces, realised part of what he must have felt. She knew that nobody held fast helpless could have withstood that cold for more than a very little while.
"Oh," she said, "it must have been dreadful!"
"I found a branch," Hastings added. "It helped me, but I fell over every now and then. Headed for the homestead. Don't think I could have made it if you hadn't come for me." He broke off abruptly, and turned to her. "You mustn't sit down. Walk—keep warm—but don't try to lead the team."
Agatha struggled forward as far as the near horse's shoulder. The beasts slightly sheltered her, and it was a little easier walking with a hand upon a trace. It was a relief to cling to something, for the wind that flung the snow into her face drove her garments against her limbs, so that now and then she could scarcely move. Indeed, when her strength commenced to flag, every yard of that journey was made with infinite pain and difficulty. At times she could scarcely see the horses, and again she stumbled along beside them for minutes, blinded, breathless, and half-dazed. She did not know how Hastings was faring, but she half-consciously recognised that if once she let the trace go the sled would slip away from her and she would sink down to freeze.
At length, however, a dim mass crept out of the white haze ahead, and a moment later a man laid hold of her. He told her that Mrs. Hastings was with him, and that the homestead was close at hand. Agatha learned afterwards that they had reached it a little earlier, and had immediately set out in search of her and Hastings. In the meanwhile she floundered on beside the horses with another team dimly visible in front of her until a faint ray of light streamed out into the snow. Then the teams stopped, and she had only a hazy recollection of staggering into a lighted room in the homestead and sinking into a chair. What they did with Hastings she did not know, but by and bye his wife who went with her to her room kissed her before she went out again.
Nobody could have faced the snow next morning, and it was some days later when Watson, who had attended Hawtrey after his accident, was brought over. He did what he could, but it was several weeks before Hastings could use his injured foot again. Before he recovered news was sent him of some difficulty in the affairs of a small creamery at a settlement further along the line, in which he and his wife held an interest, and Mrs. Hastings went East to make inquiries respecting it. She took Agatha with her, and one evening after she had finished the business she had in hand they left a little way station by the Pacific train.
The car they entered was empty except for two people who sat close together near the middle of it. A big lamp overhead shed down a brilliant light, and Agatha started when one of the two looked round as she approached them. In another moment she stood face to face with Hawtrey, who had risen, while Sally gazed up at her with a rather curious expression in her eyes. Agatha, however, was perfectly composed now, and felt no sympathy with Hawtrey, who was visibly confused. She was not astonished that he found the situation a somewhat difficult one.
"You have been to Winnipeg?" she said.
"No," said Hawtrey, with evident relief that she had chosen a safe topic, "only to Brandon. Sally has some friends there, and she spends a day or two with them once or twice each winter. Brandon's quite a lively place after the prairie. I went in last night to bring her back." He turned to his companion. "I think you have met Miss Ismay?"
Agatha was conscious that Sally's eyes were fixed upon her, and that Mrs. Hastings was watching them all with quiet amusement, but she was a little astonished when the girl suggestively moved some wraps from the seat opposite her.
"Yes," she said, "I have. If Miss Ismay doesn't mind, I should like to talk to her."
Hawtrey's relief was evident, and Agatha glanced at him with a smile that was half-contemptuous. He had carefully kept out of her way since he had written her the note, and now it seemed only natural that if there was anything to be said he should leave it to Sally.
"I think I'll go along for a smoke," he said, and retired precipitately.
Mrs. Hastings looked after him, and laughed in a manner at which Sally seemed to wince.
"He doesn't seem anxious to talk to me," she said. "You can come along to the next car by and bye, Agatha."
Then she moved away, and Agatha who sat down opposite Sally looked at her quietly.
"Well?" she said.
Sally made a little deprecatory gesture, "I've something to say, but it's hard. To begin with, are you very angry with me?"
"No," said Agatha. "I think I really am a little angry with Gregory, but not altogether because he chose you."
Sally seemed to consider this for a moment or two before she looked up again.
"Well," she said, "not long ago, I wanted to hate you, and I guess I most succeeded. It made things easier. Still, I want to say that I don't hate you now." She hesitated a moment. "I'd like you to forgive me."
Agatha smiled. "In most respects I can do that willingly."
Sally seemed disconcerted by her quiet ease of manner and perfect candour. It was evidently not quite what she had looked for.
"Then you were never very fond of him?" she suggested.
"No," said Agatha reflectively, "since you have compelled me to say it, I don't think now that I ever was really fond of him, though I don't know how I can make that quite clear to you. It was only when I came out here I—realised—Gregory. It was not the actual man I fell in love with in England."
Sally turned her face away, for Agatha had, as it happened, made her meaning perfectly plain. Somewhat to the latter's astonishment, she showed no sign of resentment when she looked round again.
"Then," she said, "it is way better that you didn't marry him." She paused, and seemed to search for words to express herself with. "I knew all along all there was to know about Gregory—except that he was going to marry you, and it was some time before I heard that—and I was ready to take him. I was fond of him."
Agatha's heart went out to her. "Yes," she said simply, "it is a very good thing that I let him go." Then she smiled. "That, however, doesn't quite describe it, Sally."
Her companion flushed. "I couldn't have said that, but you don't quite understand yet. I said I knew all there was to know about him—and you never did. You made too much of him in England, and when you came out here you only saw the things you didn't like in him. Still, they weren't the only ones."
Agatha started at this, for she realised that part of it was certainly true, and she could admit the possibility of the rest being equally correct. After all, Gregory might possess a few good qualities that she had never discovered.
"Perhaps I did," she admitted. "I don't think it matters now."
"They're all of them mixed," persisted Sally. "One can't expect too much, but you can bear with a good deal when you're fond of any one."
Agatha sat silent awhile, for she was troubled by a certain sense of probably wholesome confusion. It seemed to her that Sally had the clearer vision. Love had given her discernment as well as charity, and, not expecting perfection, it was the man's strong points she fixed her eyes upon.
"Yes," she said at length, "I am glad you look at it that way, Sally."
The girl laughed. "Oh!" she said, "I've only seen one man on the prairie who was quite white all through, and I had a kind of notion that he was fond of you."
Agatha sat very still, but it cost her an effort.
"You mean?" she said at length.
"Harry Wyllard."
Agatha made no answer, and Sally changed the subject, "Well," she said, "after all, I want you to be friends with me."
"I think you can count on that," said Agatha with a smile, and in another minute or two she rose to rejoin Mrs. Hastings.
The ice among the inlets on the American side of the North Pacific broke up unusually early when spring came round again, and several weeks before Wyllard had expected it the Selache floated clear. Her crew had suffered little during the bitter winter, for Dampier had kept them busy splicing gear and patching sails, and they had fitted her with a new mainmast hewn out of a small cedar. None of them had been trained as carpenters, but men who keep the sea for months in small vessels are necessarily handy at repairs, and they had all used axe and saw to some purpose in their time. In any case, Wyllard was satisfied when they thrashed the Selache out of the inlet under whole mainsail in a fresh breeze, and when evening came he sat smoking near the wheel in a contemplative mood as the climbing forests and snow-clad heights dropped back astern.
He wondered what his friends were doing upon the prairie, and whether Agatha had married Gregory yet. It seemed to him that this was, at least, possible, for she was one to keep a promise, and it was difficult to believe that Gregory would fail to press his claim. His face grew grim as he thought of it, though this was a thing he had done more or less constantly during the winter. He fancied that he might have ousted Gregory if he had remained at the Range, for Agatha had, perhaps unconsciously, shown him that she was, at least, not quite indifferent to him, but that would have been to involve her in a breach of faith which she would probably have always looked back on with regret, and in any case he could not have stayed. He knew he would never forget her, but it was, he admitted, not impossible that she might forget him. He also realised, though this was not by comparison a matter of great consequence, that the Range was scarcely likely to prosper under Gregory's management, but that could not be helped, and after all he owed Gregory something. It never occurred to him that he was doing an extravagant thing in setting out upon the search he had undertaken. He only felt that the obligation was laid upon him, and, being what he was, he could not shrink from it.
A puff of spray that blew into his face disturbed his meditations, and when by and bye a little tumbling sea splashed in over the weather bow, he rose and helped the others to haul a reef in the mainsail down. That accomplished, he went below and lugged out a well-worn chart, while the Selache drove away to the westwards over a white-flecked sea. This time she carried fresh southerly breezes with her most of the way across the Pacific, and plunged along hove down under the last rag they dare set upon her with the big combers surging up abeam, until at length they ran into the clammy fog close in with the Kamtchatkan beaches. Then the wind dropped, and they were baffled by light and fitful airs, while it became evident that there was ice about.
The day they saw the first big mass of it gleaming broad across their course on a raw green sea, Dampier got an observation, and they held a brief council in the little cabin that evening. The schooner was hove to then, and lay rolling with banging blocks and thrashing canvas on a sluggish heave of sea.
"Thirty miles off shore," said Dampier. "If it had been clear enough we'd have seen the top of the big range quite a way further out to sea. Now, it's drift ice ahead of us, but it's quite likely there's a solid block along the beach. Winter holds on a long while in this country. I guess you're for pushing on as fast as you can?"
Wyllard nodded. "Of course," he said, "you'll look for an opening, and work her in as far as possible. Then, if it's necessary, Charly and I and another man will take the sled and head for the beach across the ice. If there's a lane anywhere I would, however, probably take the smallest boat. We might haul her a league or two, anyway, on the sled if the ice wasn't very rough."
He looked at Charly, who made a little sign.
"Well," he said simply, "I guess I'll have to see you through. Now we've made a sled for her I'd take the boat, anyway. We're quite likely to strike a big streak of water when the ice is breaking up."
"There's one other course," said Dampier; "the sensible one, and that's to wait until it has gone altogether. Seems to me I ought to mention it, though it's not likely to appeal to you."
Wyllard laughed. "From all appearances we might wait a month. I don't want to stay up here any longer than is strictly necessary."
"You'll head north?"
"That's my intention."
"Then," said Dampier, pointing to the chart before them, "as you should make the beach in the next day or two I'll head for the inlet here. As it's not very far you won't have to pack so many provisions along, and I'll give you, say, three weeks to turn up in. If you don't, I'll figure that there's something wrong, and do what seems advisable."
They agreed to that, and when next morning a little breeze came out of the creeping haze, they sailed her slowly shorewards among the drifting ice until, at nightfall, an apparently impenetrable barrier stretched gleaming faintly ahead of them. Wyllard retired soon afterwards, and slept soundly. All his preparations had been made during the winter, and when at length morning broke he breakfasted before he went out on deck. The boat was already packed with provisions, sleeping-bags, a tent, and two light sled frames, on one of which it seemed possible that they might haul her a few miles. She was very light and small, and had been built for such a purpose as they had in view.
In the meanwhile the schooner lay to with backed forestaysail, tumbling wildly on a dim, grey sea. Half a mile away the ice ran back into a dingy haze, and there was a low, grey sky to weather. Now and then a fine sprinkle of snow slid across the water before a nipping breeze. As Wyllard glanced to windward Dampier strode up to him.
"I guess you'd better put it off," he said. "I don't like the weather; we'll have wind before long."
Wyllard only smiled, and Dampier made a little gesture.
"Then," he said, "I'd get on to the ice just as soon as you can. You're still quite a way off the beach."
Wyllard shook hands with him. "We should make the inlet in about nine days, and if I don't turn up in three weeks you'll know there's something wrong. If there's no sign of me in another week you can take her home again."
Then Dampier, who said nothing further, bade them swing the boat over, and when she lay heaving beneath the rail Wyllard and Charly and one Indian dropped into her. It was only a preliminary search they were about to engage in, for they had decided that if they found nothing they would afterwards push further north or inland when they had supplied themselves with fresh stores from the schooner.
They gazed at her with somewhat grim faces as they pulled away, and Wyllard, who loosed his oar a moment to wave his fur cap when Dampier stood upon her rail, was glad when a fresher rush of the bitter breeze forced him to fix his attention on his task. The boat was heavily loaded, and the tops of the grey seas splashed unpleasantly close about her gunwale. She was running before them, rising sharply, and dropping down out of sight of all but the schooner's canvas into the hollows, and though this made rowing easier he was apprehensive of difficulties when he reached the ice.
His misgivings proved warranted as they closed with it, for it presented an almost unbroken wall against the face of which the sea spouted and fell in frothy wisps. There was no doubt as to what would happen if the frail craft was hurled upon that frozen mass, and Wyllard, who was sculling, fancied that before she could even reach it there was a probability of her being swamped in the upheaval where the backwash met the oncoming sea. Charly looked at him dubiously.
"It's a sure thing we can't get out there," he said.
Wyllard nodded. "Then," he said, "we'll pull along the edge of it until we find an opening or something to make a lee. The sea's higher than it seemed to be from the schooner."
"We've got to do it soon," said Charly. "There's more wind not far away."
Wyllard dipped his oar again, and they pulled along the edge of the ice for an hour cautiously, for there were now little frothing white tops on the seas.
It was evident that the wind was freshening, and at times a deluge of icy water slopped in over the gunwale. The men were further hampered by their furs, and the stores among their feet, and the perspiration dripped from Wyllard when they approached a ragged, jutting point. It did not seem advisable to attempt a landing on that side of it, and when a little snow commenced to fall he looked at his companions.
"I guess we've got to pull her out," said Charly. "Dampier's heaving a reef down; he sees what's working up to windward."
Wyllard could just make out the schooner, which had apparently followed them, a blurr of dusky canvas against a bank of haze, and then, as the boat slid down into a hollow, there was nothing but the low-hung, lowering sky. It was evident to him that if they were to make a landing it must be done promptly.
"We'll pull round the point first, anyway," he said.
A shower of fine snow that blotted out the schooner broke upon them as they did it, and the work was arduous. They were pulling to windward now, and it was necessary to watch the seas that ranged up ahead and handle her circumspectly while the freshening breeze blew the spray all over them. They had to fight for every fathom, and once or twice she nearly rolled over with them, while the icy water grew steadily deeper inside her. Then it became apparent by degrees that, as they could not have reached the schooner had they attempted it, they were pulling for their lives, and that the one way of escape open to them was to find an opening of some kind round the point. Its ragged tongue was horribly close to lee of them lapped in a foaming wash when the snow cleared for a minute or two, and they saw that Dampier had driven the Selache further off the ice. She was hove to now, and there was a black figure high up in her shrouds.
Just then, however, a bitter rush of wind hurled the spray about them, and the boat fell off almost beam on to the sea, in spite of all that they could do. The icy brine washed into her, and it seemed almost certain that she would swamp or roll over before they could get way on her. Still, pulling desperately, they drove her round the point. Then, as gasping and dripping they made their last effort, a sea rolled up ahead, and Wyllard had a momentary glimpse of an opening not far away as she swung up with it. He shouted to his companions, but could not tell whether they heard and understood him, for after that he was only conscious of sculling savagely until another sea broke into her and she struck. There was a crash, and she swung clear with the backwash, with all one side smashed in. Then she swung in again just beyond a tongue of ice over which the froth was pouring tumultuously, and the Indian jumped from the bow. He had the painter with him, and for half a minute he held her somehow, standing in the foam, while they hurled a few of the carefully made-up packages in her as far on to the ice as possible. Then, as Wyllard, who seized one sled frame, jumped, she rolled over. He landed on his hands and knees, but in another moment he was on his feet, and he and the Indian clutched at Charly, who drove towards them amidst a long wash of foam.
They dragged him clear, and as he stood up dripping without his cap a sudden haze of snow whirled about them. There was no sign of the schooner, and they could scarcely see the broken ice some sixty yards away. They had made the landing, wet through, with about half their stores, and it was evident that their boat would not carry them across the narrowest lane of water, even if they could have recovered her, which it scarcely seemed worth while to attempt. The sea rumbled along the edge of the ice, and they could not tell if the latter extended as far as the beach. They looked at one another until Wyllard spoke.
"We have got the hand-sled, and some, at least, of the things," he said. "The sooner we start for the beach the sooner we'll get there."
It was a relief to load the sled, and when that was done they set off in the hide traces across the ice with the snow whirling about them. It was arduous work apart from the hauling of the load, for the ice was rough and broken, and covered for the most part with softening snow. They had only gum-boots with soft hide moccasins under them, for snow-shoes are only used in Eastern Canada, and it takes one a long while to learn to walk on them. Sometimes they sank almost knee-deep, sometimes they slipped and scrambled on uncovered ledges, but they pushed on with the sled bouncing and sliding unevenly behind them until the afternoon had almost gone.
Then they set up the saturated tent behind a hummock, and crouched inside it upon a ground sheet while Charly boiled a kettle on the little oil blast stove, and the wind that screamed about it hurled the snow upon the straining canvas. It, however, stood the buffeting, and when they had eaten a very simple meal Charly put the stove out and the darkness was only broken down when one of them struck a match to light his pipe. They had only a strip of rubber sheeting between them and the snow, for the water had got into the sleeping bags, and their clothes dried upon them with the heat of their bodies. They said nothing for awhile, and Wyllard was half-asleep when Charly spoke.
"I've been thinking about that boat," he said. "Though I don't know that we could have done it, we ought to have tried to pull her out."
"Why?" asked Wyllard. "She'd have been all to pieces, anyway."
"I'm figuring it out like this. If Dampier wasn't up in the shrouds when we made the landing he'd sent somebody. We could see him up against the sky, but we'd be much less clear to him low down with the ice and the surf about us. Besides, it was snowing quite fast then. Well, I don't know what Dampier saw, but I guess he'd have made out that we hadn't hauled the boat up, anyway. The trouble is that with the wind freshening and it getting thick he'd have to thrash the schooner out and lie to until it cleared. When he runs in again it's quite likely that he'll find the boat and an oar or two. Seems to me that's going to worry him considerable."
Wyllard, drowsy as he was getting, agreed with this view of the matter. He realised that it would have been quite impossible for Dampier to have sent them any assistance, and it was merely a question whether they should retrace their steps to the edge of the ice next morning and make him some signal. Against this there was the strong probability that he would not run in if the gale and snow continued, and the fact that it was desirable to make the beach as soon as possible in case the ice broke up before they reached it. What was rather more to the purpose, he was quietly determined on pushing on.
"It can't be helped," he said simply. "We'll start for the beach as soon as it's daylight."
Charly made no answer, and the brawny, dark-skinned Siwash, who spoke English reasonably well, only grunted. Unless it seemed necessary, he seldom said anything at all. Bred to the sea, and living on the seal and salmon, as he had done, an additional hazard or two or an extra strain on his tough body did not count for much with him. He had been accustomed to sleep wet through with icy water, and crouch for hours with numbed hands clenched on the steering-paddle while the long sea canoe scudded furiously over the big combers before bitter gale or driving snow. Wyllard, who rolled over, pulled a wet sleeping-bag across him, and after that there was silence in the little rocking tent.
In the meanwhile, Charly's deductions had been proved correct, for when the breeze freshened Dampier climbed into the shrouds. He had noticed the ominous blackness to windward, and knew what it meant, which was why he had hauled a reef in the schooner's mainsail down, and now kept her out a little from the ice. As the light faded he found it very difficult to see the boat against the white wash of the seas that recoiled from the ice, but when the snow was whirling about him he decided that she was in some peril unless her crew could pull her round the point. It was evident that this would be a difficult matter, though he had only an occasional glimpse of her now. He waved an arm to the helmsman, who understood that he was to run the schooner in; there was a rattle of blocks as the booms swung out, and as the Selache sped away before the rapidly freshening breeze it seemed to Dampier that he saw the boat hurled upon the ice. Then a blinding haze of snow shut out everything, and he came down with a run.
He stood for several minutes gazing forward grim in face beside the wheel, but he could see nothing except the filmy whiteness and the tops of the seas that had steadily been getting steeper. The schooner was driving furiously down upon the ice, but it was evident to him that to send Wyllard any assistance was utterly beyond his power. He could have hove the schooner to while he got the bigger boat over, and two men might have pulled her towards the ice with the breeze astern of them, but it was perfectly clear that they could neither have made a landing nor have pulled her back again. It was also, though this appeared of less consequence, uncertain whether he and the other man could have brought the schooner round or have got more sail off her, which would, as he recognised, very soon have to be done. Still, he stood on while the snow grew thicker until they heard the wash of the sea upon the ice close to lee of them, and then it was a hard-clenched hand he raised in sign to the helmsman.
"On the wind. Haul lee sheets!" he said.
She came round a little, heading off the ice, and when she drove away with the foam seething white beneath one depressed rail and the spray whirling high about her plunging bows, there was a curious tense look in the white men's faces as they gazed into the thickening white haze to lee of her.
They thrashed her out until Dampier decided that there was sufficient water between him and the ice, and then stripped most of the sail off her, and she lay to until next morning, when they once more got sail on her and ran in again. The breeze had fallen a little, it was rather clearer, and they picked up the point, though it had somewhat changed its shape. Then they got a boat over, and the two men who went off in her found a few broken planks, a couple of oars, and Charly's cap washing up and down in the surf. They had very little doubt as to what that meant.
When the boat reached the schooner Dampier went off with one of the men, and contrived to make a landing on the ice with difficulty only to find it covered with a trackless sheet of slushy snow. Though he floundered shorewards a mile or two there was nothing except the shattered boat to suggest what had befallen Wyllard and his companions, but the skipper, who retraced his steps with a heavy heart, had little doubt in his mind. After that he waited two days, until a strong breeze blew him off the ice, which was rapidly breaking up, and then stood out for open water, where he hove the Selache to for a week or so. Then he proceeded northwards to the inlet fixed upon.
He was convinced that this was useless, but as the opening was almost clear of ice he sailed the schooner in, and spent a week or two scouring the surrounding country. He found it a desolation, still partly covered with slushy snow, out of which ridges of volcanic rock rose here and there. On two of these spots a couple of days' march from the schooner, he made a depôt of provisions, and raised a beacon of piled-up stones beside them. At times when it was clear he could see the top of a great range high up against the Western sky, but those times were rare. For the most part, the wilderness was swept by rain or wrapped in clammy fog.
There was, however, no sign of Wyllard, and at length Dampier, coming back jaded and dejected from another fruitless search, after the time agreed upon had expired, shut himself up alone for a couple of hours in the little cabin. He was certain now that Wyllard and his companions had been drowned while attempting to make a landing on the ice, since they would have joined him at the inlet as arranged had this not been the case. The distance was by no means great, and there were no Russian settlements on that part of the coast. He sat very still, with a clenched hand upon the little table, and a set face, balancing conjecture against conjecture, and then regretfully decided that there was only one course open to him. It was dark when he went up on deck again, but the men were sitting smoking about the windlass forward.
"You can heave some of that cable in, boys," he said. "We'll clear out for Vancouver at sun-up."
They said nothing, but they shipped the levers, and Dampier went back to the cabin, for the clank of the windlass and the ringing of the cable jarred upon him.
Early next morning the Selache stood out to sea, and once they had left the fog and rain which hung about the coast behind, she carried fine weather with her across the Pacific. On reaching Vancouver, Dampier had some trouble with the authorities, to whom it was necessary to report the drowning of three of his crew, but he was more fortunate than he expected, and after placing the schooner in the hands of a broker for sale, he left the city one evening on the Atlantic train. Three days later, he was driving across the prairie towards the Hastings homestead, and, as it happened, its inmates were sitting together in the big general room after supper, when the waggon he had hired swung into sight over the crest of a rise.
It was a still, hot evening, and as the windows were open wide a faint beat of hoofs came up across the tall wheat and dusty prairie before the waggon topped the rise. Hastings, who lay in a cane chair near the window, with his pipe in his hand, looked up as he heard it.
"Somebody driving in," he said. "I shouldn't be astonished if it's Gregory. He talked about coming over the last time I saw him."
"If he wants to talk about a deal in wheat, he can stay away," said Mrs. Hastings with a certain dryness. "If all one hears is true, he has lost quite a few of Harry's dollars on the market lately."
Hastings looked somewhat troubled at this. "I'd sooner think it was his own dollars he'd thrown away."
"That's quite out of the question. He hasn't any."
"Well," said Hastings, with an air of reflection, "I'll get Sproatly to make inquiries. He'll probably be along with Winifred this evening, and if he finds that Gregory is getting in rather deep I'll have a word or two with him. Anyway, I can't have him wasting Harry's money, and I have some right to protest as one of the executors."
Agatha started at the last word. It had an ominous ring, and she fancied that Hastings had noticed the effect it had on her, for he seemed to glance at her curiously. Turning from him, she rose and walked quietly towards the window.
The wheat stretched across the foreground, tall and darkly green, and beyond it the white grass ran back to the rise, which cut sharp against a red and smoky glow. The sun had dipped some little time ago, and already there was a wonderful exhilarating coolness in the air. Somehow the sight reminded her of another evening, when she had looked out across the prairie from a seat at Wyllard's table, almost a year ago.
In the meanwhile, a waggon was drawing nearer down the long slope of the rise, and the beat of hoofs which grew steadily louder in a sharp staccato made the memories clearer. She had heard Dampier riding in the night Wyllard had received his summons, and now she wondered who the approaching stranger was, and what his business could be. She did not know why, but she scarcely thought it was Gregory.
Presently Hastings looked round again. "It's the team Bramfield hires out at the settlement," he said. "None of our friends would get him to drive them in. There seems to be two men in the waggon. Bramfield will be one. I can't make out the other."
Mrs. Hastings, who was evidently becoming curious about the unexpected guest, walked forward in turn, and they stood watching the waggon until Agatha made a little abrupt movement.
"It's Captain Dampier," she said.
Then she stood tensely still, with lips slightly parted, and a strained look in her eyes, while Hastings gazed at the waggon for another moment or two.
"Yes," he said, and his voice was harsh, "it's Dampier. The other man's surely Bramfield. Harry's not with him."
Once more he glanced at Agatha, who turned away, and sat down in the nearest chair. She said nothing, and there was an oppressive silence, through which the beat of hoofs and rattle of wheels rang more distinctly.
In another few minutes Dampier came in, while his companion drove off to the stables. He shook hands with Agatha and Mrs. Hastings diffidently.
"You remember me?" he said.
"Of course," said Mrs. Hastings, with a trace of sharpness. "Where's Harry?"
The skipper spread a hard hand out, and sat down heavily.
"That," he said, "is what I have to tell you. He asked me to."
"He asked you to?" said Agatha, and though her voice was strained there was relief in it.
The skipper made a little gesture, which seemed to beseech her patience.
"Yes," he said, "if—anything went wrong—he told me I was to come here to Mrs. Hastings."
Agatha turned her head away, but Mrs. Hastings saw the laces which hung beneath her neck sharply rise and fall.
"Then," she said, "something has gone wrong?"
"About as wrong as it could," and Dampier quietly met her gaze. "Wyllard and two other men are drowned."
He broke off abruptly, and Mrs. Hastings fancied she saw Agatha shiver, but in another moment or two the girl turned slowly round with a drawn white face. It was, however, Hastings who spoke, almost sternly.
"Go on," he said.
"I'm to tell you all?"
This time it was Agatha who broke in.
"Yes," she said with a curious quietness that struck the rest as being strained and unnatural, "you must tell us all."
Dampier, who appeared to shrink from his task, commenced awkwardly, but he gained coherence and force of expression as he proceeded. At least, he made them understand something of the grim resolution which had animated Wyllard. He pictured, in terse seaman's words, the little schooner plunging to windward over long phalanxes of icy seas, or crawling white with snow through the blinding fog. His companions saw the big combers tumbling ready to break short upon the dipping bows out of the dark, and half-frozen men struggling for dear life with folds of madly thrashing sail. The pictures were, however, necessarily somewhat blurred and hazy, for after all only an epic poet could fittingly describe the things that must be done and borne at sea, and epic poets—it is, perhaps, a pity—are not bred in the forecastle. When he reached the last scene he gained almost dramatic power, and Agatha's face grew strangely white and tense. She saw the dim figures pulling in the flying spray beneath the wall of ice.
"We ran her in," he added, "with the snow blinding us. It was working up for a heavy blow, and as we'd have to beat her out we couldn't take sail off her. We stood on until we heard the sea along the edge of the ice, and then there was nothing to do but jam her on the wind and thrash her clear. There was only a plank or two of the boat, an oar, and Charly's cap, when we came back again!"
"After all, though the boat was smashed, they might have got out," Hastings suggested.
"Well," said Dampier simply, "it didn't seem likely. The ice was sharp and ragged, and there was a long wash of sea. A man's not tough enough to stand much of that kind of hammering."
Agatha's face grew a little whiter, but Dampier, who had paused, went on again.
"Anyway," he said, "they didn't turn up at the inlet as we'd fixed, and that decided the thing. If Wyllard had been alive, he surely would have done."
"Isn't it just possible that he might have fallen into the hands of the Russians?" asked Hastings.
"I naturally thought of that, but so far as the chart shows there isn't a settlement within leagues of the spot. Besides, supposing the Russians had got him, how could I have helped him? They'd have sent him off in the first place to one of the bigger settlements in the South, and if the authorities couldn't have connected him with any illegal sealing they'd no doubt have managed to send him across to Japan by and bye. In that case, he'd have got home without any trouble."
He paused, and it was significant that he turned to Agatha with a little deprecatory gesture.
"No," he added, "there was nothing I could do."
It was evident that Agatha acquitted him, but she asked a question.
"Captain Dampier," she said, "had you any expectation of finding those three men when you sailed the second time?"
"No," said the bronzed sailorman, with an impressive quietness, "I hadn't any, and I don't think Wyllard had either. Still, he meant to make quite certain." He spread a hard hand out forcibly. "He felt he had to."
He gazed at Agatha, and saw comprehension in her eyes.
"Yes," she said, "and when you have said that, as you have done, you could have said very little more of any man."
Then she turned her head away from them, and once more there was for a few moments a heavy silence in the room. It cost the girl a painful effort to sit still, apparently unmoved, but there was strength in her, and she would not betray her distress. She felt that the latter must be quietly grappled with. It was almost overwhelming, horribly acute, but there was mingled with it a faint consolatory thrill of pride, for it was clear that the man who had loved her had done a splendid thing. He had given all that had been given him—and she knew she would never forget that phrase of his—willingly, and it seemed to her that the gifts he had been entrusted with were rare and precious ones—steadfast, unflinching courage, compassion, and the fine sense of honour which had sent him out on that forlorn hope. He had gone down, unyielding and undismayed—she felt curiously sure of that—amidst the blinding snow, but this was his vindication which had crowned him with immortal laurels.
Then Mrs. Hastings rose, and set food before Dampier, while by and bye Sproatly and Winifred arrived and were told the story. After that Dampier, who seemed to be a man of tact, stood up. He had already, when asked by Mrs. Hastings, promised to stay with them a day or two.
"Well," he said, "it seems to me you'll naturally want to talk over things. If you'll excuse me, I'll take a stroll across the prairie."
He went out, and Hastings who lighted his pipe lay back in his chair and looked at the rest.
"Harry's friends are numerous, but we're, perhaps, the nearest, and, as Dampier said, we have to consider things," he said. "To begin with, there's a certain possibility that he has escaped, after all."
He saw the little abrupt movement that Agatha made, and went on rather more quickly.
"Gregory, of course, has control at the Range until we have proof of Harry's death, though the latter made a proviso that if there was no word of the party within eighteen months after he had sailed, or within six months of the time Dampier had landed him, we could assume it, after which the will he handed me would take effect," he added. "This, it is evident, leaves Gregory in charge for some months yet, but it seems to me it's our duty to see he doesn't fling away Harry's property. I've reasons for believing that he has been doing it lately."
He looked at Sproatly, who sat silent a moment or two.
"I'm rather awkwardly placed," the latter said at length. "You see, there's no doubt that I'm indebted to Gregory."
Winifred turned to him with impatience in her eyes. "Then," she said severely, "you certainly shouldn't have been, and it ought to be quite clear that nobody wishes you to do anything that would hurt him." She looked at Hastings. "In case the will takes effect, who does the property go to?"
Hastings appeared embarrassed. "That," he objected, "is a thing I'm not warranted in telling you in the meanwhile."
A suggestive gleam crept into Winifred's eyes, but it vanished and her manner became authoritative when she turned back to Sproatly.
"Jim," she said, "you will tell Mr. Hastings all you know."
Sproatly made a gesture of resignation. "After all," he admitted, "I think it's necessary. Gregory, as I've told you already, put up a big mortgage on his place, and in view of the price of wheat and the state of his crop, it's evident that he must have had some difficulty in meeting the interest, unless—and one or two things suggest this—he paid it with Harry's money. Of course, as Harry gave him a share, there's no reason why he shouldn't do this so long as he does not overdraw that share. There's no doubt, however, that he has lost a good deal of money on the wheat market."
"Has he lost any of Harry's?" Mrs. Hastings asked.
Sproatly hesitated. "I'm afraid it's practically certain."
Then Winifred broke in. "Yes," she said, "he has lost a great deal. Hamilton knows almost everything that's going on, and I got it out of him. He's a friend of Wyllard's, and seems very vexed with Gregory."
The others said nothing for a moment or two, and then Mrs. Hastings spoke again.
"In a general way," she said, "most of us don't keep much in the bank, and that expedition must have cost Harry a good deal. How would Gregory get hold of the money before harvest?"
"Edmonds, who holds his mortgage, would let him have it," said Sproatly.
"But wouldn't he be afraid of Gregory not being able to pay if the market went against him?"
Sproatly looked very thoughtful. "The arrangement Wyllard made with Gregory would, perhaps, give Edmonds a claim upon the Range if Gregory borrowed any money in his name. I almost think that's what he's scheming for. The man's cunning enough for anything. I don't like him."
Then Hastings stood up with an air of resolution. "Yes," he said, "I'm most afraid you're quite correct. Anyway, I'll drive over in a day or two and have a talk with Gregory."
After that they separated, for Hastings strolled away to join Dampier, and Sproatly and Winifred walked out on to the prairie. When they had left the house the man turned to his companion.
"Why did you insist upon me telling them what I did?" he asked.
"Oh!" said Winifred, "I had several reasons. For one thing, when I first came out feeling very forlorn and friendless, it was Wyllard who sent me to the elevator, and they really treat me very decently."
"They?" said Sproatly with resentment in his face. "If you mean Hamilton, it seems to me that he treats you with an excess of decency that there's no occasion for."
Winifred laughed. "In any case, he doesn't drive me out here every two or three weeks, though"—and she glanced at her companion provocatively—"he once or twice suggested that he would like to."
"I suppose you pointed out his presumption?"
"No," said Winifred with an air of reflection, "I didn't go quite so far as that. After all, the man is my employer; I had to handle him tactfully."
"He won't be your employer a week after the implement people open their new depôt," said Sproatly resolutely. "Anyway, we're getting away from the subject. Have you any more reasons for concerning yourself about what Gregory does with Wyllard's property?"
"I've one; I suppose you don't know who he has left at least a part of it to?"
Sproatly started as an idea crept into his mind.
"I wonder if you're right?" he said.
"I feel reasonably sure of it," and Winifred smiled. "In fact, that's partly why I don't want Gregory to throw any more of Wyllard's money away. In the meanwhile, you have done all I expect from you."
"Then Hastings is to go on with the thing?"
"Hastings," Winifred assured him, "will fail—just as you would. This is a matter which requires to be handled delicately—and effectively."
"Then who is going to undertake it?"
Winifred laughed. "Oh," she said, "a woman, naturally. I'm going back by and bye to have a word or two with Mrs. Hastings."