as he travelled, roger bracknell’s mind was busy with the events of the past two days, and with the information he had gathered. that his cousin dick should have turned out to be the man whose trail he had followed had occasioned no wonder after the first shock of surprise; but the mystery of the attack upon him, and of his subsequent disappearance, afforded him much food for thought. some one had determined that dick bracknell should die, and some one had shot him. the question was—who was it? he had dismissed from his mind any idea that joy herself had any complicity in that business, her frankness having quite killed the suspicions he had at first been inclined to entertain.
his thoughts swung round to rayner. did he know anything of the matter? he could find no satisfactory answer. it was true that immediately after the crime he had seen him entering the lodge with a rifle, and he had certainly shown a keen interest about the sled which had waited in the wood, but from the first he had casually offered a sufficient explanation, and the instinct which turns every man into an amateur detective on the occasion of a mysterious crime would easily account for the second.
besides—rayner could have had nothing to do[81] with the disappearance of dick bracknell’s body, for the corporal was quite sure that he had never left the house until he had done so with himself. true, he had betrayed a certain knowledge as to the place where the crime had been committed, but he himself might easily have communicated that knowledge to rayner, though he could not recollect having done so, whilst on the other hand, the motive for such a serious crime as murder was not immediately apparent. it was true that rayner designed to marry joy gargrave, but that of itself was not a sufficient motive unless he knew of the previous marriage.
“but does rayner know of that marriage?” he uttered the question aloud, and answered it the same way, speech helping him to precipitate his thoughts.
“i think not! the girl is so positive ... and rayner has given no sign. there’s the deuce of a coil to be unwound somehow.”
he reached the bluff, turned it, and saw the junction of the tributary elkhorn with the main river. when he reached it he halted his dogs and made a careful inspection of the trail. the new snow had drifted, but the thick pinewood which grew on the banks of the smaller stream had turned the snow in places, and about two hundred yards up, he came on the half-obliterated traces of sled-runners. he examined them carefully, stood for a minute or two in thought, then nodded his head.
“turned up here out of the main trail, and will probably have made a camp somewhere. anyway it is worth trying.”
[82]
he went back for his dogs, and turned up the elkhorn. the trail at first was not very bad, and he made a good pace; but after the first two miles it worsened, and he struck an abundance of soft snow, presenting an absolutely virgin surface. this made the going very hard, and he marched ahead of his labouring dogs, packing the snow with the great webbed shoes of the north, lifting each foot clear almost perpendicularly, then planting it down to harden the surface for his canine team. three miles or so he made, in spite of the cold, sweating like a bull, and then he reached a place where the wind had swept the ice like a broom leaving it almost clear of snow.
he examined the frozen surface, and after a little search found the marks of sled-runners on the ice. he searched further, but found nothing save these twin scars running parallel to one another. but one sled had passed that way, and he was sure that he was on the right track. a smile of satisfaction came on his lean face, and seating himself, on the sled he swung forward at a rattling pace.
the short day was coming to a close when the leading dog yelped suddenly, and with his followers began to manifest signs of canine excitement. roger bracknell himself sniffed the keen air. there was a fire somewhere, for the unmistakable odour of burning resinous wood reached his nostrils. he stepped off the sled, and hanging on to the gee-pole tried to check the pace of his team. his efforts however, were in vain. the dogs bent their heads to the ice and threw themselves against the collars, hurrying forward, as they had not hurried[83] all day. they too smelt the burning pinewood, and to them it signified not merely human habitation, but freedom from the traces, and the frozen salmon which constituted their evening meal.
the corporal, finding his endeavours to restrain them vain, prepared for eventualities. hanging on to the sled with one hand, with the other he unfastened the holster wherein he carried his service pistol. he did not know what to expect. that aromatic odour might come from an indian tepee, from the hut of some lonely prospecting party, or from the camp of the man he was following; in any case it was as well to be prepared.
the leading dog yelped again, and the others responded in joyful chorus. the team swung suddenly towards the left bank, up a slight incline towards a clearing in the wood. out of the gathering gloom a faint glow appeared, and then the shadowy outline of a hut. the glow was from a frosted parchment window, and the hut was the typical miner’s cabin of the north. corporal bracknell smiled and dropped his hand from the pistol-holster, finding the look of the place altogether reassuring. the dogs came to a standstill on the packed snow in front of the cabin, yelping delight, and whip in hand bracknell waited, listening. if there were dogs at the cabin they might be expected to charge the new-comers, who fastened in the traces would be heavily handicapped. the charge he waited for did not come. there was no challenging answer to the yelping of his own team, and apparently the owner of the cabin was without dogs, or if he owned a team it was absent from[84] home. this fact further reassured him and threw him still more off his guard. he stepped forward to the door of the cabin and rapped upon it with the butt-end of his dog-whip.
“come in,” answered a hoarse voice.
the corporal felt for the moose-hide thong that worked the wooden catch, opened the door, and stepping inside turned to close it behind him.
“that’s right,” said the voice again. “now put your hands up.”
the corporal jumped and his hands moved instinctively towards the holster as he swung round.
“don’t!” snapped the voice. “put them up, or by—” bracknell recognized the folly of resistance, and as he raised his hands above his head, his eyes swept the cabin for the speaker. a slush lamp against the wall, and the glow from the roaring yukon stove gave light to the middle of the cabin, but the corners were in comparative darkness, and it was a second or two before he located the owner of the voice. then, in a bunk in the corner furthest from the door, he caught sight of a man propped among furs and blankets. on the edge of the bunk rested a hand which held a heavy pistol pointing at himself. the face that he looked into was that which he had last seen in death-like repose in the snow near north star lodge—the face of koona dick. the eyes of the latter glittered wickedly in the firelight, and whilst the officer waited the voice spoke again, mockingly.
“the end of the long trail—hey, bobby?”
the corporal did not reply. apparently his[85] cousin was alone and comparatively helpless, or he would scarcely have waited his entrance lying in the bunk. his eyes measured the distance between them and he speculated what chance there was of the success of a sudden spring proving successful. but the man on the bunk evidently divined what was passing through his mind, for a second later he broke the silence again.
“i wouldn’t try it, officer, not if i were you. i may be a sick man, but i can still shoot.”
roger bracknell looked at the hand resting on the edge of the bunk. it was perfectly steady. he recognized the hopelessness of any attack proving successful, until the sick man was off his guard, and nodded casually.
“i give you best,” he answered, speaking for the first time.
the man on the bunk gave a chuckling laugh. “you seem wise,” he replied, “and if you do just what i tell you you’ll prove you are. you’ve got a gun, of course, in that holster of yours? well, when i give the word, you will unbuckle the belt, and fling it pistol and all under the bunk here. no tricks, mind you. if your hand strays an inch from the buckle, i fire, and i warn you that i am a dead shot.... now you can get to work.”
the corporal dropped his hands to his belt, and as his fingers worked at the stiff buckle, wondered if he might run the risk of trying for his pistol.
“quick! you’re too long!” cried the man in the bunk. roger bracknell hesitated for a second.[86] his fingers fumbled at the buckle, then the belt swung loose in his hands.
“throw it!” came the command in a peremptory voice.
the corporal threw it along the floor and it slid to the edge of the bunk, then his cousin laughed again.
“‘wisdom is justified of her children.’ if you had a pious upbringing, bobby, you will recognize the scripture. and now having got rid of your arsenal, you can sit down at the table, and put your hands upon it. that will be easier for you than standing there trying to touch the roof, but i warn you again—no monkey tricks or—”
the pistol moved significantly, and the corporal moved towards the rough table, constructed out of a packing case.
“keep your hands up, and shove that stool forward with your feet.”
the “stool” referred to was a log of wood, which as the corporal recognized, would prove a very good missile if a man had time to lift and throw it. evidently his mentor realized that also, and was taking no chances, so, still at the pistol point, corporal bracknell pushed the log forward to the table, and then on his captor’s instructions seated himself with his arms resting on the table.
“now,” said the sick man, with a short laugh, “we can talk in peace.”
“talk away,” answered the corporal cheerfully.
“i will,” replied the other sharply. “there’s a question that i want to ask you.... why did you pot me in the wood at north star lodge three[87] nights ago? that sort of thing is against the rules of your service, isn’t it?”
“it is,” answered the corporal, “and the answer to your other question is that i didn’t pot you.”
“you didn’t, hey? then who the devil did?”
“i would give a goodish bit to know,” was the corporal’s reply. “the thing is a mystery to me.”
“but it’s no mystery to me,” answered the other, a trifle passionately. “you did it, and it’s no use trying to bluff me. i know you’ve been on my track for weeks, and that you were determined to get me by fair means or foul. if you think that lying is going to help you—”
“i am not lying,” interrupted roger bracknell. “i give you my word of honour that i am telling you the truth—and i say that not because i am afraid. it is true that i was trailing you, and that i was close at your heels at north star. but i never shot you, i found you lying in the snow, as i thought, dead, but i’d nothing whatever to do with the shooting.”
“the devil!” cried the sick man, and from his tones the corporal knew that he was convinced. “then who did it?”
the corporal saw a chance of further surprising his questioner—and took it.
“well, there was the person whom you went to meet—your wife, you know.”
“my wife!” there was amazement in dick bracknell’s tones, and for a moment after the exclamation he stared at the officer like the man who could not believe his ears.
“yes, your wife, joy gargrave,” answered the[88] corporal steadily. “you went to meet her in the wood, didn’t you?”
dick bracknell did not reply. his lips pursed themselves and he began to whistle thoughtfully to himself the while he stared at the man whose question he left unanswered. the corporal smiled a little, and continued—
“i should think that you would be the first to admit that joy gargrave was not without grievances sufficient to warrant extreme action on her part.”
“you can put that notion out of your noddle, at once,” replied the other harshly. “if you know joy at all, you know that the idea of shooting me is the very last thing that would enter her head. she’s not that sort.”
the corporal remembered joy’s confession and smiled whimsically at the unconscious irony of her husband’s testimony, then, still trying to move the other to some indiscretion of speech, he answered quietly, “you believe in joy gargrave? but have you thought what she must feel like? there are plenty of women who—”
“drop it,” broke in the sick man harshly. “the motion is preposterous. i won’t listen to it; and i warn you, i don’t share joy’s scruples about shooting.”
“nor about anything else, i imagine?” answered the corporal with a short laugh. “but we can easily settle whether joy did it or not. which side did the shot come from?”
“now you’re asking me something,” answered the wounded man. “there were two shots, and[89] they came from both sides of me. it was a regular ambuscade, and whoever fired meant to get me.”
“where were you hit?” asked the corporal.
“left shoulder! drilled clean through,” was the reply.
“and which way were you facing when the thing happened?” asked the corporal. “think carefully. it is rather important.”
“i was facing up the path, with my back to the main road. i had heard something moving and had turned round, just at the moment.”
“that settles it,” answered the corporal emphatically. “it was the shot from the left that did for you, and your wife was on the right.”
“but who was on the left? tell me that if you can, my solomon.”
corporal bracknell shook his head. “there you hit one of the mysteries of this business. i don’t know, i wish i did, but as sure as my name is roger bracknell—”
“as sure as what?” the interruption came like a pistol shot, and the wounded man leaned forward with amazement showing in his face. “what name did you say you called yourself?”
“roger bracknell!” answered the corporal quietly.
“h’m!” responded the other, peering at him thoughtfully, then he said suddenly, “take off that chapeau of yours!”
the corporal removed his fur cap, and sat with it in his hand, whilst the other searched his face with inquisitive eyes. there was a moment’s silence, and then the wounded man spoke again.
[90]
“it beats the band. you are my cousin roger right enough, and this is a nice dramatic meeting. drury lane isn’t in it with us, though what the blazes you are doing as a ‘mounter’ beats me. i thought you were at the bar.”
“and i didn’t know you were koona dick until three nights ago. i had your description given me, and that cut across your cheek bone was particularized. that and the beard you wear are acquisitions since the old days at harrow fell, and even when i looked at your face the other night i never associated koona dick with dick bracknell.”
“how did you come to know?” asked the other curiously.
“i picked up that note which you sent to your wife asking her to meet you, and naming the place. you had begun to write your surname and then crossed it out. that gave me the first inkling that you and koona dick were one and the same, and of course when i talked to joy gargrave i knew that what i suspected was the fact.”
“and knowing what you now know, you would still arrest me?”
as he asked the question, dick bracknell leaned forward a little, and the hand that held the pistol hung loosely over the edge of the bunk. the corporal noticed it, and shifted his grip on the heavy fur cap in his hand.
“i should be compelled to. duty is duty—you know.”
“but, man, i’m your cousin!” came the protest.
“yes! more’s the pity.”
as he replied, the corporal’s arm moved suddenly,[91] and the fur cap was jerked across the room right into the sick man’s face. the corporal himself followed it like lightening, and, as he reached the bunk, gripped his cousin’s pistol-hand. the weapon went off, once, twice, and the bullets plugged the logs of the cabin, whilst dick bracknell shouted imprecations. the policeman caught the barrel of the pistol, and turned it away from himself, whilst with the other hand he caught his cousin’s wrist, and dug his thumb into the sinews of it, in order to force him to release his hold. in the midst of the struggle there was a sudden clamour of dogs outside, but neither of the men noticed it. the pistol cracked again, and at that moment the door opened, and an indian rushed in. apparently, he took in the situation in a glance. there was a heavy dog-whip in his hand, and in an instant he had swung it, and brought the loaded stock down on the corporal’s head. the latter did not even cry out. he doubled up like a doll out of which the stuffing had been ripped, and lay in a crumpled heap upon the hard mud floor.
