“joe, i thought i heard the yelping of dogs. did you hear anything?”
the indian shook his head and dick bracknell sank back on his improvised couch of spruce, with a sigh.
“of course,” he muttered, “i’m dreaming. no, by jove! i’m not. there it is again. don’t you hear it, joe?” this time the indian nodded and going to the door of the cabin looked down the creek. three men and a dog sled were coming up the trail. he turned and informed bracknell of the fact. a thoughtful frown came on the sick man’s face.
“who can they be? not roger, certainly, for it is but two days since he was here, and he had but one man with him. perhaps——” then as a thought struck him he broke off and cried excitedly, “i say, joe, does one of the men look at all like a prisoner?”
the indian shook his head.
“that’s a pity,” commented his master. “i had a wild hope that roger might have overtaken the man. anyway we shall know who they are in a few minutes, and patience is a virtue that i’ve plenty of opportunity for practising just now.”
[200]
laboriously he rose from his couch and seated himself near the fire. the effort brought on a fit of coughing, which was still shaking him, when a whipstock rapped upon the door. his servant opened it, and a white man entered, and stood for a moment watching bracknell as he coughed and groaned. then suddenly an alert look came in his face and for one instant into his eyes there came a flicker of recognition. he waited until the paroxysm had passed, then in a voice that had in it a note of sympathy he spoke—
“you seem in a bad way, friend.”
the voice of a cultured man, as bracknell instantly noted, and as he wiped his eyes the sick man looked sharply at the new-comer.
“yes,” he replied, “and so would you be if you’d had your lungs frozen.”
“is it as bad as that?” asked the other in a voice that was still sympathetic.
“it is, and worse! i’ve got scurvy too. i suppose you haven’t such a thing as a potato with you?”
the stranger smiled. “as it happens i have. i never travel without in winter, because, as you seem to know, a raw potato is better than lime juice for scurvy, and a sight handier to carry. i shall be happy to oblige you.”
he went to the door of the cabin and called an order to the men outside. a few moments later an indian entered bringing with him seven or eight potatoes. bracknell instantly seized one, and taking out a clasp knife began to cut thin slices of the tuber, and to eat regardless of everything[201] but the one fact that here was salvation from one of the diseases which afflicted him. he chewed methodically, without speaking, and adrian rayner, for he was the arrival, watched him with curious eyes, reflecting on the irony of the situation which made the heir of an ancient estate glad to eat raw potato; for though he himself remained incognito, he had already recognized dick bracknell.
“i’d go slow if i were you,” he said warningly, as having finished one tuber, the sick man stretched his hand for another. “you had better not overdo it. a little every day is better than a glut; and, of course, my stock is limited.”
dick bracknell laughed weakly. “you’re right, of course. but if you knew what i suffer you’d understand the impulse to stuff oneself! i’ll go slow, as you advise, and perhaps i shall get quit of one disease at any rate, though the other will get rid of me as sure as a gun.”
“you think so?” asked rayner, with an eager interest which bracknell failed to note.
“sure of it! i’ve seen other men this way—and there was always a funeral at the end of it; though not always a burial service. parsons are scarce up here!”
“have you been long in the country?” asked rayner carelessly.
bracknell looked at him sharply, as if suspicious of so simple a question, and then gave a short laugh. “i’ve been here a year or two. and you? you’re pretty new to the north, aren’t you?”
rayner laughed. “a regular tenderfoot. i’ve[202] been here before, but only for a short spell, and this time i’m straight from england.”
“is that so?” asked bracknell, and appraised the stranger anew. “in the mining line, i suppose?”
“nothing half so profitable,” answered rayner smilingly. “i am merely representing a legal firm, and have come out on a rather curious mission, one with little profit in it in fact, and with even a possibility of loss.”
“that’s poor business for a lawyer,” said bracknell encouragingly.
“it is,” agreed rayner, “and it’s not only that, but it is about the queerest business that i ever struck.” he turned and addressed a remark to one of his men who had entered the cabin, and then resumed, “it is quite a romance in high life, and very interesting. would you like to hear the story?”
“i was always fond of romance,” answered bracknell with a laugh, “and as up here we’ve no penny dreadfuls, i shall be glad to have a slice of the real thing.”
“oh, it’s real enough,” answered rayner, “and it’s interesting, because it has a rich and young and beautiful girl for the heroine.”
“romance always must have!” commented bracknell. “your story, i can see, is going on the penny plain and twopenny coloured line!”
“not quite. it has deviations and some original features. this girl’s father was immensely rich, and whilst he remained in this country looking after his mining properties, he sent his daughter to england to be educated. there she ran against[203] the heir of an old westmorland family, and married him secretly—”
he broke off as his host rose unexpectedly to his feet. “what is the matter?” he asked innocently. “are you not feeling well?”
“just a spasm,” growled bracknell. “it will pass in a minute. get on with your tale.”
the other smiled a little to himself, and resumed his narrative. “as i was saying, she married this young gentleman secretly, and immediately after the marriage separated from him for some reason, and at the same time something else happened, which compelled her husband to leave england and to reside abroad.... did you say something?”
“no! it’s only this confounded wheeze of mine!”
“about the same time news reached england that the girl’s father had died in an accident out here, and as by the terms of his will the daughter was to reside for three years in the home he had built in the woods here, she returned to the dominion without having said anything about the marriage to her uncle and guardian, the well-known solicitor sir joseph rayner, of whom you perhaps have heard?”
“yes, i’ve heard of him! go on, man. your story is very interesting.”
“fortunately sir joseph was not left in ignorance of the marriage, for the girl’s husband wrote and informed him of it. sir joseph was astonished; but he kept the news to himself, because the husband, though of good family, had done something that was—er—scarcely creditable. he did[204] not even inform the girl of the information which had reached him, hoping that time would solve what appeared to be a difficult situation.”
“and hasn’t it?”
“no, sir. time may solve many things, but the policy of laissez-faire, whilst sometimes a good one, is not without its dangers! this happens to be one of the cases where the dangers predominate, and time has but brought a new complication.”
“what is that?” asked bracknell sharply.
“well, the girl is thinking of marrying again.”
“god in heaven!” dick bracknell had staggered to his feet. his eyes were burning and there was a ghastly pallor on his haggard face. he glared at the narrator as if he could slay him. “man, do you know what you are saying?”
“yes,” answered rayner, with well-affected surprise. “i am saying that in her inexperience this girl-wife is thinking of contracting a flesh marriage, one in which her heart is engaged, as it appears not to have been in the first. of course she may not understand the law as it relates to bigamy, or she may believe that her husband is dead——”
“who is the man?” asked bracknell, in a strangled voice.
“the man? i do not understand. do you mean the husband?”
“no, the man whom she is thinking of marrying?”
“oh, i see. well, that’s the curious part of the whole business, for this new lover is the cousin of her husband, one time a barrister, but now out here[205] in the mounted police. what did you say? a strange story. yes, it is that; but there is one piquant detail that you have not yet heard, sir!”
“what is that?”
“well, it is this, the husband, as i informed you, is the heir to an old estate in westmorland. he had a younger brother who since the elder’s disappearance had slipped into the position of heir—at least people had come to look upon him as such, it being fairly well known that the elder could not return to claim the succession. this younger son is dead——”
“dead!” the word came in a gasp from dick bracknell’s lips, and immediately after he was taken with a fit of coughing which lasted for some little time, and left him exhausted with his face hidden in his hands.
“your cough is very bad, sir,” said rayner with affected sympathy. “are you sure that you wish me to continue the narrative?”
bracknell lifted a tortured face, and in his deep-sunk eyes there was a moisture that was more than suspicious. “yes,” he said hoarsely. “go on!”
“as you wish,” replied rayner with affected solicitude, and then continued, “as i was saying, this younger son is dead——”
“how did he die?” interrupted bracknell.
“something went wrong with his gun when he was out grouse shooting. it burst, i believe, anyhow it killed him, and by his death, failing the succession of the older son, the cousin becomes the heir, and you have the rather unique situation of[206] the cousin stepping into the shoes of the heir and the husband at one and the same time. quite a little drama in its way, is it not?”
dick bracknell’s reply to the question was an inarticulate one, and afterwards for a little time he stared into the fire with eyes that looked almost ferocious. then he asked abruptly, “how do you know all this?”
“as i explained, i am the representative of the firm of sir joseph rayner and son, and i have been sent out to find the girl wife——”
“to find j—er—the girl?”
“yes! she left england very suddenly a few weeks ago without informing sir joseph. she, as we have ascertained, came to the dominion, and my principal suspecting that she was going to marry the man i have mentioned, sent me to intervene. two courses are open for me to follow, either to find the young lady, and explain to the former that in the absence of proof of her husband’s death such a marriage is of more than doubtful legality; or to find the policeman and point out that the young lady is already a wife.”
“but he—but what if he already knows?”
“then in that case i shall be called upon to explain the law to him also! but so far i have accomplished none of these things. the policeman, as i learned at regina, is missing; and when i arrived there the young lady had already left her home up here for an unknown destination.... i do not know, of course, but i have my suspicions as to who may be awaiting her at that destination.”
“what do you mean?”
[207]
“well, sir, you appear to be a man of education, and you will remember that the great antony thought the world well lost for love, and what cleopatra thought, her actions proved. human nature does not change, and love is the strongest passion it knows, and i suspect that her lover being missing, the young lady has gone to look for him, or if not that to meet him at some appointed rendezvous. the two are young, between them they will be fabulously rich and they will not be the first pair of lovers to set the world and the world’s conventions at defiance. at least they will be able to afford it!”
“never! by—— never!”
the words came from the sick man’s lips explosively. he rose from his seat, and gripped rayner’s shoulder in a way that made him grimace with pain.
“man,” he cried, “are you telling me the truth?”
“certainly, sir! why——”
“do you know who i am?”
bracknell’s eyes, full of wild light, glared down into rayner’s but the latter, as he lied, met them unflinchingly.
“i do not, sir! we have not exchanged——”
“my name is bracknell—dick bracknell; and i can guess it is my wife and my cousin of whom you have been talking. by—— if i had him here. and to think that two days ago he was here, and that i let him go.”
“he was here two days ago?”
“two days ago—and i let him go because he[208] pitched a cock and bull story which i believed! and i might have known all the time that it was so much bunkum, just a yarn to get out of my hands. i ought to have killed him as he tried to kill me by poisoning my dogs. i remember now that once before when we met, he showed a tenderness for joy that was more than natural in a mere cousin by marriage. he suggested to me that i should make reparations to my wife by allowing her to divorce me!”
“that was a very crafty suggestion on his part!” broke in rayner suavely. “it would have cleared his own way to your wife!”
the sick man was stung to madness at the thought. his eyes burned and his face grew convulsed. “reparation!” he cried hoarsely in jealous rage. “reparation! the viper! if ever i put eyes on him again, i will——” he broke off as a fit of coughing took him, and when it was over he dropped to his seat utterly exhausted, gasping painfully for breath.
the man whose lying story had brought on this attack, watched him unmoved, and calculated cynically whether bracknell’s own estimate of the span of life remaining to him was correct; then he said, “i am very sorry for you, mr. bracknell, but i cannot allow private wrongs to interfere with my own mission. you say that your cousin was here two days ago; perhaps you can tell me which way he was travelling?”
“he was going up the river—to meet joy as like as not!”
“then i shall follow! perhaps i shall meet the[209] lady; if so, i shall be able to assure her that the marriage she is contemplating is quite out of the question.”
“say nothing to the man about my threats, if you find him,” said bracknell, rousing himself. “say i’ve news for him, that i want to see him; as by—— i do! tell him what you like, but get him to come back here.”
“i will do my best, sir!”
“if i’d dogs, sick though i am, i’d follow him myself. but that’s out of the question. i shall rely on you to——”
“you may, sir,” broke in rayner obsequiously. “if i find him, i will certainly induce him to come back to you, if i can. but i hope you will not be violent——”
“violent! bring him here,” bracknell laughed almost deliriously, “and you will see.”
.......
in the morning when adrian rayner took the trail, he looked back at the haggard man standing by the cabin door. bracknell had been delirious in the night, and now as he stood there swaying, the other looked at him without pity.
“booked!” he muttered to himself, “and knows it. if roger bracknell should happen to return here, harrow fell will require a new heir, and i shall be saved from a disagreeable necessity. but that chance is not to be depended on. i must find him if i can.”
and as he followed the northward trail there was the index of grim purpose in his face.
