Murder Point: A Tale of Keewatin Read online

  CHAPTER II

  THE UNBIDDEN GUEST

  Granger, having withdrawn himself to one side of the window so that hemight not be observed from the outside, watched the stranger'sapproach in anxious silence. Nearer and nearer he came, till in thatstill air it was possible to hear the panting of his huskies as theylunged forward in the traces, jerking their bodies to right and leftas they desperately strove to escape the descending lash of thepunishing whip. The man himself tottered as he ran, stubbing the toesof his snowshoes every now and then as he took a new step. Once fromsheer weakness he nearly fell, whereupon the dogs came to a suddenhalt, sat down on their haunches, and gazed wistfully round; in asecond he had recovered himself, with an angry oath had straightenedout his team in their traces, and was once more speeding towardGranger's shack. The impression which his mode of travelling conveyedwas that of flight; but from whom and whither can a man flee inKeewatin? Both he and his animals were evidently exhausted; they musthave journeyed continuously through the previous day and night, andstill they were in haste. "Well, all the better for me," thought thewatcher, "for if he is so weary he cannot choose but stay; and if hestays with me, though he be a Company man, he will have to speak."

  Then fear seized hold of Granger lest Robert Pilgrim's discipline, orthe enmity of the man himself, might be such that, though heendangered his life by the procedure, he would refuse the hospitalityof a hated private trader. "Nonsense," said the voice of hope, "towhere can he be travelling at this season of the year unless to MurderPoint? Before ever he gets to the coast and Crooked Creek the winterwill have broken up, and northwards there is nowhere else to go."

  So, as is the way with men who have exhausted this world's resourcesfor rendering them aid, he began to pray; not decorously, withreverent, well-chosen words, but fiercely, with repetition, and belowhis breath. "My God, don't let him pass," he said; "make him stophere. Make him stop here, and spend with me at least one night." Then,when he had petitioned God, thinking perhaps that He would not hearhim, he commenced to call upon Lord Jesus Christ. He clenched hishands in his excitement till the nails broke into the flesh. There wasa God in Keewatin after all, there must be, since He had sent to himthis stranger.

  All the while that he was praying and exclaiming thus, he was tryingto judge of the man's errand from his dress. He was clad in theregulation capote of the Hudson Bay Company's employee; it was of adark material, probably duffel, which reached to the knees. On hishead was a fur-skin cap, over which he had drawn the hood of hiscapote so far down that his features could not be discerned. About hiswaist went a sash of scarlet, such as is worn by the Northwest_metis_. His legs were swathed in duffel leggings, so that theyappeared to be of enormous size. On his feet he wore moose-hidemoccasins which extended part way up his legs, and to these hisfive-foot snowshoes were attached. His whip he carried in his lefthand. About this last there was something familiar. Who was it that hehad known in the past who had driven his dogs left-handed, and had hadthat swinging, plunging stride? The memory refused to concentrate, sohe strove to guess at the man's identity by the process ofelimination. He could not be a Hudson Bay mail-carrier bringing him aletter, for the factor refused to deliver all missives addressed toMurder Point. It was not probable that he was an express messenger ofGamier, Parwin, and Wrath, sent up post-haste from Winnipeg; theycould have nothing of such importance to say to him that it could notwait for the open season, when travelling is less expensive. Nor washe a trapper bound on a friendly or business visit to the store; for,in the first place, this man was no Indian (he could tell that by theway in which he lifted his feet in running), and, in the second, hehad no friend, nor any man in the district, save Ericsen, who would beseen with him in the open daylight. A foolish, strangling expectancyrose up within him. Might he not be the bearer of important and goodnews from the homeland? What news? Oh, anything! That his father, thevisionary explorer of Guiana, who twenty years ago had set out on hislast mad search for El Dorado, the fabled city of the Incas, and whofor many years had been given up for dead, had returned at length withgold, successful from his quest--or, at the least, that his mother hadrelented and wanted him back. Speedily his hope turned to agonisingsuspense. Perhaps he was coming to tell him that his mother in Englandwas dead. Then he laughed hysterically, remembering that Mr. Wrath wasnot the sort of man to regard any death as serious, unless it werehis own.

  By this time the stranger had covered the intervening two miles ofriver and was within thirty yards of the Point. He was slowing down.He had halted. His exhausted dogs were already curling themselves upbeneath a snow-bank, wisely snatching a moment's rest as soon as itwas offered them. Careless of their welfare, leaving them as they wereto tangle up their traces, he was commencing to ascend the moundtowards the store. Despite the clamour of welcome which raged withinhim, Granger did not stir; the influence of the North Land was uponhim, compelling him to self-repression, making him stern andforbidding in his manner as was the appearance of the world without.From his hiding by the window he watched the man; as he did so a vaguesense of fear and loathing took the place of gladness.

  His approach was slow and hesitating; continually he paused to gazeback along the river as if in search of a pursuer, then suddenlyforward toward the shack as if for spying eyes which were reading hissecret. Before he had come near enough to be recognised, he had pulledthe hood still further forward, holding it together above his mouthwith his right hand, so that of his face only his eyes were visible.With his left hand he fumbled in his breast, and Granger knew that hegrasped a loaded weapon. "Does he mean to kill me?" he wondered; yethe made no effort to bar the door, or to reach for the rifle whichhung on the wall above his head. He only smiled whimsically; amusedthat anyone should waste so much care over robbing a man of apossession which he himself so little valued--his life. Personallyhe would welcome so easy a method of departure from Keewatin--onewhich was quite respectable, and would attach no responsibility tohimself. When all has been said, there remain but two qualities offear: the fear of life, and the fear of death. Granger was onlyconscious of the first, therefore he could afford to be amazinglydaring under the present circumstances. Now he could no longer see theman, for he was standing beneath the walls of the shack; but he couldhear that he was listening, and could hear him gasp for breath. One,two, three slow footsteps, and the latch was raised and the door flungwide. He waited for his guest to enter, and then, because he delayed,"Come inside," he cried; "confound you, you're letting in the coldair."

  He heard the snowshoes lifted across the threshold and rose to greetthe stranger who, so soon as he had entered, made fast the door andconfronted him without a word, still hiding his face from sight. Hewas a tall man, well over six feet and proportionately broad of chest;he had to stoop his head as he stood in the store, since the roof wasnone too high.

  After some seconds spent in silent gazing, "Well, and what d'youwant?" asked the trader. The man made no reply, but tossed him a screwof paper which, when he had unfolded it and smoothed it out, read,_"Do all that is in your power to help the bearer. I am responsible.Destroy this so soon as it is read."_ The note was unsigned, but itwas in the handwriting of Wrath. Granger slid back the door of thegrate and watched the scrap of paper vanish in a little spurt offlame. Then he looked up, and seeing that the man still stoodregarding him and had removed none of his garments, not even hissnowshoes from which the crusted ice was already melting, "All right,"he said; "I'll do my best. You must be tired, and have come a longjourney."

  "I have," said the stranger, throwing back his hood, and for the firsttime displaying his face.

  Granger sprang forward with a startled cry, and seized the newcomer byhis mittened hand. "By God, it's Spurling!"

  In a flash all the winter had thawed out of his nature and the spring,which he had despaired of, had returned. Once more he was an emotionalliving creature, with a throbbing heart and brain, instead of acarcass which walked, and was erect, and muttered occasional wordswith its mouth as if it were al
ive, and was in reality a dead thing towhich burial had been denied.

  "Yes, it's Spurling," replied the traveller in a hoarse, uneagervoice; then, "Has anyone been here before me?"

  Granger shook his head, and instinctively stood back a pace from thisleaden-eyed, unresponsive stranger, who had been his friend.

  Spurling was quick to notice the revulsion. "And are you going todesert me and turn me out?"

  "Desert you! If you knew how lonely I have been you wouldn't ask thatquestion."

  "I ought to know," he answered, and going over to the window lookedout, turning his head from side to side in that furtive manner whichGranger had noted in him when he had first seen him advancing acrossthe ice.

  Facing about suddenly, he asked, "Is there any way out of here, exceptdown there?" pointing to the river frozen in its bed, stretching awayinterminably to the west, through groves of icicles, and marbleforest, like a granite roadway hewn out and levelled by a giant,vanished race.

  "There is no other," Granger replied, "unless you include the way outwhich is trodden by the dead."

  Spurling started almost angrily at the mention of this last pathway ofescape, and scowled. It was evident that the fear which made his lifea burden was the fear of death--which was proof to Granger that he hadnot been long in Keewatin. However, he controlled himself andmurmured, "Six hundred and eighty miles is a long journey, and it'sall that to Winnipeg. Within a fortnight the ice will break, and thenfor almost a month the only way will be impassable. Thank God forthat!" Addressing himself to Granger, "And what lies ahead?" he asked.

  "The forest and three hundred odd miles of this Last Chance River tillyou come to the Hudson Bay and the House of the Crooked Creek."

  "Is there nothing in between?"

  "Only the Forbidden River, which neither white man nor Indian evertravels; it joins the Last Chance a hundred miles ahead."

  "Ah, the Forbidden River! And no one ever travels there! Why not? Isit shallow or rapid? But then there is the winter; it cannot be thatthere's anything that doesn't freeze up here."

  "Oh, it freezes right enough."

  "Then?"

  "The Indians are afraid to travel it."

  "Of what are they afraid?"

  "Manitous, and shades of the departed."

  For the first time Spurling's face relaxed, the hunted expressionwent out of his eyes; he almost smiled. "Well, I'm not afraid ofthem," he said.

  He commenced to unfasten his snowshoes and to take off the heavierportions of his dress. Granger stood by and watched him; he waspuzzled by the man's manner, and heartsick with disappointment. Whatwas the reason for the change which had crept over him in the threeyears since they had parted, and why had he made this journey at thisseason of the year, in haste, without warning? Six hundred and eightymiles seemed a long way to travel in winter, through a desolate land,only to tell your most intimate friend that you are not afraid ofmanitous and shades of the departed.

  He recalled the man whom he had known, so generous and open-hearted,who had walked with him at night beneath the London gas-lamps, sharingand comprehending those dreams and enthusiasms which others hadderided, or compassionated as delusions of the mad. This was the manwho had given him what might have been his chance, had he only beenable to use it aright. Like a tawdry curtain drawn up at a Christmaspantomime on a dazzling transformation scene, so, at the memory, theveil of the present was instantly removed, revealing only the flashingsplendours of past things, which lay behind. This same body which nowcrouched basely here before him had belonged to a hero once--to theman who, five long years since, had pushed on in spite of defeat,carrying with him by his courage his despairing companion over thedeadly Skaguay trail. The Skaguay, where bodies of horses layunburied, spreading pestilence abroad every hundred yards of the way;where the army of gold-seekers turning back was as great as the armypressing on; and those of the attack had momentarily to stand aside,so narrow was the path, for the wounded and spent of the retreat, whopassed them by with ashen faces, some of them with death in theireyes, bidding them, "Turn back! Turn back! You will never get throughalive."

  Many a time when his shoulders were bruised and broken, and he achedin every limb, and his clothes were sodden with rain, which he knewmust shortly become stiff as boards when night had fallen and it hadbegun to freeze, and perhaps another horse had fallen and been leftbeside the trail, he also would have joined the retreat right gladly,unashamed of his cowardice, had not Spurling picked up his load with alaugh and dragged him on. What a fine brave fellow he had been inthose early Yukon days! Why, it was he who, when they had reached thesummit of that heart-breaking pass, had rescued young Mordaunt. JervisMordaunt, with a single horse, had packed his entire outfitsingle-handed to the topmost point of the trail, and then, when thehardest part of his journey had been accomplished and his goal wasalready in sight, his horse had given out and died. When they had comeup with him, his beast had been dead three days, and, because he couldnot afford a new one, he had been packing his stuff on his own narrowshoulders into Bennett, whence the start by water for Dawson had to bemade--a hopeless task, for Mordaunt was not a strong fellow, but slimand extraordinarily girlish in frame. Many of the travellers who hadalready attained the summit were flinging away their outfits andturning back in panic, terrified by stories which they had heard ofwinter and starvation in the Klondike; those who still trudgeddoggedly forward were too selfishly preoccupied with visions of gold,and their own concerns, and fears lest the rivers and lakes shouldclose up, to render him aid. Not so Spurling; in those days he wasnever too busy to lend an unfortunate a helping hand; besides, likemost brave men, the thing which he valued highest was courage, and hewas taken with the young chap's pluck. "I'm fairly broad," he hadsaid, "and before the river freezes there's plenty of time for allthree of us to get drowned. So look sharp, my girl, and hand yourbundles up." From the first day he had nicknamed Mordaunt "The Girl,"because he was so surpassingly modest and had no beard to shave. So heand Spurling had shouldered Mordaunt's burden, and had made him theirpartner, and had carried him through to the gold-fields alive.

  Where was Jervis now? he wondered; then his thoughts returned to thepanorama of that eventful journey. He remembered how in the mouth ofthe Windy Arm on Tagish Lake, when the sail swung round and sent himspinning overboard, he would most certainly have perished in thosechill waters had not Spurling jumped in and held him up till the boatput back. It was Spurling's hand which had kept the boat steady in theboiling rapids of the White Horse, when he and Mordaunt had lost theirnerve--yes, that same hand which was now plucking restlessly at theuntrimmed beard which fringed that crafty, sullen face. How incredibleit seemed that this body should contain the same man, and that thechange should have taken place in five years! He contrasted thatbig-shouldered, song-singing fellow who had given them of his endlessstore of courage when their own was spent, compelling them to gothrough the mush ice at Five Fingers, and the drift ice at FortSelkirk, and had landed them safely at Dawson almost against theirwill, the last boat through before the Klondike froze up, with thissecretive hang-dog individual who slunk through an unpeopledwilderness, twisting his neck from side to side, as though he alreadyfelt the halter there--like a Seven Dials assassin, fearful of arrest.There he sat by the window, with eyes fixed uncannily on the west,watching for the follower whom he could not see, but only felt.

  He turned round uncomfortably, feeling that Granger's eyes were uponhim; then rose up abruptly, saying, "Ha, I was forgetting! My dogsmust be fed."

  Granger watched him go out, and was glad of relief from his presence.If anyone had come to him a week ago and had said, "Druce Spurlingwill be here this day or next," his joy would have surpassed allbounds. Now he realised that there is a worse evil than solitude--thecompulsory companionship of a man who once was, and is no longer, yourfriend. "Ach!" he muttered shivering, "I feel as if I had been sittingwith my feet in an open grave." Then remorsefully he added, "The poorchap's in trouble. He was good to me in days gone by: I'll
do my bestto help him. Perhaps that's the kind of offal that I appeared toRobert Pilgrim when I made my journey to God's Voice last January, andhe threatened to shoot me; yet, God forbid that I ever looked likethat. Maybe that which I seem to see in Spurling is only the reflectedchange in myself. Christ pity us lonely men!"

  From the window he could see how Spurling was gathering his dogsaround him, leading them past the Point northward to a bend where theycould not be seen by a man approaching from up-river. What was themeaning of such precaution? Why had he been so urgently requested tohelp the one man in the world whom he was most likely to help withouturging, since he had been his closest friend? Why had he been orderedto destroy the note immediately when read? And why had Spurling, whomhe had thought to be in Klondike making his pile, or having takenadvantage of the secret knowledge which he had unwisely shared withhim, to be in Guiana, sailing up the Great Amana seeking El Dorado,travelled these thousands of miles by sea and land only to visit himhere in Keewatin thus surlily? Was it to hide? Well, if that was hispurpose, there wasn't much chance of his being followed, or iffollowed, found.