23 chapters
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23 chapters
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER I
John Granger, agent on the Last Chance River in the interests of Garnier, Parwin, and Wrath, independent traders in the territory of Keewatin, sat alone in his store at Murder Point. He sat upon an upturned box, with an empty pipe between his lips. In the middle of the room stood an iron stove which blazed red hot; through the single window, toward which he faced, the gold sun shone, made doubly resplendent in its shining by the reflected light cast up by the leagues of all-surrounding snow and
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CHAPTER II
CHAPTER II
Granger, having withdrawn himself to one side of the window so that he might not be observed from the outside, watched the stranger's approach in anxious silence. Nearer and nearer he came, till in that still air it was possible to hear the panting of his huskies as they lunged forward in the traces, jerking their bodies to right and left as they desperately strove to escape the descending lash of the punishing whip. The man himself tottered as he ran, stubbing the toes of his snowshoes every no
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CHAPTER III
CHAPTER III
Spurling, having returned from feeding his dogs, had reseated himself by the window, but he had not again spoken. When Granger had informed him that a meal was ready, and had called to him to come and partake, he had only shaken his head. When, however, it had been brought to him, he had eaten hungrily, bolting his food like a famished husky, yet never looking at what he ate, for his eyes were directed along the river-bed. He used neither fork nor spoon, carrying whatever was set before him hast
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CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER IV
Granger from his place beside the red-hot stove said nothing, but bowed his head. Spurling saw his action through the darkness and took courage. "There is not much to tell," he said. "After you left us, my luck seemed to vanish. My great bonanza pinched out, as Mordaunt's had done. I spent the spring and summer in washing out the gold from my winter's dump, and in sinking shafts to locate another streak which I might follow in the winter to come. I found none, but at first I did not lose confide
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CHAPTER V
CHAPTER V
In Keewatin the human intellect stands forever at a halt, awed in the presence of a limitless serenity for which it can find no better name than God, since, of all things which are incalculable, He seems most infinite. In this land of rivers and solitude Man is unnecessary, disregarded, and plays no part; if, after two hundred odd years of white, and many centuries of Indian habitation, Man were to withdraw himself to-morrow, he would leave no permanent record of his sojourn there—only a few out
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CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VI
He was awakened by a man bending over him and holding a lighted match to his face. Careless as usual of preserving his life, he did not attempt to rise or defend himself, but simply gazed back indifferent and a little bewildered. He did not recognise the man; he was an utter stranger. As if wearied with an inspection which did not interest him, he turned his eyes away, and found that the room had become dark. How many hours he had slept, he could not calculate; perhaps nine or ten. He wondered w
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CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VII
It would have been easy to shoot Strangeways at that time, and he must have known it; yet, he was so much a gentleman that he accepted the risk, and had the decency to turn his back when circumstances compelled him to give a man the lie. Granger wondered whether courtesy was the motive; or whether he was only testing him out of curiosity, to see of what fresh vulgarity of deceit he was capable. As he stood in the doorway, his gaze wandered from the broad shoulders of Corporal Strangeways, late s
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CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER VIII
Granger returned to his shack and, closing the door, sat down beside the stove in his accustomed place. He commenced to fill his pipe slowly, stretching out his legs as if he were preparing for a long night of late hours and thoughtfulness. But he could not rest, his whole sensitiveness was listening and alert; the muscles of his body twitched, as if rebuking him for the delay which he imposed on them. He was expecting to hear a cry; whose cry, and called forth by what agony, he did not dare to
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CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER IX
Nearly a month had gone by since the night on which Strangeways died. Not that time mattered much to Granger, for, like the immortals, men in Keewatin have dispensed with time: they have accepted as true the lesson which philosophers have been striving to teach the world ever since the human intellect first commenced to philosophise—that there are no such ontological facts as Time and Space. Among the men of this vast northern territory the outward expression of religion is rare; they do not oft
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CHAPTER X
CHAPTER X
The sun was shining down; the spring rains had ceased; within less than a month winter had vanished, and summer had swept through Keewatin with a burst of gladness. The land was riotously green; through the heart of it wandered the river, newly released, a streak of azure, or of gilded splendour where smitten by the sun. Although its waters were running freely, many memories of the frozen quiet still remained in the shape of ice piled up along its banks, sometimes to the height of fifteen feet,
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CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XI
> It was past noon before they had completed Strangeways' burial at the bend. When they had finished, the skies had cleared themselves of storm and cloud, and the sun shone out again. The air was full of earth-fragrance, and the landscape was cool and fresh. Nothing of disorder remained, no sign that a man was dead, save only a mound of piled-up stones and sod, surmounted by a little cross of branches bound together with twisted grass. Père Antoine had searched the body with scant results
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CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XII
It was the first week in June; for a fortnight John Granger had been a married man. He was now removed a sufficiently just distance from his bachelor-hood to be able to estimate the value of the change which this new step had wrought in his career. Its true worth to him had been that it had converted him from a Londoner in Keewatin into a man of the Northland. This might mean, though it need not, that he had retrograded to a lower type; at all events it meant that he was robbed of his excuse for
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CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIII
The Man with the Dead Soul was drunk, heartily and shamelessly drunk; Granger, the contriver of his condition, sat facing him, impatiently waiting to see whether that was true which the Indians said, that, when drink had subdued his body, his soul returned for a little space. The nominal occasion of the carousal was the home-coming of Eyelids and, as Granger had subtly put it, "the celebration of his own entrance into the family of Ericsen." However, in a country from which there is no means of
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CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XIV
There had been a time when Granger had desired to kill Spurling, and, though latterly he had not consciously wished that he were dead, yet he resented his reappearance; his presence broke in as a storm-influence on the stoical quiet which he had attained. This man stood for so many things which had been sinful and passionate in the past—things which it had cost him so much even to attempt to forget; things which he had promised himself that he would forget for Peggy's sake. And now, because he h
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CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XV
"After I had left you, I journeyed three days to the northward, till I came to the mouth of the Forbidden River. There I found the cache which you spoke to me about; but I did not break into it at that time, as I was still well provided with food and ammunition. Because you had told me that the Forbidden River was unexplored and never visited, being haunted by Manitous and shades of the dead, I turned into it and travelled up it—I thought that I should find safety there. "On the second day, just
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CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVI
They stared at one another in silence, striving not to realise the meaning of those words; yet their meaning was unavoidable. Both knew the legend of the loup-garou , the grim tradition of the peasants of Quebec which the coureurs des bois have carried with them into every part of Canada. Often in the Klondike, when seated round the stove on a winter's night, they had heard it retold by French-Canadians, in low excited whispers, with swift and frightened turnings of the head. They had laughed at
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CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVII
"If we are to get back before the winter closes in upon us we must start to-night." Spurling looked up from the pan of dirt which he was washing. "You've said that ten times a day in the last two weeks if you've said it once," he snapped. "Yes, but I mean it this time. We've got all the gold that we can carry. If you won't come with me, I shall take the canoe and start back by myself." "Oh, you will, will you? And d'you think that I don't see through your game?" Then noticing how Granger's hand
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CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XVIII
Granger had been sick and delirious for several days as a result of exposure and starvation. Day and night Peggy had nursed him with unwearying attention; one would have supposed that he had been always kind to her, and that she was greatly in his debt. Since his brain had cleared she had said little to him; but, when she touched him, he could feel the thrill of passion that travelled through her hands. Her face told him nothing; it was only when suddenly she raised up her eyes that he saw the l
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CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XIX
He picked up a lantern and, having lighted it, left the shack. Going round the out-building of the store, he made his way through the snow to the cabin where Spurling was imprisoned. As he placed the key in the padlock, he could hear the rattle of the chains of the man inside. Having opened the door, he halted on the threshold, afraid and ashamed to enter. There was dead silence. Lifting the lantern above his head, he could make out the figure of Spurling, crouched like a beast on knees and hand
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CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XX
If Spurling had suspected Granger before, he was doubly suspicious of him now. Wherever he went, his heavy treacherous eyes followed and spied upon him. In one thing only were they united—in their desire to see the last of Murder Point. For the accomplishment of this end, they laboured feverishly in sullen silence. On visiting the dog-pen, they found that of the eleven huskies which had been there, three were missing; of the eight which remained, four were the animals left over from the grey tea
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CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXI
However lightly he travels and however hard the snow may have packed, a man who has only two huskies and is handicapped by a body just recovered from sickness does not make much speed in winter travelling. Through the long hours of the dreary November night Granger, with hard, set face, had pushed on up the Last Chance River, towards God's Voice, following in Spurling's tracks. It was the gold that he desired. And if he recaptured it, what then? He was not capable of carrying it out to Winnipeg
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CHAPTER XXII
CHAPTER XXII
Now that he was nearing God's Voice, it was necessary that he should travel more cautiously and keep a sharp lookout ahead. At any moment he might come in sight of a Company's trapper, either sitting beneath the trees by his camp-fire or racing down-river between the tall banks, following his sled. He might be recognised, and recognition would lead to his arrest. Whatever happened afterwards, he desired his freedom for yet a little while, so he went carefully. In the course of the night he passe
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CHAPTER XXIII
CHAPTER XXIII
Since the middle of November he had been back at the Point: it was now the day before Christmas, and Peggy was still absent. During the last six weeks he had waited anxiously, always listening, even in his sleep, for her returning footstep. It was extraordinary to him to notice how, now that he had lost her, every other affection that he had ever known became dwarfed and of no acount in comparison with his love of her. He no longer thought of Mordaunt or of El Dorado; all his anxiety was for the
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