"But this has something to do with the answer to your question."

Spurling came behind and looked over his shoulder carelessly, not expecting to see anything which was of much concern. Then he started, so violently that the portrait fell from Granger's hand. "My G.o.d, it _was_ a woman!" he moaned. "A woman! A woman!"

Granger turned upon him, willing to be angry; but he saw that he had no need of further revenge. The man's body seemed to have shrunk into itself, and to have grown smaller. His lower jaw hung down, giving a purposeless expression to the face and mouth. The eyes were vacant and stared out on s.p.a.ce, focussing nothing. Whatever anger he had had was turned to pity as he regarded him. So Spurling had not known that Mordaunt was a woman! And the body which was found at Forty-Mile had not been clothed in a woman's dress! How Strangeways must be laughing out there, alone in the coldness, three feet beneath the snow at the bend!

Yet, for all his pity, Granger could not bring himself to touch the man--he looked too absorbed in his tragedy. Out of decency he turned his back upon him, hurrying his task to an end. Already he had been too long about it; they had no time to linger. Peggy's absence might have many purposes; when she returned, she might not come unaccompanied. Before he made a start, after his night of watching he would require rest.

Spurling had drawn away from him and was huddled in a corner, whispering to himself. He must say and do something to brace him up, and show to him that in his eyes he was still a man. If he didn't recover quickly, they would have to postpone their journey. He was a fool to have shown him that.

The last of the papers had been burned; he tied the few which he had preserved into a little bundle, and thrust them in his breast. Going over to Spurling, he laid his hand on his shoulder and said, "Druce, old fellow, I'm very tired. I want to take an hour's sleep before we set out. You'd best watch and see that nothing happens. In two hours it'll be sunset; wake me before then."

He raised up his haggard face and nodded, but he did not look at him squarely. Granger, having made up the fire, laid himself down.

When he awoke, he found that the room was in darkness; it must have been night for several hours. It was the coldness which had aroused him, for the fire had gone out.

He supposed that Spurling must be sleeping, so he called to him, "Spurling, Spurling, are you there?"

There was no answer. He listened for his breathing, but could hear nothing. Getting upon his feet as swiftly as the stiffness of his muscles would allow, he groped his way over to the corner where he had last seen him. He was not there. Then he lit the lamp, and saw that the room was empty.

His first thought was that, in his despair, he had gone outside and shot himself. Recalling his uncanny horror of the bend, he fancied that he could trace madness in all his recent actions; but then he remembered that his fear of the bend had been shared. He became possessed of a new and more personal dread. What if in giving him the warrant and showing him the portrait, he had told him too much--more than his courage and honesty could bear? He rushed to the door of the shack, and out to where the sleds and huskies had been left. One of the sleds was gone; his own outfit lay scattered on the snow and the gold had been taken. But he made a yet worse discovery, for of the eight huskies, only two remained; Spurling's four gray dogs and the two best of his own team were missing. He looked wildly round on the great emptiness. The night pressed down on the earth, as though to imprison it; the forest closed in on the river, menacing and silent; and the river ran on, a level, untravelled roadway, from the west. He shouted, and cursed, and called down G.o.d's vengeance on Spurling.

Then, for a moment he was quiet, and heard his own voice coming back to him as an echo from the bend. His voice had tried to escape and was returning to him because it could find no way out.

Crazily turning his face down-river, he shouted, "Hey, Strangeways, may G.o.d d.a.m.n Spurling."

m.u.f.fled, as if the dead man were answering him from underground, the cry came back, "Hey, Strangeways, may G.o.d d.a.m.n Spurling."

He covered his face with his hands and sat down in the snow laughing.

It was all a cruel jest. "Oh, the hypocrite! The hypocrite!" he shrieked. "He came here hunted and I helped him with my life. He has taken everything, and given me death."

Through his head ran maddeningly the sc.r.a.ps of the conversation he had had with Peggy: "I'll strike for the south, and, when the hunt is over, I'll send you word where you can join me." "You never will do that." "And why not?" "Because you will be dead."

On all his thought, as if she were sitting at his side, her voice broke in persistently, drearily and low-pitched reiterating, "Because you will be dead. Because you will be dead."

A hard look came into his eyes; he ceased from his laughing and whispering. Turning to the quarter behind his back from which he had seemed to hear her speaking last, he said quietly, "But I shan't be dead."

Then he rose up and entered the shack.

CHAPTER XXI

THE MURDER IN THE SKY

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 G.o.d'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 by himself. He knew that his pursuit was madness; he had nothing to gain by it but revenge. He was hardly likely to gain even that, for the man in front of him had three dogs to his one, fuller rations, and a start of several hours; he could only hope to overtake him by the happening of some accident.

Yet he knew that he would overtake him, for he felt, beyond reach of argument, that Spurling was fated to die by his hand. Both of them had striven to avoid it; once he himself had fled that he might not commit the crime, and Spurling was now trying to escape that it might not come about. No matter what they did, it must happen. Though G.o.d should "advance a terrible right arm," and pluck them apart, and fling them to the opposite extremes of the world, they would surely travel and travel, perhaps involuntarily, till they came again together. It would have been far better if he had not been interfered with at the Shallows and had been permitted to accomplish his enmity there--so, more than three years of futile suffering might have been spared and Mordaunt would be still alive.

He was hardly conscious of any anger; his was the unreasoned relentless instinct of the pursuing hound. He was savage justice and the law of self-preservation personified. He was the will of destiny decreeing that Spurling should not reach El Dorado alive.

The dogs struggled on uncomplainingly; this was their first trip of the season and they were still comparatively fresh, though the man was tired. To the eastward the crescent of a faint old moon hung low in the sky. As Granger ran, he turned his head and, watching it, was thankful to see that at last the tardy dawn had begun to spread. Over the withered stretch of woodland to his right the Aurora swept between the stars, like an extinguishing angel, who caused them to flicker and, as he beat his wings about them, one by one to go out.

It was a morning of bitter coldness. As the breath left his nostrils, he could almost see it congeal and fall to the ground, a filmy sheet of ice. The heads of the huskies were clouded with smoke, so that they seemed to be on fire as they panted forward dragging on the traces.

The tracks, which he was following, now branched off to the left, and, mounting the river-bank, entered into a little hollow at the edge of the forest. Here, about the base of a tree, the snow had been recently trampled and a fire smouldered. It was Spurling's first camp.

Granger, having unharnessed and fed his huskies, taking his axe from his girdle, cut down a sapling fir and roused the dying embers to a blaze. The flames shot up, and, climbing the bark of the tree, crackled among the branches overhead. Unpacking his tallow he melted it in a cup. Before it was all drunk, the surface was frozen solid.

Then, lest his muscles should stiffen, he set out again.

The air was full of minute particles of snow, like frozen dew, which caused the whole atmosphere, as far as eye could reach, to sparkle in the sunshine. The sky was greenish grey and without a cloud. The stillness of the world was magical; in the miles of landscape which were visible, nothing stirred. The snapping of a twig sounded like the crashing ruin of a forest giant. The gliding of the sled across the snow, and the padding footsteps of the huskies, thundered down the tunnel of the river through the pines like the galloping of heavy artillery over gravel. When, at rare intervals, the river cracked, perhaps four or five miles away, it reverberated through the tree-tops, causing their burden of snow to tremble and glisten, like the report of neighbouring cannon. Every whisper was exaggerated to a shout, so that the ears were deafened and longed for quiet--quiet which, unlike silence, consisted of a mult.i.tude of small sounds singing, almost inaudibly, together.

Shortly after noon the light faded, and the blinding whiteness was converted into iron grey. Over to the westward the sun was hidden, and the horizon became threatening with a leaden bank of cloud. The temperature sank lower and the twilight was obliterated; night rushed down.

The dogs were now thoroughly worn out; only by continual lashing could he keep them to their work. The roughness of the ice had mangled their feet; they marked out the trail which they traversed with crimson dots of blood. He had hoped to reach Spurling's next camping-place before making another halt; but his rate of travelling had grown slower, and already the advantage of Spurling's four additional huskies was beginning to tell. At last his dogs lay down in their traces and refused to budge. He knew that he could force them to go no further.

Using the sled as a shovel, he dug out a hollow, throwing up a circular mount to protect him from the wind, should it arise.

Searching along the river-bank, he collected wood for a fire, sufficient to last him till morning. He set up his sled on end, like a tombstone, for a head rest, and lay himself down with his feet toward the blaze. The dogs gathered round him shivering, lying one on either side, striving to share the warmth of his body. He beat them off at first, but they always crept back; so at last, becoming languidly sorry for them, he let them stop there.

He was terribly tired; his bones felt like bars of red-hot iron scorching their way through his flesh. The hardness of the ice beneath the snow surface had racked his body in every joint. Every now and then he would get up and throw some wood on the fire, and lie down again, pulling his blanket over his head, folding his arms tightly across his chest, and gathering his knees up close to his body to conserve whatever heat he had. Though his body slept, never for a second did his brain lose consciousness of the cold and of the sense of travel. Always he seemed to be pressing on, doggedly, wearily, with the forest rushing past him on either hand. Spurling was in sight; sometimes he would halt, and jeeringly beckon to him. When he had come within speaking distance of him, he would start off again, leaving a narrow track of gold behind, for one of the sacks had burst.

Gradually the most fatal feeling that any man can experience in northland travel stole upon him--_he felt that he did not care_. If the fire went out, what matter? He would not get up to relight it. If Spurling were standing at his side, he would not disturb himself to look at him. If Mordaunt were to come to him, well, he might perhaps turn round to look at her.

He began to dream of her as he had seen her in the locket. They were both back in the old homeland. He was talking with her in an English garden and a thrush was singing overhead. How long it was since he had listened to the song of any bird! Why, he had almost forgotten that there was such an ecstasy in the world. So exalted was he, that he paid more attention to the thrush's song than to the words which Mordaunt said. Then she grew angry and shook him; but he sat there motionless, looking up into the branches of the tree, away from her, watching the sun through the greenness of the leaves, and the quivering throat of the bird. She rose up and left him in indignation; then darkness fell. He tried to follow her, but had no power to move himself. He tried to cry out, but his tongue was joined to the roof of his mouth. Making a great effort, he came to himself.

When he pushed up his arms to throw off his covering, they seemed to be lifting a weight of surpa.s.sing heaviness. He sat upright and tried to open his eyes; he was blind--he could see nothing. He groped to feel his eyeb.a.l.l.s with his hands; but his fingers were frozen--they could feel nothing. He rose to his feet in panic and stood there swaying, as though he had been set upon a dizzy pedestal which had grown to be part of himself, so that he could not move, but could only bend.

"I must keep quiet," he told himself; "I must keep quiet. If I get frightened, I shall wander away to my death."

When he tried to step forward his feet clapped together like solid blocks of ice. Very distantly, it seemed to him, he could make out a little glow of red and feel a breath of warmness. Going down on his hands and knees, he crawled towards it. It was coming to meet him; they had met. He lay down beside the redness and his panic left him.

Then he became conscious that it was hurting him and he commenced to hate it. In struggling to get away from it, he found that he could move more freely. Sensation had come into his hands; raising them he felt his eyes. His great terror was not of death, but that he should be forever sightless. He ran his fingers across his eyes and found that they were covered with flesh--that his eyelids were frozen together. With his two hands he forced them apart, and gazed about him. Wherever he looked there was endless s.p.a.ce with nothing to deter him, stretching away on every side. The moon, in her last quarter, was barely visible--a mere shadow of silver in the sky; so indistinct was his vision, that it seemed to him as though he were looking at the image of the firmament reflected in water, rather than at the stars themselves. Yet, in the certain renewal of his sight, there came to him a gladness which he had not known for many a day.

When he turned toward the fire, he perceived the cause of his mishap: he had overslept himself and it was nearly out. By the way in which it was scattered abroad and the smouldering of the fur which was about his throat and arms, he guessed that in his blindness and instinctive desire for warmth, he had thrown himself upon its ashes. Having gathered what remained of it together, he flung on more fuel and set to work to chafe his extremities, restoring circulation. He was too chilled to think of attempting sleep again that night: so, when his limbs were sufficiently thawed out, he renewed his journey.

The atmosphere was wonderfully clear, but there was in the air a sense of evil and foreboding. Even the dogs seemed to be aware of it, for as they ran, turning their heads from side to side to see which way the whip was coming that they might dodge it, there was a look of foreknowledge and terror in their eyes which warned Granger.

As the dawn was spreading, he was startled by a long-drawn sigh, which travelled from horizon to horizon and died out. The dogs heard it, and sitting down abruptly in their tracks nearly overturned the sled.

Gazing away to the northward, he saw a shadowy cloud arise, whirl and drift languidly over the tree-tops and fall back again out of sight.

He lashed at the huskies, and with difficulty set them going. But the sled drew heavily, as though it were being dragged through sand, for the snow was gritty as the seash.o.r.e: so intense was the cold that all slipperiness had gone out of it. He fastened a line to the load and went on ahead, breaking the trail and hauling with all his strength.

Before long the sigh was heard again; but this time it came nearer, and columns of white smoke rose up and danced in the river-bed. Then he knew that he was in for a _poudre_ day--the day which of all others the winter voyageur holds in most dread. While such weather lasts, even the hardiest traveller will refuse to leave his fire; for he knows that before long every land-mark will be blotted out, that his very dogs will refuse to obey him, and that to-morrow, when the wind has dropped and the snow has settled, the chances are that the sun will find him with a quiet face turned upward to the sky, immobile and statuesque as if carved from Parian marble.

Leaving Spurling's trail, he ascended the bank and worked along by the forest's edge, that so he might gain shelter. With every fresh puff of breath from the north, the coiling snakes of snow grew larger, writhing across the tree-tops and pouring tumultuously into the river-bed, where they rioted and fought till the day grew dark and it was difficult to see the next step. Respiration became painful, but Granger was determined not to halt, for this was one of the accidents which would help him to come up with Spurling. Feeling his way from tree to tree, he struggled on. His head became dizzy with the effort.

His body, for all its coldness, broke out into a chilly sweat. He was invaded by a terrible inertia, so that he was half-minded to lie down and go to sleep; but the thought that Spurling had halted somewhere, perhaps only twenty miles ahead, and was losing time, drew him on.

Presently his dogs sat down again, lifting their voices above the storm in a dismal wailing.

He cut their traces and went forward, dragging the sled himself. They followed him a few paces behind, slinking through the darkness with their heads down and their tails between their legs. They reminded him of the timber-wolf on the Forbidden River; there were times when, catching a partial glimpse of them, he could have sworn that they had been joined by a third.