VI THE NIGHT

CAN A LEOPARD CHANGE HIS SPOTS?

Upon the 19th of September, Akshelah came in from her own little hut behind my shanty. Her cheeks were a wonderful ripe colour. She looked at me with large, sad eyes, and softly announced:

“She has come!”

I had already felt the exhilaration of the atmosphere, and I had been conscious of the raw, strong light, though I could not see outside, so I knew that the change had come. I did not put any question to Akshelah, but I must have looked it with my eyes.

She replied simply, “Mispoor,” and I went out.

Mispoor, the lovely cold goddess, had indeed come to us in the night, and all the country glared and shivered. The mountain ranges looked to have moved and come closer. Hanafin City was shrouded, and all things had increased in size. The water along the defile was the colour of indigo. The smoke hung in the stagnant air like thick lumps of wool. Here was Pepooa, and the night was upon us.

“We cannot go away now,” said a plaintive voice behind.

Akshelah was right. We could not go away while the night lasted. The prison bars were closing round us; the light went out fast; we were two occupants of the gilded prison called Bonanza, and we could not escape until the time of May, when the Spirit of the Green Mantles should tear open the waterways, and melt apart the bars of ice.

I went inside my shanty, and desolation and loneliness fell and settled over me. In all that busy cosmopolitan mining town I was alone. I was friendless and forsaken.

MacCaskill had left me. We had drifted apart gradually, because I would not join him in the saloon or at the faro table; he had bought a tent, and pitched it in Bonanza upon his claim, and there made merry with his new friends. Wealth had poured in upon him like the riches of an old tale. His claim had turned out to be the Eldorado hole of old Fagge. Hanafin and Redpath had each made the pardonable mistake of thinking that the treasure would be found immediately below the forks. Probably Leblanc had known that it was five hundred feet lower down, but Justice had overtaken him before he could make use of his ill-bought knowledge. MacCaskill was the lucky man, the drawer of the highest prize in this gigantic lottery. He had achieved the height of his ambition; he had found the gold which should satisfy all the cravings of avarice. Apart from his finds of the stone, he would frequently wash out over one hundred and fifty dollars in dirt alone per day.

At one time I thought that he must be gathering in his fortune fast—that fortune with which he hoped to retire to luxury in New York City, but I found myself in error. How did he spend his wealth? The city prices were not exorbitant. Flour cost nine dollars, fat bacon twenty-five, sugar seventeen for fifty pounds, beans ten dollars per bushel, and a pound of tea could be bought for two dollars.

But on a certain night MacCaskill made me enter the largest of the saloons upon Front Street. One half of the place was devoted to drinking, the other half to gambling.

My companion soon left me to join a gang, and I grew tired of waiting for him and came away.

Later I met Lennie, who was slipping downwards fast.

“Say!” he exclaimed, with unwonted eagerness but customary insobriety, “your ole pard Mac’s ben havin’ quite a bad streak. Heard of it?”

When I had replied, Lennie proceeded:

“He started out to run the faro bank dry, did Mac, an’ he’s ben cleared out of fourteen thousand dollars. Come and liquor.”

I refused, and walked away, Lennie jeering after me taunts of pride, because it was a bad breach of etiquette to refuse to drink. I was making myself unpopular that way, but I simply could not swallow the smoky, scorching spirit. Only a few minutes later I met MacCaskill, surrounded by a gang of half-drunken miners; he was himself half drunk, more with the madness of gambling than with liquor, and was swearing furiously that he had not finished with that faro bank.

“Wait till I lift a few more thousands outer my hole. I’ll bust it!” he shouted.

The gang passed on, MacCaskill not more than a yard from me; but already a great gulf spread between us. He had been changed by coming into Bonanza; I had remained the same.

Father Lacombe had gone. He had only spent a fortnight in Hanafin City. I was presented to him, and proclaimed my utter ignorance at once, because, not knowing how to address him, I asked the natural question whether he had come to mine.

“Yes,” he replied, his grey eyes lighting. “It is my idea to stake out and record the entire district.”

He asked me into his tent, and both then and on several subsequent occasions, because he was a man who never seemed to want sleep, unfolded to me another world, even more mysterious than the inside and outside worlds I already had knowledge of. When he had gone, another blank was made; but he sent a priest to form a mission, and this Father Casey came for me, and continued my education where his superior had left off. He was planning to erect a church in Hanafin City, and I had promised him five thousand dollars from my own rich finds.

Hanafin had gone. That was the saddest loss of all. He had been recalled by Government to make his report upon the new district, and on the 10th of September I had wrung his hand and said good-bye, and then turned away from the handsome aristocratic Englishman, who had deigned to be my friend, weary at heart, because I knew that I should never see him again. He would go home and marry his beautiful English sweetheart, and find the place that had been appointed for him. The Athabasca Mining Syndicate, Limited, paid good dividends, he had assured me, and later on I heard that he had made an assignment of the claim for a high figure. He had done very well, and I feel sure he deserved all his success. So on that morning when the snow came, which would not begin to melt until the following late April, I broke down under the realisation of my loneliness. Two men had declared themselves my partner—one an unprincipled rascal, who had always held a complete influence over me; the other as true as steel, and as weak as sand; both had deceived and forsaken me. I was alone, and yet—

An arm went round my neck, and a flushed face looked down on mine.

“You have lost your friends,” said a sad little voice. “But all the time I have had only you.”

And had it not been for her, should I have ever seen Bonanza?

I took Akshelah’s hand, and she sat beside me, and there we remained in silence, with the snow around us, and the ice coming up.

“I should not have come away, but he persuaded me. My father advised me to stay—with you. But I wanted to see what life was.”

“Ah, and you have seen it,” said Akshelah. Then, after a pause: “Do you like it?”

“I hate it.”

“And the women of the world—do you like them?”

I have referred to the women who had entered Hanafin City. Their numbers had grown of late; women wonderfully dressed in bright colours, with faces of careless strength and boldness, with cold eyes and mechanically laughing mouths. “Fine women,” MacCaskill had dubbed them. I thought of them when Akshelah spoke, and I looked at her large bright eyes, her delicate colouring, her soft fawn skin, her wealth of rich black hair. I mentally compared this maid of the outside with the women of the inside. So, I thought, would the great City of London, my birthplace inside the world, compare with my little home outside.

“Do you like the women?” Akshelah was asking again, and I answered her truly, and she was satisfied.

The day soon darkened, and the pale snow became ghastly when the arch of the aurora lit, and the livid spears lengthened and shortened across a clear black sky. The atmosphere lowered and tightened its hold upon us, as the grim frost began to assert its long rule, and the thermometer went down, far below zero, and still down. The close season had come.

I had five thousand dollars for Father Casey in the currency of the country, having made the exchange at the bank that morning. The money was fastened up into a little bundle, which I had left lying ready to hand, because there was little fear of anything being stolen in this mining town. Akshelah had gone out, and I was sitting alone in the lantern light, beside my cook-stove, when the fall of footsteps crunched the snow; a hand felt across the piece of canvas which did duty for a door; there was the sound of quick breathing; the flap gave way, and a well-known voice spoke familiarly:

“Good evening, Petrie!”

A terrible apparition introduced itself into my shanty. A tall figure, abnormally thin, with unspeakable rags clinging about it; an emaciated face, where two great cheek-bones protruded as though they must burst the skin; two pouches of bloodless flesh represented cheeks; two cold, deeply-sunken eyes; two large loose ears; a little grey hair, and a neck that had dwindled down to the dimensions of a stove-pipe. This was the Redpath who advanced to bend greedily over my glowing stove.

“An inclement night, my dear fellow. Really miserably cold and cheerless. Well, and how are you? Of course, I ought to have visited you long ago; but you know, perhaps, how peculiarly I have been situated. An incident of a painful nature has compelled me to retire into temporary seclusion. Even now I have to exercise supreme caution. Ah, excuse my clothes, Petrie. Anything goes in a mining camp, you know.”

The same as yesterday!

The living skeleton reached out a hand which made me shiver, and closed it upon my pipe. He looked round.

“I don’t see your tobacco. Ah, thanks.” He began to fill my pipe, but I noticed that it was only with the utmost difficulty he could maintain an upright position. “Well, and how are things? Going smoothly, eh? Confounded nuisance my being knocked out of it for the time. Excuse plain speaking, Petrie, but I really think you might have done a little more for me. I know it’s sauve qui peut in gold-mining, as in most other things, and shove the hindmost to the devil. You needn’t remind me. Ah, well, bygones must be bygones. I thought I’d just trot round, look you up, and have a bit of supper with you, old man, to show there’s no ill-feeling on my part; but I daresay, with my usual inaccuracy, I’ve dropped in at the wrong time, and you’ve done your bite.”

He could talk in that strain though he was fainting, and absolutely starved. He began to sway to and fro, and sometimes groped blindly. I could not bear to look at him.

“I never expected to see you again,” I said.

“You thought Hanafin had driven me away?” Redpath spoke with the greatest difficulty, and the bony hand that clutched my still unlighted pipe shook in a horrid fashion. “I have been in hiding a few miles from Bonanza, awaiting my opportunity. It has been decidedly lonesome and, of course, annoying, because I have been compelled to furnish myself with supplies. I think you said that you have had your supper? Hanafin has gone, I hear. He could not find me, after all. He was wasted here ... admirable tactician ... clever in finesse ... sees the board with his mind ... always sure of his next move, anticipates yours.... You move one way—check ... you move another way—check ... then checkmate; down comes your number, and the lights go out Ah, God! What an earthquake!”

The unhappy wretch reeled about in an agony, stumbled against the stove, and cried like an animal when he felt his leg scorched. It was horrible to watch him being tortured, but with all his pride striving to conceal it.

I pushed him down upon a log of wood, and as quickly as I could put some food before his half-blind eyes, and gave him some hot whisky in a tin mug. It was marvellous how rapidly the food and drink acted. In a very short time Redpath was his cynical self again, and I noticed that he had the sense and the self-restraint to eat sparingly.

“I most sincerely beg your pardon,” he said with dignity. “It is altogether inexcusable to enter a man’s house and straightway make a scene before him. It is most unpardonable and ridiculous. The fact is, I breakfasted very early, found myself too busy to take luncheon, and this keen winter’s air acts suddenly upon an empty stomach and such a weak constitution as mine. You see, Petrie, we sometimes over-estimate our strength. We forget we are getting on in years.”

Then he again took up my pipe, lighted it, and smoked heartily. What was I to do with this man, who appeared to think that I had wronged him?

“It is not safe for you to be here,” I said. “Why don’t you go away?”

“That is impossible now that the winter has come,” said Redpath, as though pitying my ignorance. “Besides, this place has attractions for me. It has been the object of my life to attain. I have played my hand very badly, and must now suffer the consequences. I shall not go. Indeed, my finances happen to be too shaky to permit me to travel. There is plenty to be picked up about here.”

“Honestly?” I inquired.

His eyebrows went up.

“Spare me bathos,” he said entreatingly.

“Where is Olaffson?”

The expression on the human skeleton’s face altered.

“Ah, you may congratulate me there! He has gone, and, I trust, for ever. I can feel myself a free man now. Olaffson has really gone, and my malediction goes with him and after him.”

“Hadn’t you better go?” I suggested, following the train of thought. “If you are found in my shanty—”

“Ah, yes, I understand! Your skill in touching upon these delicate matters is very remarkable, Petrie. Why mince the matter? Let us say boldly that the law, as administered here so admirably, would exact a penalty from you were I to be discovered under your hospitable roof.” He poured himself out some more whisky. “Here is your very excellent health. All that you can possibly wish me do I wish you.”

He drank slowly, his eyes half shut.

“Good-night!” I said coldly.

“You good fellow!” said Redpath warmly, clasping my hand in his cold, bony grip. With his spare hand, I noticed, he was gathering up the scraps of food he had left, and stuffing the same somewhere among his rags. “With your never-failing good heart, you speed your parting guest Good-night, dear old boy! I’m coming round again very shortly, as I have a suggestion to lay before you. Make both our fortunes in a very little time. Good-night. Don’t come with me. I must slip along the back of the street, and ’ware soldiers.”

He went, my pipe in his mouth, and my plug of tobacco in his hand. Devoutly I hoped that I had seen the last of him.

I had promised to visit Father Casey that same night, to leave with him my little donation. I put on my hat, coat, and overshoes, and looked for my tiny bundle of money—that five thousand dollars.

Will it be believed that I looked in vain?

THE HUNTERS AND THE HUNTED

There were no October leaves to fall upon Hanafin City; the ragged spruce held its dark greenery, which looked black under the snow and glaze of ice, but all else was dead; not a bird flew, not an insect trumpeted, nothing marked the carpet of the covered cliffs. Where had the countless millions of mosquitos gone? Where the sable ravens, and the loons and divers? Nothing would be alive again until April. It was the time of the great silence.

Beginning at an hour before noon, and continuing until three, a glimmering of raw light visited us, a pale unhealthy ghost-light, without sun, and all the rest was night. Not darkness, because the aurora rose and set, and sometimes the uneven arch was white and brilliant; but generally it was smoky, and sometimes pale-blue and livid, and sometimes it was red and terrible. There it hung, swaying over us mysteriously, loaded with electricity, shivering, darting, whispering, and influencing our lives and movements by its moods. Everything was frozen. The temperature of eighty or ninety degrees of cold kept us working for warmth, and to rid ourselves of the superfluous electricity which that magnetic land poured into our bodies.

It was the close season for placer-mining, and there was only one thing we could do, namely, to drift out our pay streaks by burning. All the miners of Bonanza were thawing the frozen ground with fire, and they told me that this method of winter-mining had never been attempted before. First we cut away the moss and surface accumulations until solid ground was reached. In the hole thus made we would build a fire, and when this had died down we would throw out the ashes, and as much of the ground as had been thawed out, make another fire, and repeat the process, until we had burnt our way down to bed-rock. We would then build our fires against the bank of the hole, and drift sideways, moving perhaps one foot of pay-dirt each day. The dirt thus brought out we would dump in piles, to be left until spring, when water could be obtained to wash out the pay. I mention this to show how we passed the winter in Bonanza. Everywhere these fires were burning, and all day the smoke hung or drifted very slowly, in thick sheets like vast overhanging masses of wool.

My claim had not proved so rich as the one I had vacated, and yet it was impressed upon me that I had done very well. I had taken out altogether some eight thousand dollars, the bulk of which had been stolen by Redpath, and the greater part of what remained would be swallowed up in buying supplies during the winter. None of the men from the Carillon had done any good, and Jim Morrison was a loafer about the city. Jake Peterssen, with many another, made a very substantial grub stake. MacCaskill was the one lucky man, who had struck a “world-beater,” but his wealth benefited only the saloon proprietors upon Front Street.

It was a day in November, when, after buying some tea and sugar at the store of the Bonanza Trading and Supply Association, during the short period of the glimmer, I became attracted by a notice suspended over the big stove. A knot of men were discussing the same loudly and angrily. I could read anything by that time, so I went up; and this is what I read:—

“The Citizens of Hanafin City are warned that there is a bad gang of sneak-thieves around the place. Quite a few things, such as grub and tools, have been missed around Bonanza. Old Man Septimus M‘Quatrain had a fur cap and coat lifted out of his tent right on his claim, Number Twenty-three Petrie Gulch. Bill Petro had a bag of dirt and twenty pounds of bacon cycloned away from his dug-out. These are just examples of what has been going on. The Citizens are requested to keep their eyes skinned; and if any of them think they are upon a good track, they will be doing the right thing to themselves and this City if they communicate right off with the undersigned, or any of the City councillors.

“Alec. MacInnes, “Mayor of Hanafin City.

“P.S.—Mind that bundle of money lifted off Rupe Petrie.”

The days crept on to the end of the month, and the thefts went on, too, while the public anger became hotter, and excitement fired the entire city. There are crimes worse than murder in the eyes of miners: such crimes as tampering with another man’s claim in the close season, taking a neighbour’s lawful water; but above all, opening and rifling an associate’s cache, the special act of guilt for which pardon can never be given. When any man is sentenced of robbing a cache, let that man be condemned!

One miner assured me that in the course of a long life spent about the gold-mines of the world, only two cases of this extreme guilt had ever come within his knowledge. The miner trusts his associates implicitly. Before going away, he will store his supplies, his tools, and his tent inside a cave, or in some hole, set his name upon the outside and his mind at rest, because he knows that no miner will touch his cache or its contents, however hard put to it he may be for supplies. The rascal who would rob a church will not touch a cache.

There were three quaint old men of Hanafin City, all as like each other as it was possible for men to be, named respectively Rod, Abe, and Pal, close friends, but not related. These men had come in during the beginning of August with a quantity of supplies, and had gone out about the middle of September, before the coming of the ice, after they had stored their possessions in a cache upon the partnership claim, which was 1,000 feet in length, and rectangular in form, going up the hill from the Akshelah. They were fine old gentlemen, very popular, true miners, who understood the science of their profession thoroughly. They went out to escape the night, with the idea of returning to work their claim in the spring.

Upon the 27th of November, at twenty minutes past six by the clock in the Record Office, a patrol rode into Hanafin, horse and rider white with frost, and a few minutes later a report passed feverishly about the city that the cache of the three old men had been tampered with. The deep-toned threatenings of the infuriated citizens had hardly broken out when Moccasin Bill appeared upon Front Street, his grizzled beard heavy with ice, and his preternaturally grave face sterner even than usual. He stood upon the street, in front of the principal drinking and gambling saloon, and called in his high nasal tones:

“Boys all! I’ve jest come right from old men’s cache. I’ve ben burnin’ on me new claim alongside.”

The miners came about him in the weird night under the aurora. The snow wore a greenish hue, and the frost crystals danced in the firelike atmosphere as so many electric sparks. I could see the lumps of ice upon Bill’s beard knocking together when his head moved. A shout went up from the saloon, and the men came forth like hornets out of their nest, smoking, swearing, shouting, among them MacCaskill, his big face scarlet, his tongue noisy, his hands full of money, because the interruption had drawn him from the furious excitement of the faro table. The crowd surged up and around Moccasin Bill.

“Boys all! old men’s cache has ben pulled inter pieces. Everything’s ben took. This city uv our Queen has ben disgraced—”

I could see his lips still moving, but what more he said was lost in the mad shoutings of all Hanafin. These men were terrible. Their faces were like those one half sees passing in a bad dream. Their cigars had dropped, and I could see the red points blinking upon the green snow. The electric light of the sky flashed and hissed over their heads and all their insanity. At last Moccasin Bill was heard again.

“I’ve ben around. Them things were took to-day. There’s tracks en the snow—”

There he was stopped. A yelling went up on every side, and the men ran together, apparently in confusion, but all with an object—to prepare themselves for a journey. A thousand men made for the silent canyon, a thousand men poured through what once had been Mosquito Hole, and that thousand men swept over the snow and the hidden treasures of Bonanza. So the hunt began. The pursuers were men, and their quarry men. They were more terrible than dogs, these hunters, because men can call off the dogs of chase. But who can call off men?

“Say!” A hand pulled my arm, and a frightened voice exclaimed: “The Commissioner’s away!”

It was Dave, late of the Carillon.

“Don’t ye see?” he went on fearfully. “The boys are so mad there’ll be no holdin’ of ’em. The Commissioner’s gone around the country, an’ won’t be back before the week-end. The boys’ll jest take the law inter their own hands.”

“What will they do if they catch the thieves?” I could hardly speak with fear, because I was sure I could name one of the marauders.

“They’ll flog ’em sure. They’ll hang ’em. They’re so ter’ble mad, p’r’aps they’ll put ’em on the wood-pile.”

I shuddered dreadfully. The frost choked my breath when I tried to protest against the horror of burning fellow-men.

“The police will stop it,” I managed to say.

“The police’ll make the boys give ’em over to the law, if so be they’re strong enough. But there’s only fifty of ’em in Hanafin, now the Commissioner’s gone wi’ his crowd.”

A quiet settled over the city, perhaps because it felt a tragedy impending, perhaps because the noisiest fifth part of its inhabitants were hunting in the night over Bonanza. I did not sleep during the hours which are considered night in the other world. Sometimes I looked out fearfully along silent Front Street, which spread away under the pale green glow, the lights from the saloons flashing on the near side, and upon the far side, from the Variety Theatre, came fitfully a burst of harsh music or a yell of drunken applause. One or two huge huskies moved slowly about the snow like hungry bears.

The hours of business returned, but the hunters were not among us. The glimmer of hopeless daylight reached us, and the miners went out into Bonanza to watch and wait for the hounds, but there was no burning done. There were no signs of the thousand who had gone forth to hunt, beyond their innumerable tracks in the snow.

“They’ll be ter’ble cold an’ hungry,” said some.

Then an old man, who knew all the moods of the arctic winter, put up his hand at noon, and pointed north.

“There’s wind a-comin’ there,” he said. “If they ain’t back afore night, we won’t see half of ’em no more.”

I saw the scar of misty cloud he indicated rising out of the northern snows, a long thin patch, the colour of indigo, and as it ascended all our dim, sad light went out.

Only a few citizens knew that a posse of police had set forth during the night, so soon as the hunters had gone out, and no one could know which direction they had taken, because it is the habit of these men to ride back upon their tracks, and jump their horses to some patch of ground which the wind has swept clean of snow, and so ride away and baffle pursuit. The few who knew guessed that they had gone to bring the Commissioner. They would have to ride against time, and the act of God.

The Hanafin Herald, our daily paper, did not appear, not for the lack of news that day, but because the men who prepared it were out upon the chase.

By two o’clock daylight was done; at three, no news; about four, the aurora came up like dark-blue smoke, and the atmosphere was entirely without motion; five, the silence was still unbroken, the air so still that it would never have supported a feather; at ten minutes past, the snow-dust along Front Street began to whirl in small eddies. It was a fantastic sight, and the man who was weather-wise chewed his cigar-end fiercely.

“It’s a-goin’ to be an old-time night,” he said simply.

Six o’clock, and the murmur of many voices filled the city. The hunters were returning from Bonanza. The atmosphere was filled with a stream of liquid ice, and the noise of feet tramping upon snow. The dark-blue aurora was growing purple, and a dreadful darkness settled down, like something tangible and creeping.

Out of the closeness of that gloom the procession entered Hanafin City. First came a sweeping van of misty ghosts, whirling along side by side, formed by columns of ice-cold snow-dust, whipped up into the atmosphere by some northern current sent as a forerunner of the great wind; then those who had gone forth to watch and wait; after these, the hunters and the hunted.

WHEN SENTENCE IS GIVEN, LET HIM BE CONDEMNED

Some of the hunters carried packs, silent witnesses brought to appear against the hunted; and at the end of the procession eight men staggered, four of them leaning to one side, and four to the other. Before these had advanced into the open, a cyclonic spout of wind swept over the northern cliffs, rushed down, and broke upon us. The torrent swept and roared through Hanafin, so that none of us could determine the nature of the burden that the eight men carried.

Then the night became terrible. One man might stand holding another, yet neither would be able to see the other; the snow-dust choked the wind and lashed upon our faces with cold ice-pricks; above us, around, and below the grey sea of wind and snow roared, and rushed, and smote.

A great crowd had massed in Front Street, surging to and fro, jostling and pushing, but each separate individual in that crowd could feel himself alone in that arctic tempest. The voices were heard no longer, because in her insanity Nature can roar louder than a million madmen. Now and again a light goggled out of the grey whirl, to disappear in an instant.

That crowd drifted towards the doors of the big saloon, and I was carried with them, my face smarting under the lash of ice. Already the great hall appeared choked, and yet I believe hundreds were packed in after I tumbled inside. The space used for dancing was a sea of humanity, and, like the sea, it roared and heaved; the gambling-tables had been folded up and set aside; the bar was thronged. Still the men came, with here and there a woman who had long ago abandoned self-respect, and the passion of the assembly became greater. Everyone was wildly shouting, and I could gather nothing from the tumult.

A great voice sounded over us, and this voice rolled from end to end in the order, “Quit yer noise!”

A silence fell into the crowd, but outside the arctic storm went yelling on its way.

A chair had been placed upon the bar counter, and on this chair Moccasin Bill seated his spare figure. To his right stood MacInnes, the mayor; to his left the man who had become a stranger to me, my former partner MacCaskill. These three looked down upon us.

“Shet the doors,” commanded Moccasin Bill, “an’ keep ’em shet. The rest uv the citizens must get away home, ’cause there ain’t room for ’em en here. Make a space right there.”

He pointed down, and the sea of men heaved back, until I found it hard to draw breath.

Grizzled Bill rose solemnly.

“Citizens,” he proclaimed, pulling off his fur cap and holding it out, “ye know as well as me that we’re on British territory, where the law ain’t jest what it is en minin’ towns over the line. Ther’ the miners make their own law, an’ pays out their own justice. Right here the law is the law uv the country, an’ ’tis administered by the judge uv the Court. I ain’t for sayin’ anything ’gainst that. We ain’t all British be any manner uv means, but while we’re en Hanafin City we’re subjects o’ Queen Victoria. Citizens, I say this is a case where we’re entitled to take the law inter our own hands.”

The voices answered him with a great shout of approval.

“I’ve ben appointed judge,” went on the old man solemnly. “An’ me bowers are the mayor uv this city an’ Factor MacCaskill, the first miner inter Bonanza. I’ve ben judge afore this, boys, an’ I’ve jedged fair, I’ve ben told, and, ’fore God, I’ll judge fair again.”

The old man bent forward, and peered over the upturned faces rising and falling beneath.

“Bring up that prisoner!” he called, and the crowd swayed to and fro, and my heart began to thud.

I heard the voice of the judge asking, “Where’s the other pris’ner?”

Every word of the answer reached my ears.

“Out in the snow, judge. He’ll thaw inside.”

“What’s that?” I asked the man who was jammed upon me.

“Guess t’other pris’ner’s ben froze,” he gasped back.

“Burn him! Burn him!” was the cry going up around the building. If the man had been frost-bitten, let him be thawed with fire. “Burn him!”

“Order!” shouted the mayor.

The prisoner stood before his judge. I craned my neck, but I could not see. I was fastened into the crowd like a cork in a bottle.

“Who is he?” I called, because Redpath was tall, and this man surely was short, or I should have seen him.

“’Tis a little man,” spoke a very tall miner generally, “wi’ a face like lumps o’ wet dough.”

Olaffson, the Icelander, for the last time.

“He’s sweatin’ an’ skulkin’ something horrid,” said the tall miner.

“Pris’ner!” spoke the grizzled judge, and the entire assembly tried to push forward. “Ther’ has ben a lot uv sneak-thievin’ about this city an’ around Bonanza. You was took right among a lot uv stolen property. There’s jest one case we want to try special, an’ that’s the robbin’ uv the cache what belongs to ole men, Rod, Abe, an’ Pal, who’ve gone out for the winter. We didn’t find none o’ that stuff in your dug-out, nor yet in yer pard’s. We surmise you’ve hid it away some place. If you speak up, an’ show grit, we’ll take that into consideration when we come to pass sentence. Are ye guilty, or are ye not guilty?”

The pause which followed was not silence, because the wind screamed and the snow hissed where it struck. Surely the prisoner upon the other side of the door would be frozen to death, and his guards with him.

A voice proclaimed, “Says he’s not guilty.”

The crowd broke into furious shouts, “Flog him! Flog him!”

“Quit yer noise!” the judge ordered angrily. “This is a court uv justice.”

He spoke to MacInnes, and the latter held up a big coon coat.

“’Twas found in the pris’ner’s dug-out,” explained the mayor. “Does any citizen claim it?”

“That’s mine,” shouted the coarse voice of old miner Septimus M‘Quatrain. “The durned thief! Likewise an otter cap.”

“Here ’tis,” said MacInnes. He then put up twenty pounds of very fat bacon.

Bill Petro shouted:

“Lemme smell a hunk, an’ I’ll tell. I spilt me oil-can over me bacon.”

The mayor sniffed gravely.

“Ay, it smells of coal oil all right, Bill,” he said.

Not a laugh went up from the crowd. Only the same angry mutterings and the deep growls, “Flog him!”

“You’ve pleaded not guilty, pris’ner,” said the judge. “Them things were found en yer dug-out. What have ye got to say en yer defence?”

The men near the inaudible wretch repeated his frightened answer, and it was passed on through the crowd.

“Says he never took ’em. Says he knows who did. Says his pard done it all.”

“Pris’ner,” exclaimed the judge with sudden heat, “ye are the meanest skunk what ever trod!”

The citizens broke loose again.

“Wood-pile, jedge! Say wood-pile!” and under it all the monotonous antiphon, “Flog him!”

Above the tumult of those demands, and the insanity of the elements, a bull-like bellow roared, and an arm, like a black tree, shot up—the black arm which I had once broken at Gull.

“Jake Peterssen for the floggin’!” yelled the half-mad crowd, and refused to be quieted.

The judge was talking with MacCaskill, and so soon as he could make his voice heard, called to know if I were present. Directly I had answered, the negro shouted:

“He’s a better man than me, jedge. He beat me. He’s the boy ye want. Rupe Petrie fo’ the floggin’!”

The miners took up the cry and yelled it, until I could already hear Olaffson’s vile screams for mercy, and the horrid shock of a heavy whip. When he was allowed to speak, the judge recounted the charges brought by the factor against the prisoner—the burning of my home, the treachery at Gull upon the lake, and at Hanafin; and I had to answer that the story was all true.

“Bring in his pard,” the voices were demanding.

The judge spoke grimly to the Icelander.

“Ye are a mean, skulkin’ louse, pris’ner, an’ we don’t have to show ye no pity, though I allow we ain’t got nothing ’cept what they call circumstantial evidence ’gainst ye. Jest ye tell me if ther’ is any sort uv reason why we should show mercy to ye.”

“He’s sweatin’ awful,” said the tall miner.

Olaffson had only his former story. His partner had been the thief.

The voices went up strongly:

“Fetch in his pard.”

Moccasin Bill almost smiled.

“Fetch in his pard,” he repeated terribly.

The doors were open, and in fought the rush of snow and wind, and the lamp flames leapt wildly. There was a sound of struggling, of lifting, and of carrying. The doors were shut again, and I knew that Redpath was amongst us, the cynical, opinionative English gentleman, the man who had made such a miserable failure of that space between coming and going called life. Redpath for the last time.

He had come to my home at Yellow Sands, like a thief in the night; he had come to mock at my misery in the old stone ruin of the bush, where he hoped to steal away my life; he had come half a skeleton to be fed, and, after taking my hospitality, had robbed me and gone. As he entered then, what was the influence of that superior smile, what the use of that gentlemanly manner, and what the power of that contemptuous glance?

He had always been fond of life.

Four men carried a long shape, swathed in a snow-covered blanket. They proceeded to unwrap this shape. It was like unrolling a sheet of lead, because the cruel frost had made the thick duffle rigid and unyielding. The blanket came away gradually, and revealed the man, frozen body and blood and bones. The flesh frozen into ridges, was as solid to the touch as stone, and colder far. They had brought me forward to identify the frozen man.

“His name was Redpath,” I said. “He was my father’s enemy, and I know he was a thief.”

“The corpse is guilty,” said the judge, and a whisper of assent hurried round the building.

I could still find that old superior smile upon Redpath’s face. It could not disappear, because it was frozen there, and it seemed to me to be intended for myself, and for those around, the men who had hunted him down who now judged and had found him guilty, but who could not condemn. Through his half-open lips I saw his white even teeth. They were the only pleasant feature he possessed, and they were false.

The blanket frozen round the frozen man was claimed by one miner; the clothes he had been frozen in by another; my bundle of money was discovered in one of the pockets, and returned to me; everything upon him, from the clothes to a lump of tobacco, had been stolen. The only thing he had failed to steal was a longer span of the life he loved.

I stood between Olaffson and the dead; the one silent for ever, the other wringing and cringing in an agony. Still I felt that inexplicable pity for the Englishman. He had once been friendly with my father; he had taken the hand of my mother, whom I had never seen; he had held me as a baby upon his knee. A revulsion of feeling crossed me when I looked upon Olaffson, and for him I had no pity at all. I heard the vengeful voices demanding, “Sentence the pris’ner, jedge.” Once MacCaskill’s glance met mine, and he turned aside with an awkward movement. Moccasin Bill stood up.

“Ye are guilty, pris’ner,” he said slowly. “I’ve ben around the world en me time, an’ followed the yeller every place, an’ I’ve seen crooks an’ blacklegs shot an’ hung—ay, an’ burned—an’ I’ve stood by an’ said as how they deserved it. But I’ve never known a worse case than this.” The assenting voices shouted again. “No, boys,” he said, appealing to his audience, “I’ve never known a worse case than this. Ye have ben tried fair, pris’ner. We’re on Canadian soil, an’ a Canuk has tried ye. For I’m Canadian, boys; I’m Canadian to the cuticle. Ye are guilty of sneak-thievin’, pris’ner. Ye are jest a louse what wants poundin’, an’ we’re a-goin’ to pound ye. The boys want to have ye flogged.”

The voice of the grizzled judge became drowned, and above all the yells sounded the mighty bull bellow of Jake Peterssen, calling my name, and invoking my right arm for the punishment of the thief.

“I sentence ye to be flogged,” said the judge. “Fifty lashes—”

Then it seemed to me as though the wind had swept into the building, and had caught up the assembly, and brought them down upon me like an overwhelming wave. I heard the screams of Olaffson. They had seized him, and were dragging him this way and that. My name was upon everyone’s lips. “Rupe Petrie!” The place howled with it. The wind caught it up, and whirled it away over all Bonanza. And still the men were shouting, “Rupe Petrie!”

I understood at length that a tribute had been paid to my strength, that, partly because the condemned had wronged me, I had been appointed by the judge public executioner to the city.

I could not—I shouted that I could not—do what was required of me, but I might as successfully have appealed to the wild wind outside as to the wilder men about me. The whip was being made; Olaffson, beside himself with terror, was being stripped; and the scene made me sick when the entire meaning of my hideous duty confronted me. And all the time the men shouted with mad tongues, and around were all the demon faces and the demon eyes. Jake Peterssen snatched my weak hand and wrung it in congratulation, confident that he had shown himself my friend.

Another shout went up. The doors were being bombarded with fists and kicks.

“The boys are spoilin’ to get inside.”

“Open up!” called some of the men.

“There’s no room for ’em!” shouted Moccasin Bill.

The arctic temperature streamed inside; the tempest paused in its yelling, to draw its icy breath for a fresh outburst. A strong voice, muffled and angry, demanded admission in the name of the Queen-Empress.

“Open,” said the judge.

Again the stream of wind and ice, and the delirious leaping of the lights. Figures like white bears pushed inward, their moustaches frozen up in fine snow, a snow-covered figure at their head, grasping a sword covered with crystals in his fur mitt—the Commissioner himself; and behind him his police.

“Draw on them!” the representative shouted, and the white company brought up their revolvers and covered every part of the building. Two men at least felt the joy of reprieve—the executioner and the condemned.

“Hand over that man!” called the Commissioner.

The crowd growled like lions disappointed of their prey. This Commissioner was a different man from Hanafin. He was bold and hard, but had no tact, and when he gave an order he would have it instantly obeyed, though he might accompany it with a curse or an insult.

“Hand him over, or I’ll cancel the certificates of the lot of you.”

“We tried him fair, Commissioner,” entreated Moccasin Bill. “He ain’t done so much agin her gracious Majesty as agin us boys. He an’ his pard, who’s froze solid ther’, have ben bad sneak-thieves, an’ we’ve ben an’ took this case right inter our own hands for this once. You’d only put him inter prison, but we’re a-goin’ to hang him.”

The City of Hanafin endorsed every word spoken by their own appointed judge.

The Commissioner simply gave the word of command to his men. Four tall figures shoved forward, the fine snow falling off their furs.

“Shoot anyone who interferes!” shouted the angry Commissioner.

MacInnes, the mayor, spoke aside to Moccasin Bill.

“Boys!” called the latter, “the law has got to be obeyed. Let the police have the pris’ner.”

The miners could scarcely obey the order of their own judge, but the police made the arrest of Olaffson, and marched him out. The Commissioner wheeled round sharply, with a satisfied smile, and followed. But while the clouds of snow hissed inwards, the mayor, standing stiff upon the bar counter, yelled with all his might:

“Boys! To hell with the sneak-thief!”

The men went mad again. Taking up the cry, they rushed into the whirling night, into the freezing, tearing wind and the grey torrent of snow, and flung themselves upon the police. Revolvers flashed uselessly, and swords darted aimlessly, stabbing merely the great grey shapes that fled down the wind ghost-like. The miners of Hanafin were drunk with fury, and they were in thousands against a handful. Soldier after soldier was seized and dragged to the light of the saloon, that each might be identified. The time came when they found the one shrieking wretch they wanted....

I fled, battling against the stream of ice, away from the life I had come from home to see.

Standing beside the stove in my shanty I found poor Akshelah, shivering with terror. The relief of finding myself alone with her, the delight of being able to console and assure her! She had told me that I was all she had. What had I upon earth beside her?

“We have no enemies to follow us now, little squirrel,” I said, stroking her thick warm hair. “Redpath is frozen into stone, and Olaffson,” I shivered, because the shrieks of the wind were pitilessly human.

“The white face!” she said fearfully, coming up to me.

“They are killing him now.”

She shivered, and clung to me more closely. She spoke presently.

“I told you the factor loved the yellow stones.” She was playing nervously with my cold fingers. “He has left you, and—you have no one now.”

I lifted her face and kissed her soft mouth with a new feeling which made me forget everything save the present.

“I have all that I want. And when the storm has done, we will go together to Father Casey, and tell him”—the wind became terrible, and I had to wait for it to pass—“that we want to be together all our lives.”