Front matter (continued 3)

Simpson's was the dominating figure of the company present in the room of the Half Moon where Aline Giraud served so assiduously with her alert, graceful movements and her full, white arms. He seemed to hold the key to some enterprise which claimed the attention of all under their masks of good fellowship, but Simpson did not yet consider the moment propitious for the unfolding of hidden plans.

He sat at the head of his table, with his guests ranged in two lines on either side, men well known in Dawson, the chief characteristic of whom was money. That was why they were present! If they had not had money to invest, they could have entered into no proposition with Simpson.

Jarmand, the fat, wealthy broker with the currant-roll neck and the oily insolence, was there; Fripps, the sour, thin, anæmic promoter, maintained his usual unobtrusive but nevertheless certain presence; a trio of capitalists of a somewhat similar stamp, keen-visaged but rotund-bodied, quelled their impatience successfully, while they secretly chafed at Simpson's dalliance, and awaited his proposition. These men were inseparable in any business prospect; they worked together, invested together, and stood or fell by a triumvirate judgment; and since their names began with the same letter–Cranwell, Crowdon, and Carr–they had been dubbed the three C's.

Where the three C's went in, the financial project need not be strictly legitimate. They had few scruples or qualms, and when they took hold of a mining scheme or a real estate deal, wise men kept out.

There were others present, probably a dozen in all, and among them Jim Laurance, who had come with a great deal of misgiving and scepticism on receipt of a letter from Simpson advising him of an opportunity of getting in on the ground floor right under the scoops of a dredging proposition.

And in preparation for his demonstration of ideas and plans, Grant Simpson bade them all enjoy themselves, setting the example himself with a free hand on the ladle of the punch bowl. Many followed his example from appetite; the three C's imitated, thinking of a relished business dessert as a sort of solace.

Famine might be threatening in the land of gold, but she had certainly no embargo on liquors and cigars. Both were indulged in without stint.

Blue, acrid wreaths of smoke filled the room, and the atmosphere became very warm. No one would have guessed it was forty below in the street, The two lines of guests at the table and the host at its head emptied glasses and refilled, tossed them off and ladled up again. Small talk hummed, and jests cracked out, more or less coarse in the intervals when pretty Aline Giraud was absent from the room during the different courses of the meal.

Jim Laurance, the only temperate one in the company, sipped his simple glass of punch sparingly, refusing the bottled stuff and the heavy wines. He felt disgusted and sorry that he had come, but he had money to invest if Simpson's thing suited him, and he settled himself to sit out the revel.

The roadhouse at Indian River had proved a good thing for Laurance. He had struck his Klondike right on that creek, and he was sane enough to know it. Instead of frittering away his coin on fool stampedes in hopes of a mighty strike, he was satisfied to invest it in sound mining securities and watch the dividends slowly grow. Such an enterprise, he hoped, was in Simpson's mind.

Simpson's wine, however, was more in Simpson's thoughts than the enterprise. He had unwisely glutted his taste for beverages with a tang, and he lost control of his manners as well as his senses, laughing boisterously and telling unsavory tales.

"Hi, there!" he would yell, skidding the empty punch-bowl down the table to Jarmand. "Fill her up, Fatty. You're the doctor. Put in something stiff–stiff enough to make your moustache stand! Something d–d stiff, Fatty!"

"That's it, Jarmand," gurgled Bonneaves, a young profligate and an especial chum of Simpson's. "Mix us a regular old hair-raiser. We're out for fun! Who's holding us down?"

"No one! No one!" shouted three or four of the muddled men, stamping on the floor and breaking into confused singing, which set up rumbling echoes through the other parts of the restaurant and went far to disturbing its customers.

"Tell us a story, Simp," said Jarmand. "Old Simp's the boy for spicy ones. Eh, men? You bet your liver-colored notes he is. Rip one off, Simp, there's a good fellow!"

Accordingly Simp ripped one off, a story that convulsed the drinkers but which made Laurance's blood boil. The one-time plainsman, now an Alaskan sourdough, sat very still, without the shadow of a smile upon his face.

Aline Giraud, accompanied by a waitress, an ugly, angular Danish woman, brought in the meats. These were bear steaks, slices of moose flank, and grouse in pairs, a veritable feast which would have fed a hundred poverty-pinched wretches in the outlying camps. The thought came to Laurance as he poised his knife and fork over the breast of a fat grouse dressed with sage dressing in a wonderful brown gravy.

"Seems hard to waste this here," he said simply, "when there's so many poor cusses starvin' round the Fields."

"To h–l with them!" cried Simpson, roughly. "What we have, we got. Eh? We pay for it, and when you pay your way, the rest can go and be d–d to 'em. How's that?"

"Right," nodded Bonneaves. "You're always right, Simp. You're a wise old buck. Glad I've known you. You can show a fellow things. Here's to you, Simp!"

The talk grew louder and looser. As the gravies were being served, Simpson and Jarmand, exchanging winks, attempted a double surprise. The lawyer made a bungling effort to kiss Aline Giraud on the cheek, while at the same time the fat broker leaned forward and pecked at the waitress. The result was a startling surprise for Jarmand. The ham-like hand of the Danish woman descended with a resounding smack on the currant-roll neck of the broker.

The seated company roared at Jarmand. Jim Laurance frowned at Simpson and half rose from his chair, but Aline had succeeded in eluding the lawyer and fled through the doorway, the angry red showing in her cheeks.

"That's one on you, Fatty," tittered his friends. "Beautiful throw-down, that! Right place, too! Like another, Fatty? Better try again. Ho! ho!"

"Cheer up, old man," laughed Simpson, accepting the joke. "Better luck next time. Walk into the punch there, Fatty; you have a weak heart."

They walked into the punch till the third bowl failed to withstand the charges, and a fourth had to be mixed. Some of the men, unable to restrain their vivacity, arose and capered about the laden table, singing and playing the fool perfectly, and stopping only to refill empty tumblers.

The Danish waitress, now secure in the triumph of her first quick victory, held her ground undaunted, completing the serving of the banquet in spite of the noise. Aline, no longer entering the room, watched the progress of things through the doorway from the farther chamber. Somehow, this fine supper over which she had spent so much effort had not turned out as she had contemplated; things were getting beyond her grasp; her eyes grew anxious wide, and startled.

After all, she thought, it might not please Pierre. Even the bill would never compensate for the disgusting clamor and the humiliation.

Laurance had finished his single glass of punch and was drawing on his short, black pipe. He disdained the long, fat cigars of Jarmand and the three C's, and cursed the ill-smelling, coronet-banded cigarettes of Simpson and Bonneaves. The oddest figure in the group himself, he felt nothing but contempt for the others. The only thing about them he respected was the business instinct of their sober moments, and there seemed but little chance for a display of that now.

The Alaskan waited till the fourth bowl of punch ran low, hoping that Simpson would open his mouth to speak sound sense, instead of salacious nonsense, and tell them why he had invited them to supper, but when the concoction of a fifth bowl was begun, amid most uproarious hilarity, Laurance inwardly fumed, making up his mind that he would not sit there much longer.

Unconsciously, he was frowning through the drifting haze of smoke at his companions. There was no stern decorum present, nor any nicety of attire. To be sure, Simpson, as host, and Bonneaves, to imitate his model, wore dinner clothes, but the rest were dressed in the ordinary dress which occupation demanded. The three C's were in black broadcloth; Jarmand sported a suit of loud check pattern; Fripps favored grey, as wrinkled and faded as his skin. The others of the company were mostly mining men who had come in corduroys, with trousers stuffed in knee-high cruisers, and had hung fur coats and caps on the pegs behind their chairs. Laurance, travelling by dog-train to Dawson, wore the musher's outfit of the trails.

He looked rough and uncouth, but very much a man. His beard was disreputable as ever; the iron-gray hair stood up stiffer and stubbier, allowing his rat ears to be seen; his nose peeped out, cherry-red and snub. He was lowering on the foolish antics of the rest of the men, and his keen blue eyes were narrowed so much that they did not flash.

"What's the matter with you, Laurance, old sport?" cried Bonneaves, joyously. "Look as if you'd buried your best friend in the punch-bowl!"

"Why," shouted Simpson, "if that's so, we'll resurrect him! Resurrect's the word, boys. Eh? How's that?" He seized the bowl in both arms and emptied it to the last drop in the array of glasses. Then he turned the dish upside down on the table and hammered upon its bottom, while the company roared as if he had done some extremely witty thing.

"What say, Laurance?" asked young Bonneaves. "Feel any better?"

"I feel like twistin' your cussed neck, young man," answered Laurance, wrathfully. "What did I come here for? To eat a decent meal an' talk business! I didn't come to swill meself–I'm certainly certain of that! We're men anyhow, an' there's no call for us to act like a lot of calf youngsters as can't pull the draw-string on their gullets. I say we're here to talk business!"

"H–l, yes," grunted Bonneaves, with the air of sudden recollection. "You're right, sport, now I come to remember. Simp did bring us here for a purpose, and that's no lie. Give us your scheme, Simp. Hot and heavy and fast–that's the way!"

Because their tastes palled a little, the others added their clamorous entreaties. Their exhortations made a confused babel:

"Hit it up, Simp! Uncork your oracle. Spread yourself quick, old boy. What's the tune now? Time we talked, by gad!" And Bonneaves nodded sagely at Laurance, muttering: "You're all right, sport. Simp's a wise buck, but you're a wiser! See? Attention, you duffers!" He secured order by pounding the board with the thick bottom of his tumbler.

"Simp's going to spout," he announced authoritatively. Noticing that the lawyer had engrossed himself with the opening of a champagne bottle, Bonneaves hastily added: "Why, no! Rat me if he isn't going to swallow! Here, Simp, that won't do. Put it away. Can't you see your friends are waiting?"

"I'm busy," protested Simpson, struggling with the cork. "It's all about that Yukon dredging business anyhow. I've taken it off Morris's hands since he's played the fool and disappeared, d–n him! I need backing. That's what I need. I can't go it alone!"

"What's the lay-out?" prompted Jarmand. "Put aside the bottle and get down to business."

Simpson flung away the opener as a useless thing and grasped a fresh one.

"Curse the bottle and curse the business," he fumed. "I'm busy, I tell you. Here, I have the prospectus. Read it yourselves, and you'll save my wind!" He drew some typewritten sheets from his breast-pocket and flung them upon the cloth.

What he had called the prospectus passed down the line at one side of the table, up again, and down the other side, greeted with grunts of approval by those still clear-brained enough to understand and with much head-wagging from such as were incapable of comprehension.

"Bully!"

"Standard bred!"

"Up to snuff!"

"Neat as garters!"

These were some of the comments from the appreciative assembly.

Last of all, the prospectus came to Jim Laurance. At the top of the sheet, in large typing, was the name, "Yukon Dredging Company." Underneath that reposed the list of directors, picked, apparently, from the group invited to supper. Jarmand's name appeared, and Fripps's, Bonneaves's, and the names of the three C's.

Laurance quietly read the sheets through, with their significance vitally impressing itself on him, and when he finished, he saw that he held the kind of thing which is circulated by thousands through the mails for the catching of suckers. It was the universally familiar, folded sheet that expounded the virtues of the greatest dredging proposition in the world.

"By gad," he cried, angrily shaking the prospectus in the air, "so this is what you've hauled me over here to back up, eh? A cussed, dirty, widow-an'-orphan robbin' swindle, if you ast me! An', gents, I give it to you straight: you're a pack of low faro dealers, a bunch of thimbleriggers, a handful of flimflammers if you put through that there deal. You're a ring of thieves and d–d blacklegs, gents!"

"Hold on there, sport!" yelled Bonneaves. "You go it too strong. We won't stand for all that."

"I can go lots stronger yet, young cocky-neck," warned Lawrence. "Why, I ain't half goin'. You should see me fizz some time, me son, an' you'd run your feet off for fear of bein' blowed up." He regarded the youthful profligate grimly, shaking his stubby scalp and gray beard aggressively, but in the corners of his eyes there lurked a humorous expression.

"Aren't you in on this?" asked Jarmand, rolling a wave of his oily insolence down the table to Laurance. "Aren't you taking hold? There's money in it!"

The Alaskan eyed him squarely.

"Not the kind of money I want," he said severely. "Not me own kind, by a thousand yard shot! I don't want no widow's mites or orphan's pennies; I don't steal no wimmen's savin's nor the hard-earned dollars of some poor laborin' cuss as thinks the Yukon is one whoppin' lump of gold an' all we got to do here is to file up our finger-nails and claw it off in pieces. No, sir, count me out! An' I'll see some law-sharp an' have you gents counted out, too. You don't work this here game so easy. I'm certainly certain of that! You can't rob people so d–d bare-faced. No, sir, you truly can't. Why, this here would be wors'n jumpin' all the claims on Samson Creek!"

Laurance's glance rested full on Grant Simpson as he uttered his bold words, and the lawyer looked up with suspicious, drink-steeped eyes.

"What the devil's wrong with this thing?" he demanded angrily. "What puts your back up?"

"Look here," snapped Laurance, pointing to the typewritten sheet. "You claim to have one hundred miles river frontage, or 'bout ten thousand acres, on Indian Creek. You bought it from the Government! Pretty lie, if you ast me! Clear title from them, and all the rest of the high-falutin's! Pah!–it turns me sick. For you haven't a yard–not one d–d yard. I'm there, an' I know!"

The Alaskan's vehemence drew the attention of everyone, drunk or sober.

"An' you have two dredges at work, expectin' a third," he went on, continuing to read from the prospectus. "That's a crackin' good Sunday paper joke. What does it mean?"

"Well," growled Simpson, "we will have. We intend to."

"The devil you do," said Laurance. "You'll put the money in your pocket an' keep it there. To h–l with your prospectus!" He tore the sheets in half and threw the fragments on the floor.

Simpson laughed. He viewed the whole affair with colossal unconcern. In its time he could proceed with the venture at immense gain to himself and the others. It must be postponed, in spite of it being the reason for the assembly, because, just now, wine was a much more important thing.

"You don't have to plunge," he commented. "Stay out if you can't like it."

"Yes, but he doesn't need to give us extra work," interposed Jarmand, expostulating about the torn prospectus.

"Have an ice, Laurance." advised young Bonneaves. "It'll cool you down."

"I'll have nothin'," Laurance growled, reaching for his coat. "I don't hanker after suppin' with them as I now know is thieves."

At the host's call, the Danish waitress brought in the ices on a tray, while Jim Laurance muffled himself in his coat.

"Where's Aline?" Simpson asked, assuming the privilege of familiarity.

"My mistress?" said the waitress. "She will serve no more. She will not enter."

"But she'll have to," cried Simpson, flushing with anger and obstinacy. "Tell her to run in and serve immediately or I shall come after her and kiss both her cheeks instead of one."

The Danish woman flounced out, and Jarmand involuntarily put his fingers to his fat neck.

"You see," explained Simpson, "it isn't like as if I hadn't paid her for the supper and for occupying her room. And, by the way, this isn't the only room!" He nodded and laughed evilly, adding: "The hubby's on the trails."

Laurance's coat went off his back with a reverse of the motion which was putting it on. The garment flew into one corner, and the owner's voice rang out across the room like the clank of good steel.

"By heaven, Simpson," he roared, "you can't throw one speck of mud on Pierre's wife. You'll eat dirt for it. You're a d–d dago-hearted liar!"

Laurance sprang along behind the row of chairs to reach Simpson at the table's head, but a hand caught his elbow as he passed the side door and whirled him about. With the suddenness of an apparition, he saw Pierre, in musher's dress, fresh from the trails, filling the entrance with his bulk, so that the white face of Aline had to peer under the arm which held Laurance back.

"Dis for me, camarade," murmured Pierre, pushing the Alaskan behind him.

Giraud then walked quickly past the astonished men till he stood in front of Simpson. Very deliberately he gazed at him.

"M'sieu'," he said, "you wan coward. You wan dam coward!" And his open palms gave Simpson a stinging blow on either cheek.

The lawyer lashed out with both hands and feet, but Pierre grasped him by the throat and shook him like a long rag. Bedlam broke loose! Chairs and tables were overturned as the half-dazed revellers jumped up. Aline's screams were mingled with the crash of glass and chinaware. Jarmand, Bonneaves, and two or three more of Simpson's friends rushed to his assistance, bent on violence toward Pierre, but Jim Laurance swung on them sharply, with eight inches of blued, cylindrical steel glittering in either hand.

"Back there," he yelled, "every man-jack of you, or I'll plug you with these gas-pipes!"

The glinting light on the dull, ugly Colts daunted them no more than the determined gleam in the eyes of the man behind. The rescuers fell aside like gale-blown gravel and remained glued to the wall.

Pierre Giraud set the lawyer on his feet. The voyageur's face was pale and rigid.

"M'sieu'," he said, "you lak wan feather in my hand. Ah no be go fight wit' you dat way, 'cause dat not be fair. Mais you geeve Aline wan insult–de wors' insult dat man could geeve! An' Aline, she lak wan leetle w'ite saint. M'sieu'," and he tapped Simpson's shoulder, "wan of us be keel here. Ah keel you, fair, or you keel me. Tak' de choice of dose!" He indicated Laurance's pistols.

It was no orthodox duel. There occurred no pacing, no arrangement, no seconding, no counting! Laurance put one weapon in Simpson's hand, whipped the other over to Giraud, and stepped between the door-jambs, screening the thing from Aline.

Abruptly the shooting began, the revolvers spurting jets of flame through the blue haze of the room, whose atmosphere thickened into swirling wreaths with every report.

It was a scene of the wildest disorder, with the overturned tables and chairs and shattered glass below; lights above, swaying to the explosions of the pistols; at the sides the lines of awed yet excited men flattened against the walls; the anxious Laurance and the frantic, white-faced wife in the side entrance; guests fleeing from the other parts of the establishment with shrieks and clamor; and in the centre of it all the two combatants manoeuvring in the mist of smoke to avoid being hit, advancing and firing swiftly as they advanced.

Simpson shot the faster, with wild, deadly, malevolent hatred; Giraud directed his weapon with slower deliberateness, ruled by one earnest, avenging impulse. The room rocked to the deafening reverberations of the pistols; the bullets went pang-panging on the wainscoting; the jets of flame turned to crossed spears stabbing through the smoke.

In ten seconds the men were within gun-reach in the centre of the floor. Simpson's sixth ball broke the skin on his opponent's neck, but Giraud's fifth went hurtling through the lawyer's brain.

Simpson sagged in a little heap of black tuxedo and white starch, his brow stained with spurting red. Aline Giraud was sobbing on Pierre's breast, but Laurance roused him roughly to an acceptance of realities.

"Hit it, an' hit it quick!" Jim urged vociferously. "The Mounted will be here on the run in a minnit. Gad, that firin' must wake up the whole town. Where's the dog-train? Is it unhitched?"

"Non," answered Pierre, speaking like a man in a dream, "she be in de yard lak Ah left her."

"Come on, then," whispered Laurance, pulling him out.

Aline clung to him piteously, and Pierre embraced her with a swift, despairing, passionate gesture. Then he put her from him with an effort that was agony.

"He'll come back," consoled Laurance, "as soon as this blows over. Come on, Pierre. I hear runnin'."

They were gone on the instant, leaving Aline Giraud with her sweet, white face upturned in prayer and her hands clasped in an attitude of fear, parting, and renunciation.

When the uniformed men of the Mounted Police filled the room where Simpson lay dead, Pierre was galloping his dog-team at full speed up the ice-trail of the Klondike.

"Hit it for the Thron-Diuck camps," Laurance had advised. "They're somewhere in them mountains. An' lie low till I send you word by an Indian."

That was how Pierre, heading for the Thron-Diuck encampments near the Klondike's source, found Rex Britton four days later, half dead from starvation and exposure, with his last burned match in his pocket, ravings on his tongue and delirium in his brain, about fifteen miles from Five Mountain Gulch.

CHAPTER XVI.

"Sergeant, this is the devil's own country!" exclaimed Cyril Ainsworth, as he stood outside the Mounted Police post at the head of Lake Bennett.

Sergeant Church laughed heartily. It was late spring and just about the worst time for mosquitoes and black-flies.

"Your introduction to the country hasn't been an exactly pleasant one," he replied, "but it is better than the winter."

"I can't see why men will bury themselves here," the lawyer complained, "especially a man like Britton!"

"He struck it rich," Church said. "He's worth two millions. Yes, Britton's one of Dawson's big guns now!"

"That's no reason for remaining coffined," Ainsworth snapped. "Why doesn't he come back to England and live a civilized life? Then we would know where to find him when he is wanted, without crossing an ocean and a continent and traversing a God-forsaken wilderness as big as the motherland!"

A constable of the post came up from the lake.

"The canoe's ready, sir," he reported, with a salute.

Ainsworth and Sergeant Church moved toward the shore. The lawyer had come in over the summer trail from Dyea, the White Pass Railway from Skagway to Lake Bennett being as yet only a talked-of project, and his many experiences had been not altogether comforting ones.

"It is a pity you cannot wait for the steamer," Church observed. "Canoe travelling is very hard when one is not accustomed to it."

"D–n the steamer!" exploded Ainsworth. "I am told that these boats run weeks behind their schedules. What use is that to a man on urgent business? You inhabit a devil of a country, sir."

Sergeant Church laughed again, wondering silently how Ainsworth's system and precision would avail against the numerous unforeseen contingencies of that broad Northland.

They reached the landing, where a thirty-foot Peterborough waited in care of two brawny Chilcoot men, named Dave and Pete, who had lost the other sections of their respective cognomens, along with their former identities, somewhere in the place of long trails.

The canoe was a roomy one, moderately fast, and fairly light on the portage, a necessity for the Dawson trip. Pete trimmed the packs in it very carefully so as to give fine balance when he should take the stern, with Dave in the bow and their passenger between them.

"We put in the canned stuff an' the fly grease," volunteered Dave, with a sly wink at Sergeant Church.

The sergeant pulled furiously at his moustache to hide a smile, and mumbled some comment on the adverse wind over Lake Bennett.

The grizzled Pete, meanwhile, was scrutinizing Ainsworth's legs with an unappreciative eye. The lawyer had thought that English riding breeches would be a very suitable thing for roughing it on the canoe trip, and had donned a tightly-cut pair, together with the accompanying leggings.

"They'll git down the leggin' an' clean through them pants," Pete sagely observed.

"What?" asked Ainsworth.

"The flies," answered Pete, "they'll make mosquito-nettin' of them leg-o'-muttons. Git some overalls an' cruisers if you don't want to be drilled like a honeycomb."

Ainsworth recognized the wisdom of this advice, even if he resented its criticism, and went back to the post with Church. When he appeared again, he was attired in eighteen-inch cruisers, tough duck overalls, and flannel shirt with vest, to keep the bloodthirsty black-flies from stabbing through.

"You look some Christian-like," commented Pete, in a low tone. Then aloud he added: "You're fit to fight them black divils now! Let's hit her up!"

They did hit it up over Bennett, with Sergeant Church waving them farewell from the post.

Ainsworth had never been in a canoe, having ridden a ten-ton barge down from Linderman, and the apparent unstability of the craft appalled him, though he took particular pains to conceal his concern. It required considerable effort to preserve an unruffled mien, and Pete noticed that the lawyer's white fingers gripped the gunwale like a vise. Lake Bennett offered a thirty-mile pull, and with every mile the blustering headwind increased till it blew a smothering gale.

"This ain't no tug-boat," Pete growled, at last. "Git out yon extra paddle."

Ainsworth gasped. He had not expected that he would be ordered to help with the locomotion when he was paying his men ten dollars each a day and a bonus if they landed him in Dawson by the date upon which it was necessary for him to be there in Britton's interests. He began to wish he had waited for the steamer, and he made a mild protest to the grizzled stern paddler.

"This isn't in the bargain," he said confidently.

"No, nor this sea ain't in the bargain," returned Pete. "Paddle, durn you! Do you want to git swamped?"

The big, swinging waves drenched them, and Ainsworth fell to work with the extra paddle. They made some headway thus, though the lawyer had to alternately paddle and bail, but the gale grew worse and forced them to creep along the shore.

There the three men fought the squall, wading in the shallow water and pulling and shoving their canoe through the pounding surf. It was Ainsworth's first baptism, and the gods of the north had conspired to make it thorough enough.

That night they camped on Cariboo Crossing amid the black-flies and mosquitoes. These made a specialty of dining upon Ainsworth. He was a tender, fresh cheechako, much more inviting than the leathern-skinned, calloused sourdoughs, Dave and Pete.

While the Chilcoot men pitched the tent, Ainsworth batted the flies. They came in ravenous swarms, bent upon participating in a treat, and Ainsworth wrapped Cariboo Crossing and its environment in a haze of sulphurous expressions. Because he was in shelter where the wind could not reach them, the black pests covered his face and neck; they drifted from the thickets like mist wracks and made the camping hour unbearable for the lawyer.

Presently, however, Pete had the stringing of the tent all finished; had anchored the ends, ballasted the sides, and banked it about with moss to keep out the pests at night. Then, as Dave made a couch of pulled boughs for their passenger, he built a smoky fire.

"Git in that," he said to the lawyer. "It'll fix 'em."

Ainsworth found to his satisfaction that the dense smudge relieved him of his winged assailants. He stood in it so long that Pete, smiling to himself, built another fire, upon which he cooked bannocks and fried fish caught in the lake.

They ate their evening meal, protected by the smoke, and Ainsworth, lying back with lighted pipe, watching Pete bake flapjacks for the next day, experienced a comfortable, soothing sensation. The long twilight of the Northland died, and the dark marched over Bennett. Upon the clean rock they had picked as a camping place their twin fires shone with a ruddy glow against the dark green of the shrubbery and blocked out their canvas like some giant white moth among the bushes.

Northern insects and lizards sang and crooned in voices strange to Ainsworth; strange noises of the darkness echoed and ceased; the stars wheeled slowly, and the crimson camp blaze faded to amber coals.

"Put your head under the blanket an' keep her there," was Pete's warning, as they turned in.

Ainsworth tried to obey, but decided that the observance of such a decree would result in suffocation. He preferred to endure agony and live, for though the tent had been well prepared, it was impossible to keep out all the mosquitoes.

They sang in falsetto choruses above the sleepers' heads. Dave and Pete could hear the lawyer's stifled imprecations and vicious slappings till slumber overpowered them.

By morning Ainsworth was pretty well chewed, and stupid with loss of sleep. He bathed in the lake water while the others got breakfast, but the experiment was painful. The flies feasted on him while he undressed, whenever his head and shoulders rose above the surface, and when he dressed again. It seemed that they recognized no intermissions and countenanced no union hours.

On Tagish Lake an exasperating headwind baffled the canoeists as on the preceding day. Ainsworth soon caught the swing of the paddle, and his blade flickered and dipped in time with those of the steerer and the bowman.

Striking the sweep of the rolling waves, he had to bail until they could no longer make any advance. Along the shoreline they went overboard, Dave hauling ahead with the towline, while the lawyer and Pete pushed on the canoe through the nasty breakers. Hour by hour they struggled strenuously and unceasingly, the surf soaking them to their necks. Ainsworth did not like it, but the wet was better than flies.

A halt was made at Tagish Post for rest and recuperation, after which they pushed on with more favorable weather through Lake Marsh and reached the head of Box Cañon. The strip of water between it and the foot of White Horse Rapids is treacherously bad, so they portaged where they could not line, and skirted the famous chutes.

Five Finger Rapids gave them a tough struggle, and snags capsized them twice, but they accomplished the descent on the third attempt and entered deep river water. Here the current ran tremendously strong, and only where they could not tow did they use the paddles. Towing was heart-breaking work, the ragged undergrowth, splintered rocks, and bays, necessitating ugly wading, proving drains on their strength. They fought the racing currents with the short, snappy Indian stroke and drove through swirling whirlpools, called eddies, at the expense of all their reserve power. At the Police post on the Big Salmon they slept like dead men, and started late the next day.

The rest of the canoe route into Dawson was not so trying. They made up some lost time and reached Dawson City on the date Ainsworth had set as the limit within which he had promised the bonus.

"You win, men," Ainsworth said, as their trim craft rocked in the swell of a steamer which had just cast off her shore-lines when they neared the wharf.

"We do, sure," grunted Pete, with a complacent smile. "When we calculate on doin' somethin' by a set time, it's generally done, ain't it, Dave?"

"It is, sure," Dave agreed, his interest being more attracted by the bustle on the landing than the discussion of what they had done.

The bank was lined with Dawson's inhabitants, for the boat service was the most vital part of their existence, and their attention hung on the arrival or departure of every steamer. A mixed assemblage covered the small dock, and in it were Indians, traders, capitalists, prospectors, dog-mushers, and women. The boat itself carried a number of passengers, and a great cargo of outgoing baggage and freight littered its decks. The big paddle-wheels churned fiercely in the stream, and a dinning clamor of farewell rose up from those on the shore as the Yukon boat swung with the middle current.

The Peterborough took the place alongside the wharf which the steamer had vacated, and the three occupants at once became objects of inspection.

"Hullo, Dave! Hullo, Pete!" their friends among the crowd greeted.

"Where ye bin?" asked Old Jim Parsons, a famous and ancient musher. "Bin sort o' travellin' some, hain't ye?"

"Runnin' against time," Pete grinned, "an' we win! Where's that big gun you call Britton?"

"Gone down the river just afore ye come," answered a voice in the throng. "Seen him take his canoe! He ain't gone more'n five minutes."

"Ah!" mused Ainsworth, "so he doesn't ride in a launch now!"

Old Jim Parsons shuffled his feet irritably on the landing.

"Launch!" he ejaculated in high scorn. "Don't ye know he's the best blade on the river? No dod-blasted sputter-boat fur him!"

The old musher's snort of indignation followed them down the stream, and Ainsworth chuckled in a satisfied manner. After all, a man who preferred his canoe to a launch was man enough to listen to sound reason.

They ran upon him suddenly in a little bay some distance down stream. He had paddled easily, being out for an evening hour, and beached his canoe on the shingle of a half-submerged river bar. He sat upon a rock at the water's edge, smoking and looking into the depths.

As they approached, Ainsworth discerned another figure near Britton.

"He's not alone," he commented. "Do you know the person who is with him?"

Pete stared under his hand, for the evening sun slanted over the wooded ridge with a dazzling glare which prevented easy vision.

"No, by gad," he said in a loud whisper, "fur it wears skirts!"

The bowman was startled, and his brown palm also shaded his dark eyes.

"It does, sure," Dave gasped. His serenity was so disturbed that, he thumped the gunwale with the paddle grip.

"Blast you," snarled the outraged Pete, "do you want him to think we're a pair of bloomin' skiff-rowers?" Dave subsided in discomfiture at the deserved reprimand.

Britton had caught the thump, and looked up.

"Ye gods," he cried, "a miracle! A miracle has come to pass!" Beneath his flippancy there ran a vibrant tone of delight.

"Yes, a miracle of exertion!" Ainsworth asserted. "I've undertaken a cursed journey for your sake, Britton; I have been pounded, devoured, and drowned in the effort to get here by the thirtieth of July. Take my word for it that I don't want another similar trip. It has been a devilish task. Ask the men!"

"It has, sure," the Chilcoot men said in one voice, without waiting to be questioned.

The Peterborough had drawn in close to the perpendicular rock upon which Rex Britton sat, and they could not then see the woman who was sitting on the lower beach near the other canoe where it rested on the bar.

"And why this haste, O prophet?" Britton laughed. "And why this trip, at all?"

"When a man buries himself alive and his resurrection becomes necessary, someone has to attend to that rising," Ainsworth said. "The someone is very often his legal adviser!"

Britton smiled with a touch of tenderness. He loved Ainsworth for his odd, swift manners of action and speech and for his unalterable fidelity. An inkling of the trend of events had come to him, but he could not show it, and Ainsworth's solicitude was comforting.

"Still, I am completely in the dark," he persisted.

"Then you haven't much perception," the lawyer growled. "The Honorable Oliver Britton is dead, and he has left you Britton Hall!"

Rex sprang upright on the rock in his astonishment; then laughed shortly, as he resumed his seat, stuffing nervously at his pipe.

"That won't go down," he observed sardonically. "I remember what my uncle said to me that last night in Sussex."

Ainsworth leaned out of the packs in the middle of the canoe, speaking in an eager, intense voice.

"Can I read testaments?" he asked. "Do I know law?"

"As none other in England," Rex replied softly.

"Then believe what I have told you," the lawyer said. "I play with no one, and I wish no one to play with me. Your uncle died last month of pneumonia. Britton Hall is willed to you!"

Rex thrust a muscle-wrapped arm over the rock. "Come up," he said, "and tell me all about it. Tell me what they are doing at home. How's Trascott and–and the old place?" His eyes were alight because the sea-girt downs of Sussex still had a spell for him.

Ainsworth stood up carefully in the centre of the Peterborough while his men balanced it against the granite with flattened paddles. He put the toe of one scarred cruiser in a crack of the perpendicular wall, and grasping the outstretched hand, he was lifted to a seat beside Britton.

"Trascott's fine," the lawyer said, "and the old place is as green as ever. We both had a grand run over it with the hounds just before your uncle was stricken. The fox was started in that bit of furze by Bowley Creek, where we used to snare rabbits when you were a kid and I was proud of my 'teens,' and went away with the pack in full cry over Cranston Ridge.

"A good many of the hunters came croppers at that marshy brook and high hedge fence, but Trascott and I stuck on with the best of them. We were first in at the finish beyond Bramfell Heath, and we got the brush."

"It must have been a good run," Rex breathed. "I can see every stick and stone of it now. Yes, I could ride it blindfold if I were back there."

The lawyer put his hand on Britton's thick, brown arm.

"You're going back with me," he said calmly. "It's not a matter of desire but a case of responsibility; yet if you would rather follow desire, there are enough attractions over home.

"Who wouldn't want to be lord of the finest estate in the county? Then there is the yacht–it goes to you–and the stables of hunters and polo ponies; there is the London mansion which is part of the property; the pheasants are a prime lot, and the trout streams have been lately stocked."

Ainsworth paused to let stirring memories work their effect.

"And the responsibility?" Britton asked after a moment's silence.

"That clinches things," Ainsworth declared. "It is incumbent upon you to fitly fill your uncle's place. They want you back home! The servants are awaiting their young master; the cricketers and polo players have you already on the teams; the sailors rejoice because you will command them; hostesses all over the county have sent me social invitations in view of your return to England. You must go back, Britton, for the sake of the Britton name. You must perpetuate the name and the lineage!"

The lawyer became so earnest that he gestured with his arms in an unaccustomed fashion, while Rex gazed thoughtfully at the broad river swirls laving the white shore-line and spraying overhanging bushes. The sun showed a half disc of crimson above a distant bluff, sending a last flood of ruddy light over the spot where the two friends reclined; below them the tired Chilcoot paddlers nodded in their motionless craft lying close against the seamed wall of ironstone; the curve of the rock shoulder still hid the woman, who had not moved from the beach.

"Suppose I don't go back," ventured Britton, dreamingly.

"If you don't, it all goes to the auctioneer's block. Your uncle put a condition and a date in his will. You either take possession within two months or they sell the estate for charity."

Rex sprang up a second time, spurred by Ainsworth's announcement.

"Sell Britton Hall!" he cried. "By my soul, they had better not think of it. I would come from the grave to prevent that!"

"Thank the Lord," breathed Ainsworth, in immense relief. "I haven't labored in vain!"

He arose also and seized Britton's hand. "Swear on this handshake!" he ordered, and Rex took the vow.

"Now that you have promised, I can tell you something else," the lawyer observed. "I am glad that I did not have to use it as a means of influencing you. Boy, listen! They want you to represent New Shoreham."

Ainsworth made the declaration with a tinge of paternal pride.

"They want me!" Britton exclaimed. "I couldn't do it. I–why–"

"Never mind," interrupted his friend, "I know your objections by heart, the depreciation of your abilities and all the rest of it. Let that pass, and give ear to common sense! The community of New Shoreham has gone from bad to worse since Oliver Britton chucked its representation for the diplomatic service. The name of Britton was a power there with the lower classes and the aristocracy alike, but during the last few years, its want has been felt. The place has been torn by political strife, rival factions, and unscrupulous candidates.

"They want a Britton to lead them again. After your uncle's retirement, the big men pleaded with him to enter the arena once more, and I believe he would have yielded to their entreaties had death spared him.

"Now they clamor for you in his stead. Only a Britton will satisfy them. Commercial interest as well as political prosperity hangs on that name. Don't offer refusal! I won't hear of it; Trascott will not listen to it; and no member of the place can bear its mention."

Ainsworth's vehemence wakened the paddlers, and they slapped the water idly with their blades. The crimson disc of the sun had vanished. The river surface changed to a perfect violet hue.

"It's a big thing," said Britton, slowly–"tremendously big, and it has come like a Bennett wind!"

"The day of nomination is the same date that your uncle fixed for the condition of taking possession," Ainsworth remarked. "Thus there was a double reason for my haste, and the reasons still hold. We must make a start for home immediately. Delays may arise, and we can't run the thing too fine."

Rex knocked the dead tobacco from his pipe on the heel of his prospecting boot.

"Yes," he mused, "we'll go back to the downs, but my comprehension is still slow."

"If you serve well, they'll put the word 'Honorable' before your name," his friend commenced in a lighter vein. "Then you know there's the daughter of the Duchess! You used to be sweet on her when you were attending Oxford."

Britton started suddenly at a recollection, though not at the one Ainsworth had prompted, and looked toward the river bar.

"Yes, tell me what the woman is doing there," the lawyer begged, following his glance. "I have refrained from asking any questions."

"She is painting a sunset scene," Rex replied in a hard, overstrained tone. "She likes to be quite alone when sketching."

Then he called out: "Mercia! Have you finished?"

"One moment, Rex," a bell-like voice answered from the shingle. "I am nearly through."

"Let us go down," Britton suggested, offering no explanation as to who the lady was.

They crunched down upon the gravel, and mental association of an unconscious variety brought Ainsworth the remembrance of another woman, the woman who had come across their course at Algiers.

"Where are Maud Morris, her husband, and Simpson?" he asked.

"Maud Morris is in Dawson," Britton replied. "The other two are dead."

"Dead!" echoed the lawyer, in genuine amazement.

"Yes," said Rex, "Morris succumbed from drink and exposure at Samson Creek two days ago. He had taken some winter side-trip which was too much for his constitution. They said his wife had the decency to go to him on his death-bed."

"And Simpson?" eagerly inquired Ainsworth.

"Pierre Giraud shot him for insulting Giraud's wife, last winter."

"Jove!" exclaimed the lawyer. "Your North believes in swift justice. What was done with the voyageur?"

"He escaped to the wilds," Rex said, "but returned later, and was arrested by the Mounted Police."

Ainsworth indulged in no comment because they had reached the woman painter. She turned, smiling, at their footsteps, and the lawyer stared dazedly at the image of Maud Morris.

"Mercia," said Britton, "this is Ainsworth, the friend of whom I have so often spoken. Ainsworth, let me present my wife!"

The beautiful, girlish figure held out her hand, but the lawyer recoiled, glancing angrily at Rex.

"What trick is this?" he cried, but when he studied the sweet face before him again, his senses received a shock.

He bent forward, using his keen eyes more searchingly, and surveyed her with a scrutiny well nigh rude. It gradually dawned on him that this was not Maud Morris but someone moulded in her likeness with a purer, intensified beauty.

"Forgive me, forgive me!" he burst out impetuously. "I mistook you for a woman who is–who is not fit to be any man's wife." He seized her both hands now and pressed them respectfully and penitentially.

Britton took his wife's arm with an air of jealous ownership while she gazed up at him, a tremulous expression of wonder in her eyes as if the action were new to her and unexplainable.

"No," said Rex, somewhat passionately, "this isn't the other woman whom you know, Ainsworth. Mercia is the soul which the other never had!"

CHAPTER XVII.

Lady Rossland's reception for the New Shoreham candidate on the evening preceding the nomination day was a thing of note.

For the space of ten hours, Britton had been out among his constituents with Lord Rossland, Ainsworth, and Trascott, who had come down from his London work to witness the honors bestowed upon his friend. At seven o'clock, Rex returned alone to Britton Hall, the curate and the lawyer having gone on with Rossland to his country-seat, where the function was to be held.

The strain of canvassing had been more wearisome than a day of Yukon mushing, but dinner and a bath refreshed him. Upstairs, he called his wife's maid.

"At what time has your mistress ordered the carriage?" he asked.

"Nine o'clock, sir,–if that will suit you." The maid spoke almost timidly, as if she recognized some gulf between husband and wife, and feared that their plans for the evening might conflict.

"That will do very well," Britton decided. "Tell her I will await her at nine."

He crossed to his own suite and entered the bedroom, where Bassing, his man, had laid out his clothes. He knew the room of old, and a glow of possession thrilled him. The magnificence of its appointing was a delight. The heavy furniture, the lofty fretted ceiling, the ponderous chandelier, and thick Oriental curtains, unaltered in setting for three generations, gave an impression of stability which had a far-reaching effect. His grandfather had slept, as he himself slept, in the high canopied bed with its massive carved corner posts, and ancestral pride buoyed up Britton to the heights of egotism.

He dressed slowly and carefully, with a due consciousness of the relation between appearance and personality, and descended the stairs at five minutes to nine. The carriage had not yet drawn up in the driveway, nor had Mercia come from her apartments. By the door stood Crandell, the footman who had served his uncle, and who regarded the advent of the young master with satisfaction.

For five minutes Rex waited, and the carriage wheels shrieked on the gravel as the driver wheeled his horses sharply in front of the great arched entrance. A silver-chimed clock pealed nine in the drawing-room, and the soft rustle of Mercia's garments sounded on the stairway.

Britton looked up involuntarily, his face flushing slightly. His wife's beauty was a revelation to which no man could deny homage; she carried herself with distinction enhanced by a peculiar, free rhythm of movement which is a heritage of the life in the open. Her individuality seemed a blending of youthful bloom with a certain mature, womanly power born of the true conception of existence.

And marring her sweet winsomeness, was a scarcely observable flaw, a cold reserve maintained, apparently, not of inward intention but by the outward pressure of circumstance. This unbidden attribute matched Britton's unemotional, respectful attitude, presenting, as it were, foil to foil in the guarding of a common neutrality.

"Let me hold your cloak," he said deferentially.

She suffered his help with a distant, though polite, acknowledgment, and Crandell opened the door. The horses pranced impatiently upon the white sand before the portico, and Mercia hurried out. Her husband followed quickly, handed her in, and they dashed away.

The drive to Rossland House was made practically in silence. Britton spoke once, remarking on the hot night and predicting rain.

Outside Lord Rossland's grand country-seat their equipage fell in line, stopped at the steps, and let them down. They found themselves traversing the length of the front hall, which opened on the splendid reception-rooms.

It was nearly twelve months since Britton had mingled with society of this class, that is, of his own county, and he experienced the feeling of an actor who plays an unfamiliar part. The sensation stamped his bearing and augmented that chill reserve which had never been present before he left England. He attempted to shake it off in the exchange of greetings with Lord and Lady Rossland and others. In this he succeeded to a certain degree, and when he had made the round of presentation as the coming member, the contact with his fellows wore away the shyness.

He was separated from his wife, and, flattered by Rossland's patronage and amused by Ainsworth's ironic comment on everything they saw, Britton's affability grew more marked.

Toward the supper-hour he found Mercia again in the rooms, in company with Lady Rossland.

"Here is the truant," cried her ladyship, laughing. "We searched everywhere for you, sir."

"No truant, my dear," put in Lord Rossland. "I have been heaping his responsibilities upon him."

"But here is a responsibility he has forgotten–his wife," objected Lady Rossland, in feigned reproach. "Reginald, take her in to supper. A score of men have begged the honor, but I have been obdurate for your sake!"

Britton bowed ostentatiously, catching her ladyship's bantering spirit, yet a shade of that cloudy reserve dampened his manner as he took his wife's arm. They passed on to the supper-rooms, with the Rosslands leading and his lordship's sister behind with Kinmair, editor and owner of The Daily Challenge, one of the most powerful organs in London. Kinmair, next to Lord Rossland, was Britton's staunchest supporter.

They made a merry group at the profusely decorated tables, and because the evening grew so warm in spite of wide open doors and swinging casements, the quarter-hour's refreshment proved grateful.

"Now," announced her ladyship, when they emerged from the roses and palms, "you are thrown upon your own resources. There are the galleries, the gardens, billiards, and cigars! You may play bridge up-stairs, dance in the drawing-rooms, row upon the river, or interview the spirit reader in the conservatory."

Britton raised his eyebrows.

"Ah!" he smiled, "–a new departure?"

"It is all the rage in London now," explained Lord Rossland's sister, Dora. "Everyone has a theosophist at their evening functions to give a séance or read futures."

Rex laughed a little, thinking of the great, tight-locked Yukon where the issues of life and death prohibited any such toys or trifling.

"I–I am afraid I am somewhat behind the times," he ventured, looking at Mercia for a brief instant.

"Then you shall be initiated into the mysteries at once," cried Lady Rossland, "and I must conduct you to Madame Spiritualist. A politician should know his future. Should he not, Mrs. Britton?"

"If I were a politician, I should hardly dare to gaze on it," Mercia smiled. "Disappointment might be lying somewhere in wait."

"Men have no such fears," Lord Rossland blustered in his kindly way. "If they had, they would never reach the top, and Britton has, I believe, a brilliant career waiting for him. But, my dear, if you are going to act as his guide, I shall take Mrs. Britton through the galleries. She wished to see the paintings."

"Thank you, yes," said Mercia. "I have heard of your famous pictures, and I adore the art."

"She has the great gift, Rossland," observed Rex, turning aside with her ladyship, "and she may tell you things even about your own canvases."

Kinmair and Lord Rossland's sister went into the garden among the fountains, while Lady Rossland took her recruit to the conservatory. On the way they passed the billiard-rooms and saw Ainsworth engaged in his customary game with the redoubtable Trascott. Her ladyship smiled at their earnest devotion to the stroke.

"Your friends are fine men," she remarked appreciatively. "I doubt if there are in England two grander representatives of their respective professions."

"I believe you," agreed Britton, with a sudden gravity approaching severity, "but here we are."

They had reached the conservatory, and Lady Rossland's nephew came out with a slip of paper in his hand. Her ladyship bad commissioned him to act as the theosophist's assistant and play the part of scout. He was a slim, light-haired youth, and his aunt had insisted at his christening that he should be named Guy.

"Hello," said Guy, "your palmist has given me a list of guests for whom she wants to gaze. Here it is! You're first on the paper, Britton. See? Now go along and get through while I bring your successor."

He pushed Rex inside and closed the door, taking his aunt away with him.

"Now was that name on the list coincidence or design?" Britton asked himself before he came to the end of the conservatory's corridor.

One corner of the cool place had been curtained off with blue silk hangings as a retreat for the spiritualist. Her tiny tent was closed and lighted from within by a red-globed lamp which gave a subdued effect. The pavilion was arranged thus to give the palmist the advantage of illumination while her subject stood outside in partial darkness.

Rex felt awkward and ill at ease at the weighty sense of desolation which filled the long, empty conservatory. His footsteps paused uncertainly, but the waiting priestess heard them.

"Come closer please," she said in a muffled tone that sounded disguised.

Britton obeyed the summons with an increasing sensation of awkwardness for which he was at a loss to account. He stood so near the soft curtains that they brushed his body without weight, like fine cobwebs, and he could perceive a small horizontal slit in the pavilion's side which was not noticeable before. Set back of it, so as to block the vision and prevent an inspection of the interior, was a Japanese screen in weird colors.

His mind was filled with an irritation aroused by the feminine whim that had sent him to this place. The whole environment jarred on him as possessing an illusion disproportionate to his mental vision.

"Well?" he demanded in a voice which set the responsibility for his coming on the head of the person within the gaudy pavilion.

There was a noise inside that seemed like a smothered exclamation of surprise together with a vague rustle of woman's garments, and the same muffled tone as before became audible, though it seemed shaken and difficult to control.

"Extend your palms through the opening," was the subdued order of the spirit reader.

Rex hesitated. The incongruity of this dallying imbued a sort of rankling disgust for its exponent and an ashamed opinion of himself.

"You are a doubter?" the unseen spiritualist asked. Her inflection was one of sarcasm.

Britton laughed scornfully. "It is hardly worth while," he replied.

"But still you belong to the sceptic class," the voice insisted. "Please extend your hands. I promise you that you will be surprised at my methods."

Rex stirred his feet, the motion making an inordinately loud noise in the deserted place. He listened when the echoes ceased, but young Guy Rossland had not returned. He was doubtless having some trouble in finding Britten's successor.

"I promise to surprise you," repeated the palmist.

"Surprise!–yes," Rex assented. "Convincing is a different matter. You know I have not followed the fad."

"Nevertheless, I think conviction is hard upon you," came the declaration from the tent. "Will you give me a trial?" There was a defiant note in the question.

"That is but fair, now you speak of it," said Britton, mockingly. He thrust his arms through the slit with a total lack of ceremony.

A pair of soft, electric palms took his, and the current of the hidden woman's presence flowed through every vein in his body.

Rex stood immovable as if a secret shock had fixed his feet. He cried out with an inarticulate exclamation because he knew the touch, but his paralyzed vocal organs would frame no speech. A short, dramatic silence succeeded his outcry. The drone of a clumsy, waking fly beat distinctly on the panes; the creak of oar-locks on the river rose insistently through the open conservatory windows; beneath the sills the gentle plashing of the fountain water changed to a gurgle of wicked glee.

In the silence, Britton was beginning to find his self-possession, when the sorceress spoke, her voice now undisguised.

"It's centuries and ages since we were so close, Rex," she said–and the magnetic hands were glued to his in a melting, appealing touch. "Isn't it ages and ages?" she continued passionately.

Britten's answer was a cry like that of a trapped bear. He wrenched his hands loose, swept away the intervening curtains, as he once swept the silken portières from an old-time boudoir, and stood face to face with the siren it had held. She had taken off her veiled turban, and her eyes shone like stars, with a former potent lure.

CHAPTER XVIII.

Everything whizzed about Britton for a few seconds. In the red glow of light from the demolished pavilion, the floor throbbed and rocked like the deck of a yacht, and the glass walls of the conservatory tilted up sharply. Rex put a hand on the wire which had held the curtains and steadied himself.

"So it was design," he said harshly, accusingly.

One glance at his face told Maud Morris that honeyed words could not subjugate him. Appeal was rendered useless for her purpose; there remained compulsion. She stepped back a little at his grim anger till she leaned against some flowering vine in the corner window-box. Between them stood a small table on which rested the adjuncts of her pretended art.

"Yes," she corroborated, with a flicker of satire, "it was design. You know, Rex, that I have no faith whatever in coincidence. You believed me to be thousands of miles away in Dawson City?"

"Why have you dogged me?" demanded Britton, bluntly. "To impersonate Mrs. Grundy as you did last winter in that same place?"

"Was it so illy done?" she questioned in turn, with a cruel intonation. Her fingers broke a bloom from the vine, and she caressed it with her lips.

"It was art–fine art," Rex bitterly declared, "and it accomplished the intended purpose of involving me in an intricacy of despair. Your appearance here hints at a repetition of that trouble. Is that your object? Have you trailed me in order to work fresh mischief?" He spoke with the air of a man driven to bay, one whose impulse is to face and have done with a difficulty once for all.

"The question of mischief-making rests with yourself," Maud Morris temporized. "I admit that I followed you, faked connections with the Mahatma Institute in order to be present to-night––"

"Why to-night?" Britton interrupted, regarding the soulless thing searchingly.

"I wished to see you before tomorrow," the woman answered, "before you accept that nomination." She turned away a little to the open window and looked indifferently out upon the long, shadowed gardens, as if placing no weight upon her observation.

The action vindicated a former power of command, and a momentary triumph was obtained. Rex dropped his uplifted hand from the wire so swiftly that the tautened metal sang in a high-pitched crescendo, and he took two quick steps to her side.

"You are deeper than any Mahatma witch," he said tersely, "and there is something behind your words. Why did you wish to see me before the Convention tomorrow?"

There was a short pause while she picked reflectively at the sleeve of the loose Oriental gown which enveloped her supple body. Then she faced Britton squarely, her blue-green eyes glowing into his.

"Because you will never accept that nomination," she answered dramatically.

The unexpected shot told. Rex started, but the necessity of the moment recalled his sang-froid, and he showed no sign of inward perturbation.

"I surprise you?" She was feeling for the effect with both voice and eye.

"Surprise?" Rex parleyed. "Why should I be surprised at anything you do or say? My experience with and observation of you has been infinitely varied and valuably instructive. No, I am not at all astonished, only mystified. You will, of course, explain!"

She bit her lip in obvious displeasure at her failure to move him and at his cool criticism of her fickle, spiteful disposition, which had been revealed all too fully in times that were dead to Britton. She made a slight, almost imperceptible motion that brought her nearer to him.

"You will, of course, explain," Rex repeated, coldly attentive.

"Willingly!" she abruptly exclaimed. "The man who came alone out of Five Mountain Gulch can never represent New Shoreham when New Shoreham knows the facts connected with that great Five Mountain strike!" She met Britton's intense gaze with a level glance full of a subtle confidence and waited for his utter confusion, the anticipated result of her significant explanation.

But the anticipated result was not realized in that way! The perturbing effect she expected did not follow her pointed words. That they had any influence on Britton was shown only by the stiffening of his shoulders and the squaring of his stern jaw. The absence of fear, the presence of which had been exultingly foreseen by Maud Morris, tended to vaguely disconcert her.

"Your impression does not coincide with mine?" she asked at last, indecision being noticeable in her tone.

Britton reached out both arms, resting his palms heavily on the window-sill, and looked at her with head turned sidewise. His profile in the subdued red light was grim and powerful as granite sculpturing.

"Suppose," he began brusquely, "that New Shoreham knows. What is left for the man?"

Maud Morris smiled. "Your intuition is almost womanly," she said with returning assurance. "For the man? I should surely suggest some far-away, far-away part where no one knows or cares. There the man would easily find respite, especially if he had the companionship of, say, a very old friend, a–a friend whom perhaps he once regarded highly." Her meaning was flagrantly vivid. The night breeze stirred her garments, wafting a faint, enervating perfume to Britten's nostrils. The fountain water plashed timidly now, and the spectral shadows crouched on the clipped lawns. Over the thick woodland copse the angry lightning clawed the black horizon into a million red-edged fragments. Rex found himself in a position singularly difficult and unpleasant. It bordered even on the dangerous. Mingled irresolution and indignation handicapped him in a measure, but he decided to persevere in sounding this woman's intentions to the very bottom.

"Granted that the oblivion you speak of and the escape from consequence could be so found," Britton said, "there is a thing which you persist in overlooking, the possibility of the man having a wife."

A warning note of wrath accompanied Britton's last word. Any keen ear might have recognized it, but Maud Morris was so engrossed with the working out of the systematic project upon which she had embarked that she missed the voiced danger signal.

"I do not overlook that," she remarked with an inconsequent shrug. "I ignore it!"

All Britton's suppressed anger broke bounds and flamed to the surface. He whirled suddenly and struck his clenched right hand in the open palm of his left.

"Look here," he cried, coming to the point with a graphic directness which was a most creditable trait of his character, "I think I have grasped your meaning and your proposition. I must refuse this nomination, desert my wife, and disappear in a foreign country or you will tell what you know of Five Mountain Gulch. Am I right?"

"On the whole, yes," she replied, maintaining her brazen serenity in the face of his wrath. "I swore I would separate you from that little saint, and, before heaven, I will!"

"Why did you not act before, in Dawson?"

"I learned what I know at Samson Creek when Morris died," she said impetuously. "You had started for England when I got back to Dawson. I came on your heels, and I am to have my revenge."

"So your informant was Morris," Rex commented with a certain relief. "Do you expect to intimidate me by the use of a dying man's delirium, by means of some irrational tale? Let me tell you, Maud Morris, that I have walked too close to real danger to be frightened by a phantom!"

"Morris knew everything," she cried vehemently. "He followed you all the way up the Klondike to Five Mountain Gulch and saw you shoot Lessari."

Britton reeled, self-control shocked out of him.

"Morris did?" he stammered–"but it was self-defence–"

"Was it?" she interrupted, leering into his face with supercilious smiles. "Would the public believe it? Have you an atom of proof? You may say that the lack of proof, of substantiation, works both ways. That may be, but proof is not necessary for my purpose. The simple statement, the all-pervading rumor, the unpreventable scandal, will do far better. Do you see where you are now, Rex,–the old, proud Rex? Do you know where you are? Yes, you do–in my hand!" She slowly closed her outstretched fingers.

Egotistical triumph gleamed in her every lineament. Britton, wrestling with his deep problem, did not mark her expression, for he had made a vital discovery which filled him with mental disgust.

"I know now the mysteries of the poisoned dogs and the sled plunging into the abyss," he announced in a horrified way, "and I can tell you where your husband is at this moment. Morris is in hell, suffering torment for a double murder! Twice in that frozen wilderness he apparently compassed our destruction with the most diabolical intent. He is as guilty as if Lessari and myself had both died at his hand."

Britton's awful earnestness embarrassed her, but she made a pretence of laughing sceptically. Distant thunder echoed with her laugh in low growlings and mutterings, and the far-off rising downs were nakedly etched by vivid, incessant streaks of lightning as if the mountain spirits were working themselves up to a climax of passion that must culminate in a ruthless and pathetic tragedy.

The strains of the orchestra in the drawing-rooms were drowned by the threatenings of the storm, and Rex could hear people hurrying in from the gardens and lawns and from the river to reach cover and escape the expected deluge. An unconscious wonderment as to whether young Guy Rossland had lost himself in searching for the next man whose name was on the theosophist's list passed through Britton's mind. The false theosophist herself interrupted his pondering.

"If Morris is guilty through intent," she said, "what of your own deed?" The shallow mockery of her glance belied the sense of judicious importance she tried to attach to her utterance. Rex commenced to see at last that the woman was but playing for a stake and holding all the trumps.

"I feel no guilt, nothing but remorse," he replied, "for I stand clear of any deliberate act."

"But you cannot prove it," she cautioned. "Picture public condemnation and horror when they know!"

"Go and tell them," Rex fiercely returned, accepting with his accustomed thrill the combat which could not be averted.

"Ah!" she exclaimed. "Then with such permission I shall tell your wife first."

Britton winced visibly, and his face was bereft of its ruddy color. He caught the woman's wrists with the motion of crushing a venomous thing.

"Good God, you vampire!" he cried.

She had used some weapon known only to themselves, and, judging by its effect on the two standing thus, the weapon was one of incalculable cruelty.

CHAPTER XIX.

The conservatory door flew open with a rattle of shattered glass, admitting Lady Rossland and Mercia fleeing from the gardens amid the spattering raindrops.

"Oh!" they exclaimed simultaneously, on catching sight of the tableau where the silken tent had stood. "Oh!" Mercia's voice was low and hurt. Lady Rossland's rose up, pitched higher in an outraged tone.

Britton dropped the wrists he had grasped and turned toward the two women, humiliation written on his grave face, but the pride of Mercia would not allow her to wait for a forthcoming apology.

"I fancy we intrude," she said coldly. "Come, Lady Rossland, we can probably reach the house." Her ladyship wheeled across the doorstep, flashing back scornful eyes, and took Mercia's arm as they hurried out.

Rex gave an eager, pleading cry and darted forward.

"Wait," he cried entreatingly. "You are misjudging–"

But they were gone in the darkness, having raced up the gravel walk to the great illuminated house! The big, round drops wetted Britton's cheeks and dashed on his head. A moment he stood on the flags at the door, yearning to follow and explain, but a more vital and immediate necessity lay behind him in the conservatory.

He turned back, keeping himself forcibly in hand, determined on a summary and decisive dealing with the pregnant issue thrust upon him by Maud Morris.

"That," he said to her, "was the most humiliating thing any wife could see, yet it meant nothing at all!"

A change had come over her since the sudden apparition of the two women in the doorway. The fear of failure, inspired by the sweet, pure beauty of Mercia, seemed to hold her in its grip, and she called to her aid the old resource of alluring appeal.

"Don't say that, Rex," she pleaded, with a touch of pathos. "Have you altogether forgotten the old days? There must be memories sometimes!"

"No," said Britton, doggedly, "I could not remember them if I would."

"You are very trying," she murmured, petulant as a crossed child. "Can you not listen to reason?"

"There is only one way of reasoning soundly and in accordance with universal law," Rex answered with conviction. "That reasoning is along the line of right. I am prepared to follow it to the bitter end."

She looked up in amazement during a short interval.

"Do you realize all that your words imply?" she questioned incredulously. "I cannot think you do!"

"Yes, everything they imply," he answered, filled with the weary languor attendant upon nervous strain.

She was not left to surmise. Britton's meaning was plain. Her confidence began to shake.

"The alternative!" she began plaintively, "–surely you have understood me!"

"Too well," laughed Britton, harshly, "and I would rather go to prison–which I shall certainly not do, since, as you say, there is no proof!"

The woman's cheeks and brow went crimson with annoyance coupled with shame; she felt the demoralizing force of man's scorn.

"Rather than take that alternative, you will suffer me to tell Mercia?" she asked uncertainly.

"No," Rex answered in a ringing voice, "for I am going to tell her!"

She gasped. "You!" she exclaimed precipitately. "It is suicide! Are you entirely mad?"

There was in the woman's manner the recognition of an impending catastrophe, the knowledge of immeasurable possibilities. Britton instinctively felt her disappointment, and it helped to bring back to him, in a fair degree, his original assurance, confidence, and reliance.

"It will be the sanest thing I ever did," he declared.

Then the mask of the woman's plotting and machination fell, and she stood revealed in her uncertain status of life, fighting for what she loved in her own contemptible way.

"Rex, Rex," she cried incoherently, "I can't let you do that. My God, you know what it would mean!"

She grasped his hands in her intolerable fear, but he rescued them with a calm gesture. The action saved them from a second surprise.

The greenhouse door burst open more violently than before, and Guy Rossland stamped up and down in a pair of rain-soaked pumps, sending the wet flying in all directions.

"Ruined," he said woefully, regarding his pulpy patent leathers. "By Jove, but it's a beastly night. Hello! tent blown down?"

"A gust through that open window," explained the theosophist, who had resumed her veil. "Please close it and help me with the curtain. I am afraid the rain has frightened all my subjects."

"Couldn't find Kinmair," lamented Guy, climbing on the sill to fasten the casement. "The bally idiot! He's next after Britton. Hunted him through all the gardens, and then they told me he'd gone punting. Went on the river and got caught–worse luck! Jove, my feet feel as if I were barefoot in the marsh."

"Kinmair can postpone his visit," Rex said. "Indeed, the storm will cause a general postponement. No one can come through this rain. I think I'll make a run for it!"

But he walked, seeming not to notice the violence and the downpour. The coolness was pleasing on his face, and the damp lowered the feverish temperature of his heated blood, though it proved disastrous to his immaculate dress clothes.

He could see neither Mercia nor Lady Rossland when he entered, but he encountered Trascott elaborating on philanthropies to a penniless dowager. The curate did not note Britton's personal appearance, so deep was he in a cherished plan of building orphan homes and reading rooms for the poor of London, a plan involving the expenditure of something like two millions of money.

"It's admirable," murmured the dowager, who herself had to scrape to keep up appearances. "It's a most beautiful scheme, Mr. Trascott. You have every technicality well within your grasp. What is to prevent the carrying out of those details?"

"The money," Britton heard Trascott answer sadly. "It exists as yet only in my dreams. I have advanced my theories and worked for their realization, but the unthinking rich have not responded. Sometimes I feel as if I shall never live long enough to see my project undertaken either by my own hand or by that of a more competent man."

"Still, it is ideal," the dowager returned, as Rex moved on past them. "And it is something to cherish an ideal to the end of one's life, even if one never enjoys its realization."

Britton took the thought as applied to his own existence, especially in its present crisis, and turned it over and over in his mind while he searched the different rooms for Ainsworth.

Within Rossland's great country mansion the gaiety of the occasion was undiminished. The games, the talk, the dancing, all went on as merrily as if no tempest raged outside. The decorated chambers were illuminated with such a blaze of light that the flashes of the sky's electric current were scarcely in evidence through drawn blinds. Only the spaced, resounding roll of thunder and the crash of giant trees in the woodland groves told that a terrific storm was in progress.

In the centre of the music salon he saw the Rosslands with a crowd of guests, lamenting the disagreeable night that had driven them from the river. Mercia was not with them, and Rex felt that after the incident of the conservatory he must avoid Lady Rossland for the moment.

He crossed the hall and ran into young Guy, who, looking very flushed and disturbed, appeared to have emerged from some more or less inglorious conflict. Guy had on dry shoes, but they had not sufficed to smooth his apparently ruffled feelings.

"What's wrong?" asked Britton, remembering the youth's capacity for getting into trouble. "Been quarreling with someone in the house?"

"Quarreling? Not much–worse luck!" the boy blurted out ingenuously. "But, by Jove, aunt has the beastliest temper in Sussex! She's down on the theosophist she hired about something or other. Packed her off in the rain!"

"What?" Rex asked, interestedly. "Lady Rossland packed off the hired Mahatma woman?"

"Just that," Guy answered. "In a cab with James, through all the beastly rain–to the Crystal Hotel. That's the best in New Shoreham, and aunt told James to pay the bill."

Rex was thinking retrospectively. If his own concerns had not compelled the deepest gravity, he would have been inclined to laugh. As it was, he gave Guy a speculative look.

"Beastly temper aunt has," the youth continued. "Jove, didn't she rate me! Gave me fits for not holding down my position–guess it must have been on account of the tent. How'd I know the stuffy thing would blow? And Kinmair, the bally idiot, on the river with Dora! drat him!"

The nephew rattled on with the frank tongue of youth, and a smile grew by degrees around Britton's mouth and eyes. It was like the smile of a soldier in the firing line when he gets an unexpected respite and forgets for a brief moment the lurking danger and the strain.

"I wouldn't take it to heart," Rex said while the smile lasted. "It wasn't your fault, Guy, and, now I come to think of it, perhaps–I–I should have closed that conservatory window."

In the smoking-room Britton found Ainsworth whom he had been seeking.

"Stay with the pole instead of the punt?" asked Ainsworth, lightly, surveying his friend's wet clothes.

"Never in my life," replied Britton, very seriously.

"Jump into the river or one of the fountains to rescue somebody?" the lawyer continued in the same bantering way, but Rex had not the heart to match his flippancy.

"Can you get Trascott away and follow us home?" he asked instead, speaking what was on his mind. "I would like you both to give me an hour after we reach the Hall. I want to get some advice and some opinions."

Ainsworth looked at him with awakened interest.

"Something on the political side, eh?" he questioned smilingly.

"Yes, partly," Rex responded. "This convention affair is involved."

"Ah!" laughed Ainsworth, "I recognize in you the true politician's trait, namely the utter inability to draw a hard and fast line between business and pleasure. But go on with your wife! Trascott and I will not be far behind if Rossland will send us in one of his carriages, and of course he will. I am indefatigable in your interests, my dear fellow, and we can talk for three hours if you like."

The lawyer went out to break Trascott's conversation with the stout dowager. Britton remained in the smoking-room a moment, writing two short letters, one to Lord Rossland and one to Kinmair. It seemed a very odd proceeding when he was inside one man's house and within reach of the other man, but it was in keeping with Britton's secret resolve.

Crossing the drawing-room in search of Mercia, he met her alone. She greeted him with the same cold, reserved smile that she habitually gave him. Her beauty forced its way to his heart and left an aching pang.

"Your view of that incident to-night was entirely wrong," he said gravely. "In an hour or two you will have the right of it. This is hardly the place for explanations."

She inclined her head with a regal air which became her well, but which few women could assume because they had not the royal cast of loveliness to support it.

"Explanations are quite unnecessary," she quietly returned. "I do not ask for any."

"Yet I proffer them–at the right time," Britton said. "Please do not misunderstand me." There was courteous pleading in his voice, and it did not escape Mercia.

When they bade Lady Rossland good-night, with their own carriage and that supplied the other men standing in wait, Britton spoke to the hostess of the same thing.

"Lady Rossland," he said, "there is an explanation due you. My wife will ease your mind when I have explained to her. You will have no cause for resentment."

"I am glad of that," her ladyship observed with a bright smile, pressing his hand more warmly. "Indeed, I am very pleased to hear it. I was sure there must be some mistake."

Britton gave her the two letters. "Another favor!" he begged. "Kindly hand these to Lord Rossland and Kinmair in the morning. My request is a little strange, but I would like to have these delivered as I say."

"Certainly," laughed her ladyship. "You do not amaze me. You politicians are always involved in some intricate or uncommon scheme. These shall be handed to my husband and to Kinmair in the morning as you have requested. Good-night to you all. Take good care of your wife, sir!"

The rain thrummed on the canopy covering the walk like a hundred small drums beating tattoos as they hastened to the carriages.

Britton's stood first, the horses frantic with the roar of the sky's heavy artillery. Rex took advantage of a lull in their plunging and handed Mercia in.

They dashed away into the oppressive darkness, thick as a North Sea fog, seeing but little beyond the pale circle cast by their carriage lamps. Intermittent wicked blue flashes revealed the surrounding country at intervals of a second's duration, and a fleeting, dreary panorama was unrolled. These momentary glimpses showed the winding black road running in murky rivulets; they uncovered copses and groves with foliage bedraggled and rent, with branches torn from the trunks, so that their white scars flickered ghost-like beneath the lightning's glare; they photographed a flooded stretch of down lashed by the descending cloud-torrents and vanishing mysteriously into the ungauged distance.

Mercia leaned back upon the carriage cushions without speaking. Her diamonds quivered when the lightning came, and Britton could mark her wonderful profile.

A startling sense of the unreality of his married life lay upon him; the impassableness of the secret gulf separating him from his wife was most poignantly impressed.

"Mercia," he began, "I–I wonder–" and paused hesitatingly.

"What?" she asked, gravely meeting his eyes in a spasmodic flash of electricity.

"I wonder if you remember that evening we came over the trail by Indian River," Britton continued, "the night you saved my life!"

"Yes, I remember," she answered, studiously calm. "That was the beginning." Her voice showed that she did not wish to continue in that train of thought. Rex sighed and pressed as close to his side of the vehicle as he could till they swept through the curved drive of Britton Hall.

Rossland's borrowed carriage bowled up behind, bearing the lawyer and the curate.

Ainsworth bounced upon the lighted porch beside the husband and wife.

"Awful night!" he shivered. "Must be a pack of fiends abroad! Say–what was in those letters, Britton? Anything new turned up?"

"Yes," Rex answered, "they contained my refusal of the candidature."

"The devil!" said Ainsworth.

CHAPTER XX.

The gun-room adjoined the library in Britton Hall. Ainsworth and Trascott sat in the former chamber, awaiting the advent of their host.

The red-eyed butler, who had been sleeping in a chair, appeared with a tray containing cognac and cigars to drive away the chill of the dismally wet night, but the lawyer was in such a state of anger and suspense that he wished neither brandy nor the weed.

"Put them down," he snapped. "Where's your master now?"

"Upstairs, sir, if you please," the butler stammered, confused by Ainsworth's penetrating eyes. "I presume, sir, he's changing his things–getting on dry, so to speak! He ordered me to bring you these."

Ainsworth stabbed a finger in the direction of a shell table strewn with paper cases and long brass cartridges.

"Leave them there," the irritated lawyer directed, "and get out!" The abashed butler obeyed.

"D–n him!" Ainsworth fumed, anathematizing the master when the servant was out of hearing. "The infernal nerve of him to refuse that candidature! And to refuse it in that way! Good Lord!" He gave vent to his feelings by stamping about the gun-room, while Trascott pondered in silence, filled with a vague mistrust that some drastic coercion was responsible for Britton's action.

The furnishings of the gun-room were the usual cabinets and appliances for the chase and kindred sports. One wall, however, was hung with objects not commonly seen in an English country-seat. These were two complete Klondike outfits, a woman's and a man's.

In making the round of the chamber, Ainsworth came to them. He stopped and scrutinized the peculiar accoutrements attentively.

There were guns, rifles, revolvers, and sheath-knives strung up, all showing the scar and stain of hard service. Woolen Arctic garments, oilskins, gauntlets, and parkas, with two buckskin skirts and sweaters, hung in rows from the pegs. A duffle of moccasins, leggings, pack-straps, tump-lines, dunnage-bags and dog-whips filled a large, deep shelf, while two pairs of snowshoes, taller than a man, stood in the corner.

The lawyer examined each article in turn and suddenly faced round to Trascott.

"Can the Klondike have cracked his brain?" he asked seriously. "They say it drives scores of strong men mad!"

The curate shook his head as his glance also travelled to the equipments of the trails.

"Britton's as sane as yourself," was his answer, "but I know he is in dire anxiety. His face showed that when we came in."

Steps sounded in the library, seeming like unnecessarily loud ones calculated to give warning or to hide some other noise. The curtains, screening the doorway of the two rooms, parted very slightly, and Britton entered, throwing the hangings in place behind him.

"Ah!" grunted Ainsworth, "here you are with your insolence–"

"Don't!" interrupted Britton, putting out a hand. "Don't talk in that strain. Let me tell you a story which will explain this attitude of mine and a good many other things besides." He sat down at the cartridge table and placed his elbows on it. An expression of bitterness and renunciation rested on his face.

"Go on," said the lawyer, backing against the wall, "and speak loudly. This thunder is deafening."

A long, fierce detonation rolled and crashed in justification of his words before he had finished speaking them.

"Though I made the famous strike at Five Mountain Gulch, a strike that is now history," Britton began in the queer silence which ensued, "I had months of a hard-luck siege in the Yukon before making my pile. In fact, when I went out of Dawson on the Samson Creek stampede, I was at the limit of my means. My last dollar was invested in my dog-team, outfit, and supplies.

"Well, the south branch of the creek, according to rumor, showed the richest, and I made a break for it. Ill luck seemed determined on dogging me, for I found South Samson staked from one end to the other. You have no idea of the complete disheartenment such a thing gives!" He paused a second, reflecting on that by-gone disappointment.

"Yes, yes," assented the lawyer, somewhat impatiently; "stream all staked and not a cent with which to buy anyone out! Go on."

"I had received a hint at Tagish Post from Franco Lessari, a Corsican and a former Government courier, whom I had pulled out of Lake Bennett, that there was gold on North Samson, so I crossed to the other branch. The overflow of the stampede filed in on it, too, but lots of ground could be had. On North Samson I burned holes in the gravel and prospected in the freezing weather for some days without result. It happened that Lessari came along with the rest to this fork of the creek one night. He wanted to show me a place where a trapper had told him he had found good gold-signs, so I took him into my camp, and we moved to the locality in the morning. His outfit was very meagre; he had no tent and a minimum of poor food; my offer was a blessing to him, but I wanted to give him something in exchange for the information, even if it proved valueless."

Britton paused a second time, as if seeking to condense the massed details ahead of him. Ainsworth turned his face towards the curtained doorway.

"I feel a draft," he complained, "and that tapestry is swaying. Is there a window open?" He made a movement to investigate, but Britton stopped him with a gesture, observing:

"It's probably Gubbins, the butler, seeing if the outer buildings are safe. He's very nervous about lightning. Be patient, Ainsworth! I am coming to the end. The North Samson project didn't pan out, but we hung on there till a drunken Thron-Diuck Indian came into the camp one night. He was one of a tribe who had discovered the Five Mountain deposit, and he sold us the information, together with an eight-ounce alluvial sample which proved the truth of his assertions, for my solitary flask of whiskey.

"That bottle of firewater brought me two million dollars! It was, you say, a good bargain. But you are wrong. It was the worst barter I ever made. I wish to God I had never seen that Indian!" Britton's voice sounded with a passionate, piteous vehemence.

"Why?" cried Trascott, in wonder and sympathy. "Why?"

"Lessari and I went up the Klondike River," continued Britton, without answering the curate, "toward the region of the five hills as I had mapped out the way. Never mind the details or the hardships, but listen to some points which are essential parts of what I am trying to tell. When we passed through the Klondike Cañon, we heard a dog-train coming after us, but it never appeared to our sight. Lessari fainted from fatigue and exposure within six miles of our destination. I made camp and nursed him that night. In the morning our dogs were poisoned."

"Poisoned?" echoed Ainsworth. "Great heaven!–how?"

"It was a mystery which has since been explained to me," Rex said. "Let it stand a moment!"

"But if a human hand did that it was murder," interposed the shocked Trascott. "It was deliberate, diabolical murder–the easiest method of killing you by cutting off your means of egress from that frozen wilderness!"

Rex nodded, fingering a sheathed hunting-knife that lay with the cartridges upon the table.

"Exactly so," he observed. "You have hit the truth. Lessari and I tramped on next day in the hope of finding game or discovering an Indian encampment. We kept to the river as a guide, dragging our precious food and outfit on the sled, and entered the cup of the five hills.

"There a three hundred foot chasm blocked our way. We searched for a path round it, leaving our sleigh at the top, after having first placed a slab of granite before the runners so that there was no chance of it slipping into the abyss.

"The means of circumventing the precipice we found by following along the edge till we descended into a cavern which ran through the bed-rock of the river–"

"The cavern where you made the strike?" Trascott asked, in interruption.

"Yes," Britton said. "In the midst of that excitement I heard a sound like the commencement of an avalanche. It startled me, but the noise ceased, and my assurance returned.

"I sent Lessari up for a spade, and his cry of consternation made me join him in haste. Our sled was down the crevasse!"

Ainsworth swore. The curate half started from his seat.

"I saw the mark of a dog-pad on a bit of snow," Rex said. "The granite had been removed from the front of the runners and the sled pushed into the three hundred foot abyss. The rushing noise of its descent had reached us in the cavern. It was a second, surer attempt at my murder. The destruction of food meant death. You see there was a hand in the dark all the way!"

Britton broke off, breathing heavily. It was apparent that he lived again through the things he recounted.

"Whose was that hand in the dark?" cried Ainsworth, savagely. "I believe you have found it out."

"The hand of Morris," said Rex. "I captured him stealing from caches, and he was flogged. I heard afterwards he had sworn to kill me. He thought he ran no risk in operating that way, but the hardship of that revengeful journey was fatal. He died in the spring, as I told you, Ainsworth, two days before you came to Dawson."

"But you and Lessari!" exclaimed Trascott, excitedly, "How did you manage to survive?"

"Only one of us survived," Britton answered steadily. "Lessari had been acting queerly for two days. I think cold, vicissitude, and fear was gradually driving him mad. The loss of our food completed his upsetting, and he started to jump down the three hundred feet after the provisions, which were dust by that time.

"I pulled him back, and he turned on me with a savage wildness. I say without conceit that very few men can handle me, but I was only a child in that delirious, demoniacal strength." An extraordinarily loud crash of thunder made Britton pause. The lightning zigzagged across the room as he continued:

"In three seconds he had me on the edge of the cliff, forcing me over. It was then by chance that my hand touched the revolver in my belt. I drew it and shot!"