"Did he ever tell you anything about himself, where he came from, who were his family, or anything like that?"
"Not that I remember; he was always very close about himself. But what makes you ask these questions? Do you think that you recognise him?"
Strangeways rose up and paced the room, betraying his agitation, but when he spoke his voice was level and restrained. "By G.o.d, I hope not," he said.
Every moment Granger dreaded that he would hear him say that Mordaunt was dead, and yet he wanted certainty. He watched Strangeways pacing up and down, and longed to question him, yet was fearful that in so doing he would betray his own secret. At last he could bear the suspense no longer; that regular walking to and fro tortured him, it was like the constant swinging of a pendulum and made him giddy to look at. When he spoke, it was in a voice so shrill that it surprised himself.
"Tell me once and for all," he cried, "has anything happened to him?
Is he dead?"
Strangeways halted, and regarded him with a look half-stern, half-compa.s.sionate.
"As for Spurling, you hated him, did you not?" he inquired.
Granger clenched his hands and his voice trembled. "I hated him so much," he said, "that there were times when I would gladly have struck him dead."
"Then, why didn"t you?"
Granger started; the question was spoken so fiercely, and was so searching and direct. It aroused him to a sense of his danger, and helped him to recover himself.
"In the first place you would have hanged me, and in the second there was Mordaunt." As soon as he had said it, he knew that he had made a slip.
"And why Mordaunt?"
He hesitated a minute, gathering himself together. He could feel the scrutiny of Strangeways" eyes and was conscious that he was breathing hard.
The question was repeated, "And why Mordaunt?"
"Because Mordaunt was such a clean fellow that I couldn"t do anything shabby in his presence," he said.
"How clean?" Strangeways persisted.
"Why, in every way; he was so honourable."
"But I thought you said just now that he always sided with Spurling when it came to a dispute?"
"So he did in a sense. He never seemed to think that the thing we quarrelled about was worth while, and treated it all with a well-bred contempt. Spurling was usually the one who was unjust, and I the one who complained; so I was usually the one to start the wrangle.
Therefore, though he despised Spurling, he always seemed to blame me for my pettiness."
Strangeways turned on him his honest, manly gaze, as if he were about to ask again, "Is that the truth?" But he did not say it. Granger felt a cur for lying, but he was determined to fight for Spurling"s life, and, if that were necessary, for his own revenge.
"And you have not seen Spurling go by the Point?" asked Strangeways.
"No." He said it quite ordinarily, as if he were answering a commonplace. Then he realised that he had been caught in a trap and had not manifested enough surprise. He slowly raised up his eyes, shame-facedly, like a schoolboy detected cribbing, when the master steals up behind.
"I"m afraid, after all, that you are not a gentleman," was all that Strangeways said.
Granger shrank back and flushed as if he had been struck across the face; he did not attempt to defend himself or expostulate. The wind had died down outside; it was evident that the storm had spent itself.
In the silence which followed he could hear the padding steps of the huskies going round the house, and the sound of them sniffing about the door. Strangeways, who had been fastening on his snowshoes preparatory to departure, walked across the room and raised the latch.
He stepped out, leaving the door open behind him. A bar of moonlight leapt instantly inside, as it had been a fugitive who had been kept long waiting. Then he heard the voice of Strangeways calling, "Granger, Granger."
He rose up hurriedly, thinking that perhaps Spurling had been driven back by the blizzard and was returning to his danger. When he reached the threshold he saw only this--the moon tossing restlessly in a cloudy sky, shining above a shadowy land of white; Strangeways standing twenty paces distant with his back towards him; and, seated on their haunches between Strangeways and the threshold, five lank grey huskies, one of which had a patch of brindled-brown upon its right hindquarters and a yellow face.
CHAPTER VII
THE CORPORAL SETS OUT
It would have been easy to shoot Strangeways at that time, and he must have known it; yet, he was so much a gentleman that he accepted the risk, and had the decency to turn his back when circ.u.mstances compelled him to give a man the lie. Granger wondered whether courtesy was the motive; or whether he was only testing him out of curiosity, to see of what fresh vulgarity of deceit he was capable.
As he stood in the doorway, his gaze wandered from the broad shoulders of Corporal Strangeways, late stroke of the "Varsity Eight, to the treacherous eyes of the gaunt grey beast before him which, by reason of its unusual markings and untimely appearance, had once and forever thrown Spurling"s game away. There was something Satanic and suggestive of evil about those green and jasper eyes, and the manner in which they blinked out upon him from the furious yellow head. Were they prompting him to crime, saying, "Why don"t you fire? He can"t defend himself; see, his back is turned?" No, not that. He half-believed that the brute was endowed with human intelligence, and had betrayed his late master of set purpose--perhaps, in revenge for the many beatings he had received on the trail from Selkirk to Murder Point. There was a vileness in the creature"s look that was degrading and stirred up hatred--and surely, the lowest kind of enmity which can be entertained by man is toward a unit of the dumb creation. That he should feel so, humiliated and angered Granger. Was there not enough of ignominy for him to endure without that? He drew his revolver, took aim at this yellow devil--but could not fire. The beast did not cringe and run away, zigzagging to avoid the bullets, stooping low on its legs, as is the habit of huskies when firearms are pointed at them; it sat there patiently blinking, a little in advance of its four grey comrades, with a mingled expression of amus.e.m.e.nt and boredom in its att.i.tude, like a sleepy old bachelor uncle at a Christmas entertainment when Clown and Harlequin commence their threadbare jests and fooleries. He might have been yawning and saying to himself, "Hang it all! Why do I stay? I know the confounded rubbish by heart--all that these fellows will do and say."
Granger"s hand dropped to his side; this wolf-dog looked so far from ignorant--so much wiser than himself. Could it be that he also was playing in the game? Was it possible that he also was intent on helping Spurling? Well, then, he should have his chance.
For himself the season for deception was at an end; he had lied to gain time for the fugitive, now let him see what truth could effect.
He waded through the snow to Strangeways, tapped him on the shoulder, and was made painfully aware of the opinion held of him by the way in which the corporal screwed his shoulder aside.
"I suppose I seem to you a pretty mean kind of a beast?"
"I suppose you do."
"I seem so to myself; but I have an excuse to make--that this man once saved my life."
"So you"re a hero in disguise?"
"No, but I couldn"t go back on a man who had done that."
"I fail to see that that is a reason why you should have lied."
"I called it an excuse."
"In this case the words mean the same."
"Well, then, I had a reason: if the person whom Spurling murdered is the person whom I . . ."
"Indeed! So you knew that much, did you?" At mention of the word "murdered," Strangeways had swung fiercely round and confronted Granger.
"Yes, I know that much. And if the man whom Spurling murdered is the man whom I suspect him to be, I had intended to dispense with law and to exact the penalty slowly, up here whence there is no escape, myself."
"Then you"ll be sorry to hear that you"ve lied to no purpose. The person whom Spurling murdered was not a man, you d.a.m.ned scoundrel."
Strangeways turned sharply away from him, and, moving as briskly on his snowshoes as the unpacked state of the snow would allow, commenced methodically to go about the store in ever widening circles. He evidently suspected that the fugitive was still in hiding there, or had been at the time of his arrival, and had since escaped, in which case the snow would bear traces of his flight. When he had searched the mound in vain, he turned his attention to the river-bed where his team of dogs was stationed. Granger, watching him from above, saw that he had halted suddenly and was bending down. Then he heard him calling his dogs together and saw him harnessing them quickly into his sledge. Panic seized him lest Strangeways should drive away without telling him the name of _this thing, which was not a man_, which Spurling had murdered, and _whether the deed had been done in the Klondike_. Also he was curious to see for himself what it was that he had found in the snow down there, which made him so eager to set out.
He ploughed his way down the hillside, breaking through the surface and slipping as he ran, till he arrived out of breath at the river-bank. Then he saw the meaning of this haste; approaching the Point from the northward was a m.u.f.fled track, partially obliterated by the snow which had since fallen, which, on reaching Murder Point, doubled back, returning northward whence the traveller had come. It meant to Granger that, while he and Strangeways had been seated together recalling old times in the store, Spurling had come back. For what reason? No man would fight his way through a blizzard without good purpose; he would lie down where he was till the storm had spent itself, lest he should wander from his trail. This man had everything to lose by turning back. Then he discovered that the snow was speckled with dots of black, and, stooping down, discerned that they were drops of blood. Some of the blood-marks were fresh; the tracks themselves had been made, perhaps, within the last three hours. Spurling must have met with an accident, and, returning to the Point for help, had seen the stranger"s dogs and sledge, and turning northwards again had fled. So thought Granger.
Strangeways, in the meanwhile, was examining the feet of his leader.