Kitabı oku: «Lorimer of the Northwest», sayfa 6
This was incontrovertible logic, and the two outlaws drawing apart conferred with each other softly, while I debated what I should do. The casement was a double one, but I felt sure I could drive a bullet through one of them. Still, even in the circumstances it looked too much like murder, and to this day I have never taken the life of a man, though occasionally forced into handling one roughly. Before any decision could be arrived at a tramp of feet in the hall showed that somebody approached under a burden.
“Keep the muzzle on him,” said one. “I guess Jim has found the coffer, and we’ll make sure of that. I’ll help him to cinch it on the horse if we can’t open it. Colonel, we’ll have to fine you the further thousand dollars.”
I realized it was high time for me to vacate that position unless I wished the couple to discover me, and so I slipped back into the shadow, just in time, as they strode out carrying something. I watched them vanish into the blackness, heard the scout answer their hail, and then I crawled back swiftly – toward the door this time. A glance through the window in passing showed me that the remaining outlaw stood with his back toward the entrance, and his eyes fixed on the Colonel. The door was half closed when I reached it, and for a moment I stood there shortening my grip on the rifle and gathering my breath; then with a bound I drove it inward, and whirled aloft the butt of the Winchester.
The outlaw twisted round on his heels; but he moved an instant too late, for even as his fingers tightened on the trigger the steel heel-plate descended in the center of his face, and I felt something crunch in under it. He staggered sideways, there was a crash as the rifle exploded harmlessly, and before he could recover I had him by the neck and hurled him half-choked through the door. I had the sense to slam it and slip the bolt home; then, while I stood panting, the Colonel prepared to improve our position.
“Close those shutters and screw down the wing-nut hard,” he said, hanging the lamp close beside the door. “Now, stand here in the shadow. I am much obliged to you, but you should have made certain of that fellow.”
It was only natural that he should feel resentment; but there was a cold vindictiveness in his tone which made me realize that it was as well for the outlaw that I had not left him in the room. Then he spoke again:
“We have two good weapons; that rascal’s cylinder is charged – I saw him fill it out of my own bandolier, and there is an armory in the other room. They took me by surprise – in Western parlance, got the drop on me. Of course they’ll come back, but all the doors and windows are fast, and we could hear them breaking in, while in this kind of work the risk is with the aggressor.”
A pounding on the door cut him short, and a hoarse, partly muffled voice reached us:
“We’re about sick of fooling, and mean solid business now,” it said. “Open, and be quick about it, before we smash that door down and try moral suasion by roasting both of you.”
“You should have stayed when you were in,” was the ironical answer. “No doubt you have observed the light under the door. Well, the first man across the threshold will get a bullet through him before he even sees us. Haven’t you realized yet that this undertaking is too big for you?”
“Curse him; he’s busted my best teeth in. Hunt round and find something for a battering ram,” cried another voice, but though the assailants had possibly not caught all the answer, they evidently understood the strength of our position, for we heard them moving away.
“Gone to open the chest in the stables; they won’t find much in it,” said Colonel Carrington. “They will try a fresh move next time. Mr. Lorimer, of Fairmead, are you not? I wish to express my obligations again.”
He took it very coolly, as it appeared he took everything, and smiled curiously as, glancing at his watch, he said half-aloud: “Well, there are worse things than a clean swift ending, and there was a time when I should not have stepped aside to let death pass. But I apologize, Mr. Lorimer, for inflicting such talk on you. Hope we shall be friends if we come out of this safely. The check? – yes, we’ll put it away. It might have saved trouble to sign it, but you see it was her mother’s money, and I only hold it in trust for my daughter. Neither are we as rich as some suppose us to be.”
His grim face relaxed, and his voice sounded different when he spoke of Grace, while a few moments passed before he added:
“It cannot be far from dawn, and there’s not a soul in Carrington except you and myself. Grace took all my people with her to help at Lone Hollow. So, unless you are inclined to stalk them, which I should hardly suggest, as they might be too clever for you, we must await our friends’ arrival and make the best of it.”
I had no inclination whatever to try the stalking. To take a kneeling shot at an unsuspecting man seemed in any circumstances almost a crime; so we sat each with a rifle laid across his knees, and for the first time in two years I tasted excellent tobacco. But the vigil grew trying. The house seemed filled with whispers and mysterious noises. My throat grew dry, and the Colonel laughed when once I moved sharply as a rat scurried behind the wainscot. Neither of us felt inclined to talk, and our eyes were fixed steadfastly upon the door, until at last the lamp seemed to rise and fall with each respiration. Then the Colonel approached the window as though listening, after glancing once more at his watch.
“It must be daybreak, and I hear something,” he said. “There is probably one of them watching, but we must chance it,” and he moved softly toward the door. When we stood outside the cold of the morning went through me like a knife. Still a rapid beat of horse hoofs rose out of the big coulée, and it was evident that the outlaws had heard them, for we saw two men busy with the horses at the stable door, while two more disappeared behind the bank of sods that walled off the vegetable garden. What their purpose was, unless they meant to check any accession to our strength while their comrades escaped with the coffer, was not apparent. It was blowing strongly now, and the air was thick with falling snow, but I made out two riders who resembled Harry and Ormond coming toward us at a gallop, with another horseman some distance behind. Then a hoarse shout reached us – “Stop right there, and wheel your horses before we plug you!”
I could not see into the hollow beneath the wall because it was some distance off and the snow whirled about it, but I could imagine the Winchester barrel resting on the sods while a steady eye stared through the sights, and knew that neither Ormond nor Harry carried weapons. So I started at a flounder toward them, roaring as I went:
“Go back – for your life, go back!”
They evidently did not hear me, though we were afterwards to hear the reason for an apparent act of madness. Harry was always reckless, and Ormond coolly brave, while as I ran I saw the two horses flying at the wall. A streak of red flame blazed out low down in the snow, a mounted man passed me leading two horses, and I neither knew nor cared whether he noticed me, for I felt suddenly dizzy, wondering whether the bullet had gone home. Neither did I hear any report at all, for my whole attention was concentrated on the black shapes of the riders breast high beyond the wall. Then one beast rose into the air, and I saw Ormond swing a riding crop round backward as though for the sword cut from behind the shoulder. A soft thud followed, Harry’s horse cleared the sods like a bird, and I blazed off my rifle at a venture toward the hollow as they thundered neck and neck past me. It was clear that empty-handed they had ridden either over or through the foe.
After that events followed too rapidly to leave a clear impression. A pair of half-seen figures which appeared at the other end of the hollow scrambled for the empty saddles, and one seemed to help his companion. Then they vanished into the whirling haze, and Colonel Carrington’s Winchester rapped as he emptied the magazine at the flying foe, while by the time the new arrivals had mastered their excited beasts there was only a narrow circle of prairie shut in by blinding snow.
“Very glad to find you safe, sir,” said Ormond. “We met the Blackfoot who peddles moccasins, and he told us he had seen four men he thought were Stevens’ gang heading for Carrington, so we pushed on as fast as we could. Perhaps if we three went on with rifles we might overtake them.”
Harry looked eager, and I was willing, but Colonel Carrington was wisest:
“You have done gallantly,” he said, “but it would only be throwing lives away. The snow is coming in earnest, and it strikes me they have gone to their account unless they find shelter in a coulée.”
Then they dismounted, and a hired man, who had lagged behind through indifferent horseflesh and no fault of his own, was despatched to prepare breakfast, and it was a merry party that assembled round the table. Even the ruler of Carrington’s grim face relaxed.
“I am glad to make the acquaintance of both of you,” he said. “You will make the best of Carrington I hope for a day or two.”
We were nothing loth, for twenty miles of deepening snow lay between us and our homestead, where we had little to do, while to complete my satisfaction Grace and her train arrived in the Lone Hollow sleigh early the next morning, and on hearing the story her eyes glistened as she thanked me. “I am so glad I sent you,” she said, “and I feel I owe my father’s safety, perhaps his life, to you. It is a debt I can never repay.”
It was late that afternoon when another sleigh drew up before the Carrington gate, and three white-sheeted troopers lifted a heavy burden out of it. The thing, which seemed a shapeless heap of snow and wrappings, hung limply between them as they carried it into the hall, while it was Sergeant Angus Macfarlane who explained their errand.
“Lay him down there gently, boys,” he said. “No, stand back, Miss Carrington, these kind o’ sights are no for you. We found him in a coulée after yon Blackfoot peddler had told us Stevens had fooled us, and ye’ll mind it’s no that easy to fool the Northwest Police. He’s one o’ the gang, but the poor soul’s got several ribs broken, an’ after lying out through the blizzard I’m thinking he’s near his end. It’s a long ride to the outpost, forbye we have no comforts. Maybe ye’ll take him – ay, I ken he’s a robber, but ye cannot leave him to perish in the snow.”
He flung back the wrappings, and before I could stop her Grace bent down over the drawn white face with the red froth on the lips, while Ormond said quietly:
“Very bad, poor devil! I fancied Robin’s hoofs struck something that yielded when he made a landing. You will take him in if it’s only to oblige me, sir.”
Grace stood upright with tender compassion shining in her wet eyes as she fixed them on the old man.
“I am a woman now, father,” she said, “and I should like to help to cure him if it can be done. We shall do everything possible for him, anyway. Bring him forward, Sergeant Angus. Geoffrey, you know something of surgery.”
“I don’t make war on dying men. You will do whatever pleases you, Grace,” the ruler of Carrington answered, indifferently.
They carried their burden into another room, and I waited beside the stove, with two faces stamped on my memory. The one was that of the wounded man with its contraction of pain and glassy stare, and the other the countenance of Grace Carrington transfigured for a moment by a great pity that added to its loveliness. Still, the coming of this unexpected guest cast a gloom upon us, and we seldom saw Grace, while Ormond, who seemed to know a little of everything, once said on passing: “I have fixed him up as well as I could, but I think a broken rib has pierced his lung, and he’s sinking rapidly. However, Miss Carrington is doing her best, and he could not have a more efficient nurse.”
It was late in the afternoon when, on tapping at the door in search of tidings, Ormond called me in. The daylight was fading, but I could see the limp, suffering shape on the bed, and Grace sitting near the window, leaning forward as though listening.
“Light-headed at times!” said Ormond; “but he was asking for you. Do you feel any easier now? Here’s another inquirer anxious to hear good news of you.”
The man turned his drawn face toward me, and tried to smile as he said: “I guess you’re very good. Hope you don’t bear malice. You oughtn’t to anyhow – nearly broke my neck when you fired me through the doorway. All in the way of business, and I’m corralled now.”
I bent my head with a friendly gesture, for even I could read death in his face, and the outlaw, glancing toward Grace, added:
“If I’d known you, Missy, we’d never have held up this homestead. White people all through, and you’re a prairie daisy. What made me do it? Well, I guess that’s a long story, and some of it might scare you. A big man froze me off my land, and some one rebranded my few head of stock. Law! we don’t count much on that; it’s often the biggest rascals corral the offices, and we just laid for them with the rifle. They were too many for us – and this is the end of it.”
Grace moved toward him whispering something I could not catch, but the man smiled feebly, and I heard the grim answer:
“No; I guess it’s rather too late for that. I lived my own way, and I can die that way too. Don’t back down on one’s partners; kind of mean, isn’t it? And if it’s true what you’re saying I’ll just accept my sentence. Going out before the morning; but I sent two of the men who robbed me to perdition first.”
Ormond raised his hand for silence, and again I could hear the shrilling of the bitter wind that was never still. Then he said softly: “You are only exciting him, and had better go,” and with a last glance at Grace’s slender figure stooping beside the bed I went out softly.
It was nearly midnight and a cold creepiness pervaded everything when he joined the rest of us round the stove.
“Gone!” he said simply. “Just clenched his hand and died. There was some fine material wasted in that man. Well, I think he was wronged somehow, and I’m sorry for him.”
We turned away in silence, for a shadow rested upon Carrington, while the outlaw lay in state in the homestead he had helped to rob, until the Northwest Police bore what was left of him away. But before that time we rode back to Fairmead.
CHAPTER IX
A RECKONING
It was some time after the holding up of Carrington Manor before I was able, with Jasper’s assistance, to fulfill my promise to Minnie Fletcher. Jasper knew everybody within fifty miles up and down the C. P. R. Line, and at least as far across the prairie, while they all had a good word for him. So when he heard the story he drove us over to Clearwater, where an elevator had been built beside the track, only to find that the agent in charge of it had already a sufficient staff. He, however, informed us that the manager of a new creamery wanted a handy man to drive round collecting milk from the scattered homesteads who could also help at the accounts and clerking. Such a combination might not have been usual in England, but in the Western Dominion one may find University graduates digging trenches and unfortunate barristers glad to earn a few dollars as railroad hands.
“I guess we’ll fix him up in that creamery,” said Jasper. “The man who runs it was raised not far from the old folks’ place in Ontario,” and we started forthwith on an apparently endless ride across the frozen prairie. Some of our horses are not much to look at, and others are hard to drive, but the way they can haul the light wagons or even the humble ground sleigh along league after league would surprise those not used to them. We spent one night with a Highland crofter in a dwelling that resembled a burrow, for most of it was underground, but the rammed earth walls kept out the cold and the interior was both warm and clean. We spent another in somewhat grim conviviality at the creamery, for the men whose fathers hewed sites for what are now thriving towns out of the bush of Ontario are rather hard and staunch than sprightly.
Still, the manager did his best for us, and said on parting, “Send him right along. I’ll give any friend of yours a show if Jasper will vouch for him. Pay’s no great thing as yet, but he can live on it, and if we flourish he’ll sail ahead with us.”
So we brought Thomas Fletcher out from Winnipeg by joint subscription, and it cost us rather more than we cared about, for he came second class, while at that time Harry and I would have traveled “Colonist,” or on opportunity would have earned our passage by tending stock. If we could spare a dollar in those days we wanted it for our land. The old jauntiness had gone out of Fletcher. He looked worn and thinner, with, I fancied, signs of indulgence in alcohol, but he professed his willingness to work hard at anything that would keep a roof over Minnie’s head. We drove him across to the creamery, and the manager seemed disappointed when he saw him, while on the journey home Jasper said:
“I’ve been sizing up that young man. Strikes me he’s too much like the trash you British are over-fond of dumping on to us. Why can’t your people understand that if a man’s a dead failure over there we don’t want him? Dare say he’s honest, but he’s got no sand. Let that fellow sit up and talk over a glass of rye whiskey and a bad cigar and he’s right there; set him wrestling with a tough job and he’ll double up.”
Jasper posed as a judge of character, and I felt inclined to agree with him. Fletcher had not the appearance of a vicious or dishonest man, but I fancied under pressure of circumstances he might become one.
We built a new stable and barn that winter, hauling suitable logs – and they were very hard to find – ten miles across the prairie, while Harry nearly lost his hands by frost-bite bringing in one load. Nevertheless, and there is leisure in that season, we drove over now and then to Fletcher’s humble dwelling beside the creamery, and were both embarrassed the first time Minnie thanked us with tears in her eyes. Already she was recovering her good looks and spirits, but as Fletcher’s pay would be scanty until spring the odd bags of potatoes and flour we brought them were evidently acceptable. We had received help freely when we needed it, and it seemed only fitting that now we should help others in turn; so we did what little we could, and, as transpired later, it brought trouble on us. Also we managed to pay a few visits to other neighbors who lived at any distance within thirty miles, including a few farms of the Carrington group, where, perhaps especially for Harry’s sake, they made us welcome, and we went twice to Carrington Manor. The second visit was a memorable one.
It was a still, starlit night with an intense frost and a few pale green streamers shimmering in the north, but the big main room of the Manor with its open fireplace and central stove was very warm and snug. Our team was safely stabled, for owing to the distance we could not well return that night, and since the affair with the cattle thieves Colonel Carrington had so far as in him lay been cordial. He sat beside the glowing birch logs, silent and stern of aspect as usual, with a big shaggy hound which I had seen roll over a coyote with a broken spine curled up against his knee, while the firelight flickered redly across his lean, bronzed face. Opposite sat his sister, who partly resembled him, though in her case the Carrington dignity was softened by a winning sympathy. She was an old maid of a fine but perhaps not common type, white-haired and stately, and in all things gracious.
Harry, who was a favorite of hers, knelt with one knee on a wolf-skin rug, turning over a collection of photographs on a low table that she might see, and she smiled at some of his comments. Ormond leaned against the wall behind them interposing whimsical sallies, and casting occasional glances toward Grace and myself. Resigning his commission, he had lately, we understood, purchased land near the Manor. One or two other of the Colonel’s subjects also were present. Being lighted with shaded lamps that shed their soft radiance only where it was wanted, portions of the long room remained in shadow, so Grace and I, sitting near one window, could look out between the looped-back curtains across the prairie. High over the sweep of dimly glimmering snow hung a vault of fathomless indigo. It was not such a sky as one sees in England, but rather a clear transparency where the stars, ranged one behind the other, led the gaze back and lost it in infinity, while at intervals a steely scintillation flickered up from horizon to zenith and then back again. Feathery frost-flowers on the window framed the picture like a screen of delicate embroidery.
I do not think either of us said much, but I felt that we had a kindred interest in the spectacle. Within there was warmth and light and life; outside, impressive silence reigned unbroken, with the coldness of the grave. Yet there was one man who, poorly nourished and still more poorly clad, had the courage to cross long leagues of frozen prairie on foot, for presently we heard a knocking at the door, and after an altercation with somebody outside a stranger walked with uneven steps into the room. White crystals sprinkled his old English coat, a most inadequate protection against such weather, while his breath was frozen about the collar, and the fur cap he could scarcely hold in one stiffened hand was of the cheap and rubbishly description that Jew peddlers retail to the new arrival in Winnipeg. His age might have been fifty, but he had been bent by toil or sickness, and his pinched face was a study in itself. Anxiety, suspense, and fierce determination seemed written on it.
“I’m wanting Ralph Lorimer, who came out from England. They told me he was here,” he said, and clutched at the table, for, as often happens, the change of temperature had been too much for him.
Then I recollected what Jasper, who had been in to Winnipeg, told me a day or two before. “I looked in at the Tecumseh House, and the clerk mentioned that a wild man from the old country had been asking for you. Wouldn’t answer any questions; a lunatic of some sort, the clerk reckoned.”
Nevertheless, as I stood up by the window I had no suspicion of the truth, though perhaps Harry had, for, drawing forward a chair, he said: “Feeling dizzy, are you not? Better sit down. But before we answer I should like to know who you are, and what you want with him.”
“What has that to do with thee?” was the fierce answer. “I’m wanting Ralph Lorimer, and if he’s alive in Canada I’ll find him!”
I stepped out into the lamplight, saying: “You need not search far. With your permission, Miss Carrington! Now I am only a guest here. Will you follow me?”
The drawn face twitched, his left hand was clenched, and the other fumbled inside the breast of the threadbare coat as the old man turned to meet me.
“No; here before them all I’ll ask thee,” he said hoarsely. “I’m Adam Lee of Stoney Clough. Where’s my daughter, Minnie Lee, that left her home to follow thee?”
The words seemed to break in on the warmth and harmony like a blast of Arctic cold, and sudden silence followed them. Colonel Carrington leaned forward with an angry glitter in his eyes, Miss Carrington watched me in cold surprise, and Grace – well, I do not care to recall her face. Once afterward I saw her look the same, and was thankful that her scornful glance rested on another man. Then, while I stood bolt upright, staring at the speaker, and wondering how I could make the matter plain, others intervened, for Ormond, turning toward Colonel Carrington, said:
“I fancy, sir, this is not the place for – er – such explanations. They might prove embarrassing.”
Colonel Carrington glanced at his sister, who followed by the rest had already risen from her chair, beckoning to Grace, but Harry broke in.
“I agree with Captain Ormond in part,” he said, “but this is a serious matter. We have all unfortunately heard the charge, and in fairness to Mr. Lorimer we should hear him refute it. It’s either a cruel mistake, sir, or gratuitous malice, and I would stake my last dollar on his honor. A few words will suffice.”
It was a kindly thought of Harry’s, and the Colonel nodded.
“You will excuse us, Jessy,” he said. “Geoffrey, as a matter of fairness he is perfectly right. Now, sir, for the space of two minutes will you restrain your impatience and follow us?”
Adam Lee of Stoney Clough, however, thought differently. I had never seen him before, but I knew him well by reputation; for, though not born there, he was one of the erratic ultra-reformers one may find in many an English industrial town. They have left all regular creeds and parties behind, and look for the regeneration of an iniquitous world by some fantastic new religion, or the subversion of all existing authorities. Some, it is true, live lives of self-denial, and die, worn out by disappointment, of a broken heart, but the rest develop into fanatics of savage bigotry.
“No! I’ve followed him weary and hungry for many days,” he said. “He doesn’t leave my sight until he has answered me. Stop! you that sit warm in luxury, pampering your sinful bodies and grinding the poor, you shall hear what one of your kind has done, and judge between us. The tale will be good for you. Shall the rich rob us of our children, as they rob us of our bread?”
He flung out one arm as he spoke, and there was a rude power in voice and gesture that commanded attention. Neither was his accent now altogether that of Lancashire, for Lee, as is not uncommon, would sometimes speak a purer English than the local vernacular. Miss Carrington glanced past him toward the door, irresolute, and Grace leaned forward staring at him as though fascinated, while perhaps I of all the others found the sentiment familiar. It was the same spirit which, trammeled by poverty and ignorance, stirs many a man weary of a hopeless struggle for better things, and blazes into strange coruscations of eloquence in market-square orations and from the platforms of conventicles where men whose religion is a thing of terror worship the jealous God of the Hebrews.
“Nay, sit still and hear.” The words fell as though they were an order. “I am a poor man, a maker of shoes for the poor who could not always buy them, and I had one daughter. She was all I had, and I wrestled with the devil for her that she might escape perdition through the snare of beauty. But the nephew of a rich man cast desiring eyes upon her, and Satan helped him. He might well be strong and comely, for he fed on the finest, while when trade was bad half of us went cold and hungry in Stoney Clough; but he was filled with the wiles of the devil and the lusts of the flesh, so when there were plenty of his own kind to choose among he tempted the poor man’s daughter who worked for a pittance in his uncle’s mill. Her mother died; they mocked me at the chapel; and I have come four thousand miles to find him, but now and here he shall answer. Ralph Lorimer of Orb Mill, where is Minnie Lee?”
His hand was clear of the threadbare coat now; something glinted in it, and I looked into the muzzle of a pistol. But Geoffrey Ormond, in spite of his surface languidness, was quick of thought and action, and with swift dexterity gripped his right arm from behind. Then, and we were never quite sure how it happened, though the weapon was evidently a cheap Belgian revolver, and perhaps the hammer shook down, there was a ringing crash, a cry from Grace, a tinkle of falling glass, and Adam Lee stood empty-handed, while Ormond, who flung down the smoking weapon, said coolly:
“It is safer with me. These things are dangerous to people who don’t understand them, and you may be thankful that, without perhaps intending it, you are not a murderer.”
“Thank you, Geoffrey,” said Colonel Carrington. “Lee, sit down. I don’t know what your religious or political crazes are, and it doesn’t matter, but I have rather more power here than an English magistrate, and if you move again, by the Lord I’ll send you in irons to Winnipeg for attempted murder. Mr. Lorimer, I am not inclined to thank you, but if you have any explanation you had better give it to him.”
Lee, I learned, was a fearless man, with the full courage of his somewhat curious convictions, but there were few who could withstand Colonel Carrington, and, half-dazed, half-savage, he did his bidding, while again every eye in the room was turned upon me.
“Minnie Lee was certainly employed in my uncle’s mill in Lancashire,” I said slowly, “but on my word of honor nothing ever passed between us that all the world might not hear. She married a former clerk there, one Thomas Fletcher, secretly, and at present lives with him at the Willow Lake creamery. I met her for the first time in Canada at the Elktail hotel, where she was a waitress, and at her request helped to find her husband the situation. She promised to write home, but evidently did not do so.”
“It is perfectly true,” said Harry. “I was present at that meeting. If our visitor has any doubts on the subject he has only to ride over there and see.”
Lee gasped for breath, recovered himself, and strode toward me with fingers trembling and his eyes blood-shot.
“Is it true?” he said. “I know thy vain pride in an honor that can stoop to steal the honor of the poor; it is only women to whom thy kind tell lies. Here, before these witnesses, tell me again, is it Gospel true?”
He seemed half-crazed by excitement and over-fatigue, while his relief was evidently tempered by a fear that we might yet be bent on duping him; but I pitied him in all sincerity, for whatever were his foibles it was evident that this broken-down wreck of humanity with the warped intellect loved his daughter, and as I wondered what would most quickly set his mind at rest Harry said stiffly:
