THE LAST CHANCE

Since the middle of November he had been back at the Point: it was now the day before Christmas, and Peggy was still absent. During the last six weeks he had waited anxiously, always listening, even in his sleep, for her returning footstep. It was extraordinary to him to notice how, now that he had lost her, every other affection that he had ever known became dwarfed and of no acount in comparison with his love of her. He no longer thought of Mordaunt or of El Dorado; all his anxiety was for the half-breed wife, whom he had once despised. There was but one ambition, the fulfilment of which he greatly desired, and that was again to see her and to look upon his child. Somewhere outside, beneath the grey chaos of white forest and gloomy sky, in the wigwam of a trapper, tended by Indian women, she had faced her ordeal and had, perhaps, survived. If ever he was to see her it would be to-night, when her kinsmen had promised to return.

At first, when he had left Dead Rat Portage, he had feared that he would be overtaken by the Mounted Police or Robert Pilgrim before ever he reached the Point. For six weeks he had remained there undisturbed and solitary.

Watching from his window day by day, he had seen an occasional Indian pass, averting his face and, if he were a Catholic, crossing himself to avoid the overlooking of the evil eye. When such chance travellers approached the bend, he had noticed how they seemed to see something there, which he could not see, and climbing out of the river-trail, making a wide circuit, hurried their steps to get quickly by. Though he had spoken to no one for so long a time, he had not been lonely—watching for Peggy was a continual, if painful, source of excitement. And another matter had kept him fully occupied. Being an honest man, he knew that since the spring of the year he had not done well by his employers; therefore, since he thought it highly probable that, at any moment, he might be called away on a longer journey than any that he had yet undertaken, he had spent a large part of his leisure in making a report of the trade and contents of the store, which would be of service to his unlucky successor in the post of agent.

His chief cause for disquiet had been the hidden personality of the man whom he had seen in the sky, and who had afterwards rescued him from the blizzard near God's Voice. The haunting recollection of those eyes, of which he had caught but a glimpse as the man bent over him and the fire beat up into his shrouded face, had tortured him, allowing him rest from thought neither day nor night. For weeks he had searched his memory for some forgotten record, which would account for their seeming familiarity. Where had he seen them before? Was it before he left England, or in the Klondike? Or had their owner once come to trade with him at the store?

Ten days ago, when he was sitting half-dozing by the stove, thinking of nothing in particular, a face had drifted up from his subconscious memory, grouping its features about the eyes. He had staggered to his feet, horrified at the significance which this new knowledge, if true, gave to the motive of the crime. Bewildering details, which he had noticed in the man's appearance and had not been able to reconcile, now built themselves into the chain of evidence and were readily explained—there could be no mistake. He had bowed his head in his trembling hands, giving God broken thanks that he had been spared the final remorse which would have come to him had he been successful in his pursuit of Spurling's murderer. All that night he had prayed, aghast and terrified, that God would protect the assailant from detection.

And perhaps God had heard him, for the morning found him strangely quiet; he thought that he had now discovered a way to go out of life a gentleman, though no one but himself and one other would know that his gallantry was not disgrace.

The short December daylight wore away and night fell. He spread a meal for four people, with fare which was unusually ample. Having lit the lamp and built up a roaring fire in the stove, he sat down to await the arrival of his guests.

To evade his excitement of anticipation, which was becoming painful, he drove his thoughts back to other Christmas Eves, and tried to imagine and share in the innocent happiness which the season was bringing to children, still illusioned and unwise, all the world over that night. He had almost succeeded in beguiling himself into the belief that he was again a child, when the huskies commenced to howl, giving warning of someone's approach.

Listening acutely, he caught the distant shouting of dog-drivers, coming down-river, across the ice. He ran to the window and saw the forms of two men, stooping down unharnessing their teams at the Point. He recognised them, but did not go outside to make them welcome, since he had not yet learnt their purpose. The door opened, and Beorn and Eyelids entered.

There was nothing altered in Beorn's appearance; but Eyelids looked haggard and fatigued with travel.

He came towards Granger with a stealthy tread, yet so slowly that he seemed rather to be drawing back. "Where's Peggy?" were the first words he uttered. "She's gone away," Granger said. Then, seeing her brother's genuine concern, he commenced to explain a little of what had taken place in his absence. He was recounting his discovery of Spurling's flight, when his listener, taking it for granted that he already knew the rest, broke in impatiently, with "You damn fool! Why'd you kill him?"

Granger smiled. He was amused at the half-breed's new air of domineering boldness and the change which it made in his countenance. "Oh, so you know that?" he inquired. Eyelids came over and shook him by the arm, as though he thought that he needed awakening.

Speaking rapidly, tumbling over his words, sometimes relapsing into the Cree dialect, he commenced to give a hurried account of his own actions. There had been a thousand dollars offered for Spurling's capture, and he had gone to claim it. It was not covetousness altogether which had prompted him to do that; the reward was only an incident. His father was determined to be revenged for the trespass of the Forbidden River, and he had accompanied his father, hoping, by so doing, to save his brother-in-law's life—the handing over of Spurling to justice would have proved him innocent of complicity in Strangeway's death.

They had had to go a long way south before they had met with the winter patrol and had been able to give their information. They had been coming back with Sergeant Shattuck to make the arrest, when they had fallen in with an Indian of the Sucker tribe. He had given them news that a month ago a man had been murdered at the Dead Rat Portage by the agent at the Point, where he believed they had quarrelled, though why and what about he could not guess.

Arriving at God's Voice, they had learnt that gold had been found, scattered above the grave at the Dead Rat. And now the Mounted Police were coming, Eyelids said, to take Granger away to be hanged. He had heard Robert Pilgrim and the sergeant arranging it together, and had come on ahead to give him warning. He believed that the pursuers were not far behind. His quarrel had been with Spurling, not with Granger; he was emphatic about that. He would not have accompanied his father, had he not gathered from words which he had let fall in his delirium, that Granger hated Spurling as much as any of them. He had thought that he would understand their purpose in going southward, and would be willing to guard Spurling in order that he might be betrayed. And now he had come to make him an offer: there was yet time to escape; he would hide him so securely in the forest that he never would be tracked.

Granger thought that he discovered in Eyelids' vehemence the blustering confusion of a repentant Judas.

He shook his head, "No," he answered, "I intend to wait."

Eyelids pressed him for a reason. "I must see Peggy," he replied: "she will certainly be here to-night. Even if she had already arrived and were willing to go with me, I should stay."

For a man of Indian training, Eyelids used many words to persuade him. When he saw that he had failed, he relapsed into sullen silence. Beorn paid no attention, but stared grimly before him with his dead-soul eyes, as though he had heard nothing. Granger fancied that he must often have worn that same expression when, crouched beneath the auriferous ledges of the Fair-haired Annie, he had listened to the picks of his enemies drawing nearer, and had waited to deal out unhurried and impartial death to the men of the Bloody Thunder Mine.

There was the sound of long striding steps ascending the mound; it was not the tread of Peggy. Without the formality of knocking, the latch was raised and PÈre Antoine towered in the doorway. His garments were frosted and glistened, so that he seemed to be clothed in a vaporous incandescence. His face was very stern and sad. He said nothing, but gazing full on Granger, he beckoned to him that he should come outside.

Casting his capote about him and drawing on his mittens, he obeyed. Antoine led the way to the back of the store, till they stood on the edge of the clearing, where the forest began. The full moon shining down on the country made it appear legendary and ghostlike, a veritable Hollow land, such as the Indians believed in, entering into which a man might wander on forever, without home-coming, and never taste of death. Granger felt that he would scarcely experience surprise were he to witness, drifting on poised wings from an opening in the clouds, a flight of shadowy angels, voyaging to some newer planet where they should startle other shepherds, singing to them the tidings of the Christ.

Antoine recalled him, saying, "I may not be doing right, for I cannot guess your motives, but I have come to tell you that I am willing to help you to escape."

If he had come to him on any other errand than that of his own preservation, Granger knew, as he watched the pity struggling with the sternness in his face, that he would have followed him anywhere, to peril and to shame. But now, that was impossible.

"Antoine," he replied, "I cannot. Spurling is dead."

Le PÈre surveyed him curiously in silence. "But you—did you do it?" he said.

"You know that I always meant to do it."

"Then you are determined to die?"

"Yes."

"For some one else?"

"Pshaw! For me it is no sacrifice. You know that I would have killed him, had God given me the time."

Antoine drew off his mitten, and held out to him his bare right hand. "You are a noble man," he said; "I will keep your secret."

As they returned to the shack, Eyelids looked up at them inquiringly, as though he were about to ask them what preparations he should make for their journey. When he saw how, saying nothing, they sat themselves down to wait, he shrugged his shoulders desperately. Presently, with a false show of indifference, he set about playing the moccasin-game, which consists of placing buttons, bullets, and anything small which comes handy, into an empty moccasin, shaking them up together, and guessing the number which the shoe contains. It is a gambling game which, in earlier days, was wont to cause much bloodshed and ruin among the buffalo-runners of the plains.

The hours went by and the night grew late. The meal which had been spread was still untasted. They did not converse; there seemed so little to say, and, moreover, their voices might prevent them from hearing the first warning of Peggy's approach. The roaring of the logs in the stove, and the monotonous clicking of the buttons and bullets one against the other as Eyelids shook them, and again as he emptied them upon the floor, like the ominous tapping of muffled hammers at work about a coffin, were the only sounds, and these, at last, by reason of their regularity, began to grow nerve-racking. Between the emptying of the moccasin, and the gathering up and re-shaking of the counters, Granger held his breath. It seemed to him that Eyelids was gambling with an invisible player, and that the stake which he stood to lose or win was his own life. It was inconceivable that any man should have sat playing all these hours at a game of hazard, risking nothing, having for antagonist himself.

Relief came from without. From far across the river the forest-silence was shattered by a piercing cry. It reached him distantly at first, but, with each interval that elapsed, it grew nearer. It was like the tortured, desperate complaining of a soul in its final agony. Stealing to the window, he looked out, and saw upon the farther bank the outline of a timber-wolf. He looked at Beorn; he also had heard it, for he had pricked up his ears like a husky and was listening. Fearing that the suspense of these long and silent hours might cause him to behave unworthily, he clutched Antoine by the shoulder, and whispered, "For God's sake, say something. Tell us one of your tales."

Then Le PÈre thought awhile, and afterwards, in a low sonorous voice, commenced to recount the story of the founding of the Huron Mission—one of the noblest histories in the world, of men who have died for men. As he progressed, Eyelids looked up from his moccasin-game and the little tappings, as of muffled hammers about a coffin, ceased for a spell.

He told them of Isaac Jogues, the Jesuit; how he was the most timid of men, and how for his love of Christ he became brave.

He told them of his capture, on the second day of August, 1642, by the Iroquois, and the patience with which his sufferings were endured. How when he was near dying of hunger and thirst, he used the drops of rain, which had gathered in an ear of corn which had been thrown him, to baptize two dying men. How when the Indians had grown weary of torturing him and had cast him out into the March bleakness, he spent his days in the forest praying, and carving the name of Jesus on the tree-trunks with his lacerated hands.

Then followed the account of his miraculous escape to France and the honours which were proffered him by Church and State, no one of which he would take, save only permission to return to Canada that, as he had lived, so he might die for men, and the Pope's special dispensation that he might say the Mass, from which he had been debarred by his mutilations.

And he told them the story of BrÉbeuf and the vision which he had had in the winter of 1640, when sojourning among the Neutral Nation. How he beheld in the sky the apparition of a great cross, advancing towards him from the quarter where lay the Iroquois land. How he had spoken to his comrades about it, and they had questioned him, "What is it like? How large?" And he had answered them, saying, "It is large enough to crucify us all."

Granger interrupted him, smiling grimly to himself and whispering, "Yes, and I have seen it in Keewatin—large enough to crucify us all."

Antoine, overhearing his words, replied, "I know you have." After which they fell silent. For perhaps an hour they remained thus, and the flame of the lamp sank lower and lower as the oil became exhausted; no one rose to attend to it.

A panting breath was heard outside. The door flew open and a man stood upon the threshold. "They are coming," he gasped in a rasping voice. "My God! they are coming."

No one stirred. They did not recognise his tones and it was too dark to see his face. They were each one wondering who was this stranger, who could find in the death of anyone, save himself, a matter for distress.

He closed the door; in so doing, they saw that he carried a bundle, like a deformity, strapped across his shoulders. They watched him in silence until, cowed by the coldness of their reception, he was turning to depart; then Antoine spoke up. "Come nearer the stove, my son," he said, "where you can warm yourself, and we can look upon your face."

Slowly the man moved forward, casting a long shadow on the wall. And now to the four men gazing, the shadow which the stranger cast seemed to have become of more interest than his face—for there were two shadows, one of which followed ominously behind. While the first umbra was dim and blurred, the second was dense and well-defined; moreover it stood by itself, as if cast by an unseen presence, and was in every way different from that of the stranger. It seemed endowed with a separate personality; its actions were independent of those of the man and shadow which it followed. In watching it, they felt that there were six people in the room instead of five.

Recognition came to them each one at about the same time; they rose to their feet fascinated, and stared like men gone mad. The thing stood upright, a little way out from the wall it seemed, its head turned towards them, as if conscious of their inspection—and yet it was only a shadow. And it was the shadow of a man over six feet in height and proportionately broad of chest, who carried his dog-whip left-handed. It was the shadow which Spurling would have cast, had he been alive. And Spurling had cursed Granger merely for suggesting that, despite their preparations for departure, they might all meet again at Murder Point on Christmas Eve.

The stranger, being ignorant of what they saw, for whichever way he turned the pursuer stole behind him, and growing alarmed at their terrified expressions, withdrew from the circle of the lamp and firelight, willing to hide himself.

Granger was the first to remove his gaze from the wall and to recover from his surprise. He approached the shrinking figure. "Peggy," he cried: and as she turned, he saw that her capote was the one which he had missed, and that the remainder of her man's dress was his own borrowed attire.

She came towards him with her arms stretched out and, as she did so, his heart was strangely stirred within him by a little puling cry.

"It was the only way to save you," she moaned; "and it has not saved you."

"I know, I understand," he whispered. Then he loosed her arms from about his neck and unslung the baby from her shoulders. Fear for their common safety struggling with the mother's pride and tenderness, she followed him to the firelight and allowed him to kneel beside her. Their bodies pressing close together, they wondered at and touched with a strange reverence the little weakly creature sprawling in her lap. It commenced to wail, and she bared to it her breasts. To Antoine watching her, she seemed the Madonna of Keewatin, with her stifled love, naked passions, and heroic fight for life—and to-morrow would be Christmas night.

In the presence of the child they had all forgotten the shadow, hovering there behind her, and the sorrow which it meant. Even Eyelids, the Judas of the tragedy, stole nearer and, extending his hands, touched shyly this frail body of newborn life, as if by so doing he could cleanse them. No one interfered with him; they were too glad. The Man with the Dead Soul looked on unmoved; his countenance was alone unchanged. He was listening intently.

A wolf-call broke the stillness of the night. Going to the door, he stepped out, threw back his head and answered. It was the sign for which he had waited. Eyelids snatched up his gun and placed himself before Granger, prepared to defend him; but Granger took the gun from his hand. "No. Not that," he said.

Turning about, he saw that Peggy had risen and, with his child in her arms, was hurrying toward the threshold. Guessing her purpose, he caught her by the waist and drew her back. He led her to that corner of the room which was darkest, and, making her sit down, bent above her speaking in a low quick voice. For two minutes nothing was heard but her sobbing, the hissing of his whispered messages, and the slow, deep-drawn breathing of Eyelids and Antoine. They both knew now that he was innocent since they had seen the shadow. The air was heavy with suspense. There was a crunching of snow which came nearer, ascending the mound toward the shack. There was the sound of several footsteps, as of men taking up positions about the house. The door burst open and Beorn entered, followed by a man who, Granger guessed from his bearing and dress, was Sergeant Shattuck. It was his last chance to redeem himself.

He rose up, resting his hand on his wife's shoulder to keep her seated, and stood in front of her, hiding her from view, so that the sergeant should not see that tell-tale shadow behind her. Even while he held himself there in breathless silence, taking his first look at the man who had travelled all those miles only to carry him southward to his death, he smiled grimly, amused at the Homeric justice of it—that Spurling should have killed and been killed by a woman in disguise, and that on his head should rest the burden of the shame, he who throughout his life had never done, but had only intended.

Then the sergeant spoke. "John Granger, are you there?"

"I am."

"I arrest you, John Granger, on the charge of being concerned in the death of Corporal Eric Strangeways, and of the wilful murder of one Druce Spurling, your accomplice in the latter crime, whom you, well knowing that he was a fugitive from justice, assisted to escape from the afore-mentioned Eric Strangeways."

Peggy half rose to her feet, with a choking cry, and tried to speak; but Granger checked her.

"I plead guilty," he said; "I am ready to come with you. I have only one request to make, that you take me away with you at once, setting out this night."

The sergeant looked doubtful; he had made a long journey, and he and his dogs were tired. But hearing the sound of intolerable sobbing, he thought that he understood, and nodded his assent.

They all stepped out, closing the door behind them, and left Granger alone with his wife. In five minutes the door opened and he joined them. His face was grey and tremulous, but his lips were steady and smiling. "Large enough to crucify us all," murmured Antoine when he saw him. Granger knew what he meant—that he was referring to Keewatin and to his sacrifice. He shook his head at him; he was not thinking of that. He was thinking of Spurling's shadow, made prisoner by its own hatred, chained behind the woman weeping in the shack, and of how he had cheated it of its pitiful revenge. But it was not yet too late for one of his companions, or even Peggy herself, to betray his secret. He would not feel that she was safe until Murder Point had been lost to sight. Stepping briskly over to Shattuck he inquired, "Any need of handcuffs to-night, Sergeant?"

"Not if you pledge me your word," he replied: but he spoke absent-mindedly, taking no steps toward departure. Granger grew impatient; every moment thus wasted might lose him his chance of making a decent exit from life. He had sought for so many things which he had not found, that he was now frenziedly covetous of attaining this last success.

"Sergeant, you remember your promise to me that . . ."

Before he had finished his sentence, Shattuck broke in on him excitedly, exclaiming, "By God, but it's you that it's wanting. Look, over there, down-river to the northeast."

Turning quickly about to the direction indicated, his eyes fell upon the bend. There, standing a short way out from the bank on the ice, so that he could see it clearly, was the figure of a man, with the moonlight streaming through him. Granger recognised him by his tallness and uprightness. He was waving to him, seeing which he waved back. As though he had been waiting for that permission, he began to move up-river with incredible swiftness towards the Point. Having come within hailing distance he halted, and putting his hands to his mouth shouted, "Be brave! Be brave! It is only death."

Had Strangeways stepped out from his grave to taunt him with the futility of his own words, which had been spoken to comfort him in his distress? The apparition was growing vaguer. Just before it vanished, it cried again and waved its hand, "Jesus of Galilee! Jesus Christ!"

The sound reached him faintly as a whisper. He thought that his own memory must have spoken till, turning round and scanning the other men's faces, he saw that they also had heard.

"What was it that he said?" asked Eyelids.

"Sounded as though he was swearing," Shattuck replied.

But Granger and Antoine knew better; they knew that it was the dead lover giving his approval of this last act of the rival who was to die for his death.

The sergeant required no further urging to hasten his departure. Descending to the river-bed, he harnessed in his huskies and set out up the Last Chance, taking with him the independent trader southwards, as he had so often desired,—but to be hanged.