  “Rat” MacGregor dropped to the floor and crawled on hands and knees to the bunk wherein Dewberry, weary after hours of heavy mushing over an almost unbroken trail, now slept the sleep of the just. Dewberry’s raucous snores could be heard plainly. He lay face up, mouth partly open, while one large, hairy arm hung limply over the side of his bed. MacGregor knew that Dewberry was really asleep. Not only did he know this, but he was cognizant of another fact, of which he alone was the sole possessor. He knew that the big Englishman could not easily be awakened. He was aware that something else besides weariness and exhaustion compelled Dewberry to slumber thus. And he grinned over the thought of it. Before retiring for the night, the prospector had, following the usual custom, removed none of his clothes. Neither had he troubled to unstrap the money-belt that he wore, and place it in safe-keeping. The money-belt was full, almost bursting with yellowbacks and greenbacks of various denominations. But the thing which interested MacGregor even more, was the small poke, suspended from a moosehide cord, and tied securely about the sleeping man’s neck. In his present predicament, the prospector would have been easy prey for the figure who crept towards him, had circumstances been a little different. The difference was this: In the room, the large airy room of one “Frenchie” Frischette, keeper of road-houses, were a number of other persons besides MacGregor and the drugged Dewberry. These persons reclined in various attitudes and conditions of sleep. Not a few of them, including Corporal Rand, of the Royal North West Mounted police, possessed—even in slumber—a sense of hearing exceedingly acute. The creak of a board, a sudden rustling movement—almost any noise at all—would have aroused them at once. No one realized this any better than MacGregor. His job had been only half accomplished a few hours before when, with very little difficulty, he had drugged the man from Crooked Stick River. The thief rose slowly to a position on his knees. He was so close to his victim that the man’s feverish breath fanned his cheek. He could hear plainly his own heart and the heart of the sleeper, beating in a sort of wild harmony together. His right hand was within eight inches of the rugged prospector, yet he seemed unable, powerless to extend it one infinitesimal part of the distance which separated it from the actual point of contact. In the dull, red glow of the fireplace he could see the tell-tale bulge on Dewberry’s barrel-like chest. It filled him with a sort of agony to realize that at the crucial moment he lacked the courage and the strength to accomplish his task. Never before had he been so overcome with weakness. A few quick movements only were required to bring wealth into his grasp; yet here he knelt, with a cold dampness suffusing his face and a tingling paralysis of all his muscles. The prospector groaned and moved slightly, then raised one knee in a convulsive movement of pain. MacGregor shrank back trembling, his eyes darting about apprehensively. In a far corner another form stirred uneasily and a loud, full-throated cough broke across the stillness like a trumpet of doom. Several minutes elapsed before MacGregor had recovered sufficiently from his fright to attempt another furtive movement forward. This time he summoned to his aid the last remnant of a wilted spirit. His hands went out toward Dewberry’s throat. These clammy physical members found the cord, but his fingers refused to function in his efforts to untie the knot. For a moment he hesitated, then with a low, almost inhuman growl, he tore his hunting knife from its sheath and tried to cut the cord. In his haste, inadvertently the sharp point of the knife pricked the sleeping man’s chest and, to MacGregor’s great astonishment and horror, Dewberry started visibly and opened his eyes. * * * * * * * * The aroma of freshly fried bacon filled the room. Standing among his pots and pans, nursing a new-found despair, “Frenchie” Frischette, road-house keeper and gentleman of parts, could hear the approaching figure. The pupils of his eyes were like beads of glass as they encountered the trim, athletic figure of Corporal Rand. “Oui,” he admitted slowly, “ze beeg prospector ees dead. You saw heem?” Corporal Rand nodded. “How many men have already left?” he inquired. “Zay haf all left,” Frischette shrugged his shoulders regretfully. “Many before dawn. Zay go in ever’ direction—both ze good men and ze bad. How you find heem of ze beeg knife?” “The man who stabbed and robbed Dewberry will go south,” Corporal Rand stated with conviction. “It is the law of the land. Men, who have money, invariably go south—to spend it. Is there anything more simple than that, Frischette? The rule seldom fails. Adventure goes north and money goes south. I’m taking the trail south.” The road-house keeper moistened his dry lips. “I see heem four men go on the south trail ver’ early roun’ five o’clock.” “Together?” “Zay went each by heemself.” “No doubt, one of those four men is the murderer.” “You t’ink so?” “Yes,” said the policeman stubbornly, “I’m quite sure the murderer would travel south. At any rate, I’m going in that direction. So long, Frischette.” Two days later, Corporal Rand was forced to admit that in this case, at least, a precedent had been broken. None of the four men was the murderer. Two were Indians from Lac la Biche; a third, Beckholt, a free trader, a serene, gray-eyed veteran of the North, was above suspicion. Father Marchand, who completed the quartette, could not for one moment be included in any inventory of crime. Without even taking the time to question one of them, Rand swung about and retraced his way to the scene of the recent murder. In the policeman’s absence, Frischette had made an important discovery. Eagerly and somewhat excitedly, he told the story in a mixture of poor English and bastard French. Fontaine, a half-breed boy in Frischette’s service, had seen, on the evening preceding the robbery, a tall, furtive-eyed man mix two drinks—one for himself and one for the prospector. In the cup intended for Dewberry, the tall, furtive-eyed man had poured something out of a small bottle. Shortly thereafter, the big prospector had stumbled to his pile of blankets and had fallen asleep. In doubt, Rand questioned the boy closely. At first, he did not believe Fontaine was telling the truth. Then it became apparent, following a severe cross-examination, that Fontaine had really seen what he had described—was wholly innocent of guile. The description of the furtive-eyed man, his mannerisms, his clothing, the way he walked, had quickly brought a picture to Rand’s mind. There was no possibility of any mistake here. It was MacGregor, “Rat” MacGregor, of the Willow Lake country. Soberly, the mounted policeman pondered his problem. If “Rat” MacGregor was the murderer, as the cards seemed to indicate, why, with so much money in his possession, had he set out on a trail which led farther into the wilderness? By all the rules of common sense, a person of MacGregor’s caliber would have lost no time in getting back to the gay “outside.” Ten days later, Rand found MacGregor in a small cabin below the Finley River. First he had seen a man and woman together, then two scrambling forms, a door closed hastily, and presently a gray puff of smoke from a window near the front of the house. The bullet whistled over his head, struck harmlessly in the brush behind him. A second cut into a drift to his right. A third, lilting of death, grazed his shoulder, causing him to sit down very suddenly. Thereafter, Rand moved slowly and painfully. This time he advanced toward the cabin more cautiously. Fifty feet from his objective, he threw himself down behind a snow-covered log, lit his pipe and dully pondered what he ought to do next. For several hours MacGregor continued to blaze away intermittently from the window. After that darkness came and an interval of silence. The cold had grown more intense, more bitter. By degrees, a peculiar numbness had settled over the policeman’s shoulders and along his wounded side. A moment later, he struggled to his knees, then rose deliberately and walked ahead in the direction of the cabin. In front of the door he paused, every sense alert. No sound issued from within; nor could he see even a faint glimmer of light. Somewhere inside, Rat MacGregor—true to his name—skulked in the dark—and his wife with him. The faint outline of a block of wood, lying in the snow at his feet, drew his attention. Acting upon a sudden angry impulse, he stooped forward, picked it up, and raised it high above his head. It catapulted from his powerful arms, striking the window with a resounding crash. A woman screamed. Her terrified cry rang out through the deep hush that ensued and, accompanying its last wailing note, MacGregor’s guns spoke—two fiery flashes, not unlike the red tongue of a serpent—darting out into the gloom. Shoulders hunched, Rand struck the door with a furious impact, and the bolts gave way. As he fell forward into the room, one hand clutched his gun. Again MacGregor fired; this time wildly, foolishly, for the flash of his revolver indicated only too well his position, and Rand had him almost before the sound of the other’s weapon had become smothered in the deep stillness of the room. |
|
