Philip Steele of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police Part 6

It had ceased to occur to him that there was peril in his strange position. If that were so, would his captors have left him in possession of his weapons, even imprisoned as he was? If they had intended him harm, would they have cus.h.i.+oned his box and placed a pillow under his head so that the cloth about his mouth would not cause him discomfort?

It struck him as peculiarly significant, now that he had suffered no injury in the short struggle on the trail, that no threats or intimidation had been offered after his capture. This was a part of the game which he was to play! He became more and more certain of it as the minutes pa.s.sed, and there occurred to him again and again the inspector's significant words, "Whatever happens!" MacGregor had spoken the words with particular emphasis, had repeated them more than once.

Were they intended to give him a warning of this, to put him on his, guard, as well as at his ease?

And with these thoughts, many, conflicting and mystifying, he found it impossible to keep from a.s.sociating other thoughts of Bucky Nome, and of the woman whom he now frankly confessed to himself that he loved.

If conditions had been a little different, if the incidents had not occurred just as they had, he have suspected the hand of Bucky Nome in what was transpiring now. But he discarded that suspicion the instant that it came to him. That which remained with him more and more deeply as the minutes pa.s.sed was a mental picture of the two women--of this woman who was fighting to save her husband, and of the other, whom he loved, and for whom he had fought to save her for her husband. It was with a dull feeling of pain that he compared the love, the faith, and the honor of this woman whose husband had committed a crime with that one night's indiscretion of Mrs. Becker. It was in her eyes and face that he had seen a purity like that of an angel, and the pain seemed to stab him deeper when he thought that, after all, it was the criminal's wife who was proving herself, not Mrs. Becker.

He strove to unburden his mind for a time, and turned his head so that he could peer through the hole in the side of the box. The moon had risen, and now and then he caught flashes of the white snow in the opens, but more frequently only the black shadows of the forest through which they were pa.s.sing. They had not left Le Pas more than two hours behind when the sledge stopped again and Philip saw a few scattered lights a short distance away.

"Must be Wekusko," he thought. "h.e.l.lo, what's that?"

A voice came sharply from the opposite side of the box.

"Is that you, Fingy?" it demanded. "What the devil have you got there?"

"Your maps and things, sir," replied Fingy hoa.r.s.ely. "Couldn't come up to-morrow, so thought we'd do it to-night."

Philip heard the closing of a door, and footsteps crunched in the snow close to his ears.

"Love o' G.o.d!" came the voice again. "What's this you've brought them up in, Fingy?"

"Coffin box, sir. Only thing the maps'd fit into, and it's been layin'

around useless since MacVee kem down in it Mebby you can find use for it, later," he chuckled grewsomely. "Ho-ho-ho! mebby you can!"

A moment later the box was lifted and Philip knew that he was being carried up a step and through a door, then with a suddenness that startled him he found himself standing upright. His prison had been set on end!

"Not that way, man," objected Hodges, for Philip was now certain that he was in the presence of the chief of construction. "Put it down--over there in the corner."

"Not on your life," retorted Fingy, cracking his finger bones fiercely.

"See here. Mister Hodges, I ain't a coward, but I b'lieve in bein'

to the dead, 'n' to a box that's held one. It says on that red card, 'Head--This end up,' an', s'elp me, it's going to be up, unless you put it down. I ain't goin' to be ha'nted by no ghosts! Ho, ho, ho--"

He approached close to the box. "I'll take this red card off, Mister Hodges. It ain't nat'ral when there ain't nothing but maps 'n' things in it."

If the cloth had not been about his mouth, it is possible that Philip would not have restrained audible expression of his astonishment at what happened an instant later. The card was torn off, and a ray of light shot into his eyes. Through a narrow slit not more than a quarter of an inch wide, and six inches long, he found himself staring out into the room. The Fingy was close behind him. And in the rear of these two, as if eager for their departure, was Hodges, chief of construction.

No sooner had the men gone than Hodges turned back to the table in the center of the office. It was not difficult for Philip to see that the man's face was flushed and that he was laboring under some excitement.

He sat down, fumbled over some papers, rose quickly to his feet, looked at his watch, and began pacing back and forth across the room.

"So she's coming," he chuckled gleefully.

"She's coming, at last!" He looked at his watch again, straightened his cravat before a mirror, and rubbed his hands with a low laugh. "The little beauty has surrendered," he went on, his face turning for an instant toward the coffin box. "And it's time--past time."

A light knock sounded at the door, and the chief sprang to open it. A figure darted past him, and for but a breath a white, beautiful face was turned toward Philip and his prison--the face of the young woman whom he had seen but two hours before in Le Pas, the face that had pleaded with him that night, that had smiled upon him from the photograph, and that seemed to be masked now in a cold marble-like horror, as its glorious eyes, like pools of glowing fire, seemed searching him out through that narrow slit in the coffin box.

Hodges had advanced, with arms reaching out, and the woman turned with a low, sobbing breath breaking from her lips.

Another step and Hodges would have taken her in his arms, but she evaded him with a quick movement, and pointed to a chair at one side of the table.

"Sit down!" she cried softly. "Sit down, and listen!"

Was it fancy, or did her eyes turn with almost a prayer in them to the box against the wall? Philip's heart was beating like a drum. That one word he knew was intended for him.

"Sit down," she repeated, as Hodges hesitated. "Sit down--there--and I will sit here. Before--before you touch me, I want an understanding. You will let me talk, and listen--listen!"

Again that one word--"listen!"-Philip knew was intended for him.

The chief had dropped into his chair, and his visitor seated herself opposite him, with her face toward Philip. She flung back the fur from about her shoulders, and took off her fur turban, so that the light of the big hanging lamp fell full upon the glory of her hair, and set off more vividly the ivory pallor of her cheeks, in which a short time before Philip had seen the rich crimson glow of life, and something that was not fear.

"We must come to an understanding," she repeated, fixing her eyes steadily upon the man before her. "I would sacrifice my life for him--for my husband--and you are demanding that I do more than that. I must be sure of the reward!"

Hodges leaned forward eagerly, as if about to speak, but she interrupted him.

"Listen!" she cried, a fire beginning to burn through the whiteness of her cheeks. "It was you who urged him to come up here when, through misfortune, we lost our little home down in Marion. You offered him work, and he accepted it, believing you a friend. He still thought you a friend when I knew that you were a traitor, planning and scheming to wreck his life, and mine. He would not listen when I spoke to him, without arousing his suspicions, of my abhorrence of you. He trusted you. He was ready to fight for you. And you--you--"

In her excitement the young woman's hands gripped the edges of the table. For a few moments her breath seemed to choke her, and then she continued, her voice trembling with pa.s.sion.

"And you--you followed me about like a serpent, making every hour of my life one of misery, because he believed in you, and I dared not tell him. So I kept it from him--until that night you came to our cabin when he was away, and dared to take me in your arms, to kiss me, and I--I told him then, and he hunted you down and would have killed you if there hadn't been others near to give you help. My G.o.d, I love him more because of that! But I was wrong. I should have killed you!"

She stopped, her breath breaking in a sob.

With a sudden movement Hodges sprang from his chair and came toward her, his face flushed, his lips smiling; but, quicker than he, Thorpe's wife was upon her feet, and from his prison Philip saw the rapid rising and falling of her bosom, the threatening fire in her beautiful eyes as she faced him.

"Ah, but you are beautiful!" he heard the man say.

With a cry, in which there was mingled all the pa.s.sion and gloating joy of triumph, Hodges caught her in his arms. In that moment every vein in Philip's body seemed flooded with fire. He saw the woman's face again, now tense and white in an agony of terror, saw her struggle to free herself, heard the smothered cry that fell from her lips. For the first time he strained to free himself, to cry out through the thick bandage that gagged him. The box trembled. His mightiest effort almost sent it cras.h.i.+ng to the floor. Sweating, powerless, he looked again through the narrow slit. In the struggle the woman's hair had loosened, and tumbled now in s.h.i.+ning ma.s.ses down her back. Her hands were gripping at Hodges'

throat. Then one of them crept down to her bosom, and with that movement there came a terrible, m.u.f.fled report. With a groan the chief staggered back and sank to the floor.

For a moment, stupefied by what she had done, Thorpe's wife stood with smoking pistol in her hand, gazing upon the still form at her feet.

Then, slowly, like one facing a terrible accuser, she turned straight to the coffin box. The weapon that she held fell to the floor. Without a tremor in her beautiful face she went to one side of the room, picked up a small belt-ax, and began prying off the cover to Philip's prison.

There was still no hesitation, no tremble of fear in her face or hands when the cover gave way and Philip stood revealed, his face as white as her own and bathed in a perspiration of excitement and horror. Calmly she took away the cloth about his mouth, loosened the straps about his legs and arms and body, and then she stood back, still speechless, her hands clutching at her bosom while she waited for him to step forth.

His first movement was to fall upon his knees beside Hodges. He bowed his head, listened, and held his hand under the man's waistcoat. Then he looked up. The woman was bending over him, her eyes meeting his own unflinchingly.

"He is dead!" he said quietly.

"Yes, my brother, he is dead!"

The sweet, low tones of the woman's voice rose scarcely above a whisper.

The meaning of her words sank into his very soul.

"My sister--" he repeated, hardly knowing that the words were on his lips. "My--"

"Or--your wife," she interrupted, and her hand rested gently for a moment upon his shoulder. "Or your wife--what would you have had her do?"

Her voice--the gentleness of her touch, sent his mind flas.h.i.+ng back to that other tragic moment in a little cabin far north, when he had almost killed a man, and for less than this that he had heard and seen. It seemed, for an instant, as though the voice so near to him was coming, faintly, pleadingly, from that other woman at Lac Bain--the woman who had almost caused a tragedy similar to this, only with the s.e.xes changed. He would have excused Colonel Becker for killing Bucky Nome, for defending his own honor and his wife's. And here--now--was a woman who had fought and killed for her own honor, and to save her husband.

His sister--his wife--Would he have had them do this? Would he have Mrs.

Becker, the woman he loved, defend her honor as this woman had defended hers? Would he not have loved her ten times--a hundred times--more for doing so?

He rose to his feet, making an effort to steel himself against the justice of what he had seen--against the glory of love, of womanhood, of triumph which he saw s.h.i.+ning in her eyes.