The Yukon Trail Part 28

"Brought me from where?"

"From where he found you unconscious--at the ford."

"That's his story, is it?"

Macdonald shut his eyes wearily, but his incredulous voice had suggested a world of innuendo.

The young woman stood with her gloves crushed tight in both hands. It was her nature to be always a partisan. Without any reserve she was for Gordon in this new fight upon him. What had Wally Selfridge been saying to Macdonald? She longed mightily to ask the sick man some questions, but the orders of the doctor were explicit. Did the mine-owner mean to suggest that he had identified Elliot as one of his a.s.sailants? The thing was preposterous.

And yet--that was plainly what he had meant to imply. If he told such a story, things would go hard with Gordon. In court it would clinch the case against him by supplying the one missing link in the chain of circ.u.mstantial evidence.

Diane, in deep thought, frowned down upon the wounded man, who seemed already to have fallen into a light sleep. She told herself that this was some of Wally Selfridge's deviltry. Anyhow, she would talk it over with Peter.

CHAPTER XVIII

GORDON SPENDS A BUSY EVENING

Paget smoked placidly, but the heart within him was troubled. It looked as if Selfridge had made up his mind to frame Gordon for a prison sentence. The worst of it was that he need not invent any evidence or take any chances. If Macdonald came through on the stand with an identification of Elliot as one of his a.s.sailants, the young man would go down the river to serve time. There was enough corroborative testimony to convict St. Peter himself.

It all rested with Macdonald--and the big Scotch-Canadian was a very uncertain quant.i.ty. His whole interests were at one in favor of getting Elliot out of the way. On the other hand--how far would he go to save the Kamatlah claims and to remove this good-looking rival from his path?

Peter could not think he would stoop to perjury against an innocent man.

"I'm just telling you what he said," Diane explained. "And it worried me. His smile was cynical. I couldn't help thinking that if he wants to get even with Gordon--"

Mrs. Paget stopped. The maid had just brought into the room a visitor.

Diane moved forward and shook hands with him. "How do you do, Mr.

Strong? Take this big chair."

Hanford Strong accepted the chair and a cigar. Though a well-to-do mine-owner, he wore as always the rough clothes of a prospector. He came promptly to the object of his call.

"I don't know whether this is where I should have come or not. Are you folks for young Elliot or are you for Selfridge?" he demanded.

"If you put it that way, we're for Elliot," smiled Peter.

"All right. Let me put it another way. You work for Mac. Are you on his side or on Elliot's in this matter of the coal claims?"

Diane looked at Peter. He took his time to answer.

"We hope the coal claimants will win, but we've got sense enough to see that Gordon is in here to report the facts. That's what he is paid for.

He'll tell the truth as he sees it. If his superior officers decide on those facts against Macdonald, I don't see that Elliot is to blame."

"That's how it looks to me," agreed Strong. "I'm for a wide-open Alaska, but that don't make it right to put this young fellow through for a crime he didn't do. Lots of folks think he did it. That's all right.

I know he didn't. Fact is, I like him. He's square. So I've come to tell you something."

He smoked for a minute silently before he continued.

"I've got no evidence in his favor, but I b.u.mped into something a little while ago that didn't look good to me. You know I room next him at the hotel. I heard a noise in his room, and I thought that was funny, seeing as he was locked up in jail. So I kinder listened and heard whispers and the sound of some one moving about. There's a door between his room and mine that is kept locked. I looked through the keyhole, and in Elliot's room there was Wally Selfridge and another man. They were looking through papers at the desk. Wally put a stack of them in his pocket and they went out locking the door behind them."

"They had no business doing that," burst out Diane. "Wally Selfridge isn't an officer of the law."

Strong nodded dryly to her. "Just what I thought. So I followed them.

They went to Macdonald's offices. After awhile Wally came out and left the other man there. Then presently the lights went out. The man is camped there for the night. Will you tell me why?"

"Why?" repeated Diane with her sharp eyes on the miner.

"Because Wally has some papers there he don't want to get away from him."

"Some of Gordon's papers, of course."

"You've said it."

"All his notes and evidence in the case of the coal claims probably,"

contributed Peter.

"Maybe. Wally has stole them, but he hasn't nerve enough to burn them till he gets orders from Mac. So he's holding them safe at the office,"

guessed Strong.

"It's an outrage," Diane decided promptly.

"Surest thing you know. Wally has fixed it to frame him for prison and to play safe about his evidence on the coal claims."

"What are you going to do about it?" Diane asked her husband sharply.

Peter rose. "First I'm going to see Gordon and hear what he has to say.

Come on, Strong. We may be gone quite a while, Diane. Don't wait up for me if you get through your stint of nursing."

Roused from sleep, Gopher Jones grumbled a good deal about letting the men see his prisoner. "You got all day, ain't you, without traipsing around here nights. Don't you figure I'm ent.i.tled to any rest?"

But he let them into the ramshackle building that served as a jail, and after three dollars had jingled in the palm of his hand he stepped outside and left the men alone with his prisoner. The three put their heads together and whispered.

"I'll meet you outside the house of Selfridge in half an hour, Strong,"

was the last thing that Gordon said before Jones came back to order out the visitors.

As soon as the place was dark again, Gordon set to work on the flimsy framework of his cell window. He knew already it was so decrepit that he could escape any time he desired, but until now there had been no reason why he should. Within a quarter of an hour he lifted the iron-grilled sash bodily from the frame and crawled through the window.

He found Paget and Strong waiting for him in the shadows of a pine outside the yard of Selfridge.

"To begin with, you walk straight home and go to bed, Peter," the young man announced. "You're not in this. You're not invited to our party. I don't have to tell you why, do I?"

The engineer understood the reason. He was an employee of Macdonald, a man thoroughly trusted by him. Even though Gordon intended only to right a wrong, it was better that Paget should not be a party to it.

Reluctantly Peter went home.

Gordon turned to Strong. "I owe you a lot already. There's no need for you to run a risk of getting into trouble for me. If things break right, I can do what I have to do without help."

"And if they don't?" Strong waved an impatient hand. "Cut it out, Elliot. I've taken a fancy to go through with this. I never did like Selfridge anyhow, and I ain't got a wife and I don't work for Mac. Why the h.e.l.l shouldn't I have some fun?"