“WE MUST find out what has happened!” said Joy, looking at Bracknell.

“Yes,” he said slowly, “but you must not go alone. If you will wait a moment I will accompany you.”

“But your cough——” Joy began, a tone of solicitude in her voice.

“My cough!” Dick Bracknell laughed bitterly. “That is nothing to what may lie before us, and in any case it is not safe for you to go alone.”

Something in his voice and manner convinced her that he was not speaking idly, and that he had his own reasons for apprehension.

“Very well,” she said, “we will wait for you. We will go down the creek together.”

He turned back into the hut, and the two girls looked at each other. They were used to the stillness of the forest, but somehow the silence that prevailed seemed ominous of fateful things. Both of them were conscious of vague forebodings, and as Babette looked at her foster-sister, and saw the light of apprehension in her eyes, she whispered, “What do you think, Joy? What do you think has happened?”

“I do not know, but I feel that it is something[222] dreadful and I am afraid.” She looked towards the cabin, and added, “He is afraid also. You can see that!”

“Yes! That is very clear.”

They stood waiting until Dick Bracknell appeared, and then without speaking all three started down the creek. A few minutes walking brought them in sight of the main trail, and suddenly Joy gave a cry, and pointed ahead. The figure of a man was lying prone in the snow, and as he caught sight of it, Dick Bracknell broke into a feeble run. For a moment the two girls stood quite still, looking each at the blanched face of the other, then they followed, slowly, the premonition of tragedy mounting in their hearts.

When they reached Bracknell they found him stooping over the figure, with a look of consternation in his eyes.

“Do you know him? Is it your——”

“Oh!” cried Babette. “It is George!”

“George! Who is——”

“He was my father’s man, and he is mine!” said Joy, staring at the fallen Indian with stricken eyes.

“No,” said Dick Bracknell quietly, “he is yours no longer! He has gone to the happy hunting grounds.”

“Dead?” cried Joy, as the truth broke upon her. “George dead! But how? What——”

Bracknell looked up at her, moved by the anguish in her tones, then he pointed to what she had not seen, a feathered arrow head, half hidden by the crook of the arm.

[223]

“Oh!” she sobbed. “He has been killed. He——”

“But where is Jim? Where are the dogs?” cried her foster-sister. “Both have been here! See, here are the tracks, and there goes the trail northward!”

It was as she said, and as Dick Bracknell looked down and read the signs a dark look came on his face. Babette looked from her foster-sister, sobbing in the snow, to the man who was her husband.

“What do you think has happened?” she asked.

He looked from her to Joy commiseratingly. “I can only guess,” he said in a troubled voice. “I think the Indian who was with me is responsible for this, the man who brought you to my shack—you know. When you came to the cabin he had instructions to look out for your men at the mouth of the creek. I—I am afraid he exceeded my instructions. I think that he must have attacked your men——”

“But why should he do that, if you did not tell him?”

As Joy flung this question at him, a troubled look came upon his face.

“I think he wanted your dogs and outfit, that we might get away from here!”

“Our dogs and outfit?”

“Yes. He is devoted to me, but twice lately I have had trouble on that point. Once when my cousin Roger Bracknell came——”

He broke off suddenly as Joy sprang to her feet. “Your cousin Roger has been here?” she cried. “He is alive then?”

[224]

As she flung her questions at him eagerly, impetuously, the man’s face clouded, and again a jealous light came in his eyes. It was a moment before he answered the questions, and to Babette, watching him it appeared that he was struggling hard for self-mastery.

“Yes,” he replied, at last, in a hoarse voice. “He is alive! He came to my cabin by accident. He had broken his leg, and had lain in an Indian encampment for weeks. There he had heard news which had sent him hot foot on the trail of a man who was responsible for your father’s death!”

“For my father’s death?” as she cried the words Joy’s face was white as the snow about her. “But—but——”

Her voice faltered, and guessing what she would have said, Bracknell explained. “I am afraid it will come as a shock to you even after these three or four years, but it appears to be the fact that your father’s death was not altogether accidental.

“My cousin had a very circumstantial story of the affair, and he was on the trail of the man who was responsible for the crime, the same man, as he believes, who shot me on the night when I had arranged that meeting with you at North Star.”

“But who is the man?” asked Joy quickly.

“My cousin gave me no name, indeed he declined to do so. But he had his theory, and he went so far as to tell me that not only did the Indian who was with him know the man, but that he himself believed that he knew him.”

“Ah!” cried Joy.

[225]

Her husband looked at her. “You also guess?”

“Yes!” she answered. “I guess—but no more than guess!”

“Who is the man?” asked Bracknell quickly.

“His name is Adrian Rayner!”

“Rayner!” cried Bracknell excitedly. “The son of old Rayner, your guardian?”

“Yes! He is in the North now. I believe that he is looking for Roger Bracknell.”

“God in heaven!”

“What is the matter?” asked Joy. “You look as if something had occurred to you!”

“Yes!” he said simply. “Something has—something very significant. Two or three days after Roger left the shack a stranger arrived——”

“Mr. Bracknell,” interrupted Miss La Farge, “don’t you think we had better postpone explanations for a little time? If we remain talking here we shall freeze. And there are things to be done. There is Jim to find—and there is the team and the outfit. Then we must bury George. We can’t possibly leave him lying here for the wolves!”

“Yes,” answered Bracknell. “I was forgetting.” He considered a moment and then spoke again. “The sled tracks run up the river. If you two were to follow a little way, till you get to that spur there, you will have a long view of the trail, and possibly you will be able to see something of the team and your man. But don’t go too far. It won’t be safe. Whilst you are away, I will arrange tree-burial for this poor fellow. And when you return we can discuss the situation. Do you agree?”

[226]

“Yes,” answered Joy.

“Then I will waste no time, nor, I hope, will you.”

He turned and began to walk up the creek in a way that revealed what an effort it was for him, and for a second or two Joy watched him with pitying eyes, then as her foster-sister spoke, she turned, and without answering began to follow the sled tracks.

After they had trudged a little way, Babette spoke.

“Dick Bracknell is a strange man. Two hours ago he was within an ace of violence towards you, and now I believe he is really solicitous for your welfare.”

“Yes,” answered Joy. “He is full of contradictions. There are many men like him, I suppose. When he is good he is very good, and when he is bad he is almost satanic. When I first met him he was a gentleman, an attractive one; and but for unfortunate influences he might have continued—but now——”

“Now he is a wreck, physical and moral,” answered Babette, and then asked sharply, “Suppose we do not find Jim and the dogs, Joy?”

“We must find them!”

“But suppose we do not? What then?”

“Then we shall have to take refuge in the cabin.”

She said no more, and Babette asked no more questions. In half an hour they reached the wooded spur round which the river turned, and as they reached the further side, both came to a standstill and looked at the frozen waste.

[227]

For two or three miles the course of the river was visible between low, wooded banks. Snow was everywhere, and nowhere was the white surface broken by any moving figure. It was a land of death—death white and cold. Babette shivered as she looked on it.

“They are not here, Joy,” she whispered. “Neither Jim nor the dogs.”

“No,” answered Joy stonily.

“We shall have to go back to the cabin to—to—your husband.”

“Yes, there is no other way!” A sob broke from her, then she bit her lip, and added, “It is a strange irony that now my safety should depend on him.”

“Dare you trust him—Joy?”

“Yes,” answered Joy thoughtfully. “I can trust him—now. As you have seen he is a very sick man, and in spite of the way in which he raved in the cabin, I believe that now he is greatly concerned for my safety, and yours. Did you notice the sudden change in his attitude after I had mentioned Adr............