Delilah of the Snows

"I'm not sure that we did. To be correct, I started the thing without thinking of anything. Anyway, you believed as firmly as the rest of us in Sewell and that the men here and at Westerhouse could make a stand that would result in their getting what they wanted."

Leger sat silent a moment or two. "Perhaps I did, though I think I saw the weak points of the scheme clearly. They, however, didn't count for so much then. Nobody, you see, can put a big thing through by working it all out logically beforehand. It appears all difficulties if you look at it that way. One has to take his chances with the faith that attempts the impossible and the fire that carries him through an obstacle before he realizes that it is one. Sewell had the faith and the fire, and the trouble is that he hasn't now. There has been a big change in the man since he came into the Green River country."

Ingleby could not controvert this, but it was evident to Leger, who watched him closely, that he had still full confidence in Sewell, and was as far as ever from guessing at any reason that might account for the change in him.

"Well," he said slowly, "we can't back down now. What are we to do?"

"Go on. Play the game out to the bitter end. I think you know that as well as I do."

The little sign Ingleby made seemed to imply that there was nothing more to be said.

"Isn't it time Hetty was back?" he asked.

He opened the door, and the cold struck through him like a knife. There was not a breath of wind astir, and the pines cut sharp and black against the luminous blueness of the night without the faintest quiver of a spray, for that afternoon an Arctic frost had descended upon the valley.

"I'll go along and meet her," he said.

It was ten minutes later when he did so. She was plodding somewhat wearily up the climbing trail, a shapeless figure in a big blanket-coat, and she took his arm and leaned upon it. It occurred to him that Hetty had lost some of her brightness, and had been looking a little worn of late; but that was not astonishing, since the scanty food and strain of anxiety were telling upon everybody in the Green River valley. It was also a long way from the bakery to the hut where Tomlinson still lay helpless, and Ingleby felt very compassionate as the girl, who said very little, walked by his side. When at last he opened the door for her she sank into the nearest chair and turned to him with a curiously listless gesture.

"Keep it open – wide," she said.

Ingleby understood her, for the little room was very hot, and the sudden change of temperature from the frost of the Northwest had once or twice painfully affected him. Then as he turned again he heard a faint cry and saw Hetty clutch at the table. In another moment her chair went over with a crash, and he caught her as she fell.

"No!" said Leger sharply. "Don't try to lift her. Lay her flat."

Ingleby stupidly did as he was bidden, and when Hetty lay at his feet, a pitiful, huddled object with blanched hands and face, beneath the snow-sprinkled coat, he felt an unnerving thrill of apprehension run through him as he looked down at her. Leger, however, kept his head.

"I don't think there's anything to be afraid of, but we must get these things loose about her neck," he said. "Undo that hook while I lift her head a little. It's pressed right into her throat."

Ingleby dropped on one knee, and with clumsy fingers loosed the blanket-cloak. Then he stopped a moment, and glanced at Leger, who had slipped one arm under Hetty. As she lay, her garments were drawn tight about her neck and shoulders.

"Go on!" said Leger sharply. "Get that collar undone. Be quick. The thing is choking her."

Ingleby loosed the collar, though the blood crept to his face as the bodice fell apart from Hetty's white neck. Leger was, however, not contented yet.

"Pull those hooks out, or cut the stuff," he said. "What – are – you stopping for?"

Ingleby got the hooks out, that is, one or two of them, and then he stopped again, while Leger saw the narrow black ribbon pressed into the white flesh upon which his eyes were fixed.

"I don't know what that is, but pull it out," he said. "If you can't get it loose, cut the thing."

Ingleby did as he was bidden, but there was no need to use the knife, for, as Leger moved his arm a little, the ribbon slackened, and a little trumpery locket which, as Ingleby knew, was not even of high-carat gold, slid out and lay on Hetty's breast. As he saw it all the blood in his body seemed to rush into his face. Leger, however, apparently did not notice that.

"Get me the old jacket yonder. I want it under her shoulders," he said.

Ingleby got it and then stood leaning on the table, while Leger still knelt by his sister's side. His face was set and anxious, but it was evident that he was equal to the occasion, and had not let his apprehensions master him. It was, however, different with Ingleby, for now there was no longer anything to do he felt that he was quivering.

"I'll run for the American who's looking after Tomlinson," he said.

Leger made a little sign. "No. Don't go. I may want you. She'll come round in a minute or two. This room must have been seventy, and outside it's forty below. Where has your nerve gone?"

Ingleby did not know. It had, however, certainly deserted him, and he felt for once scarcely capable of doing anything as he leaned upon the table. Then Leger, who slipped the locket back beneath the dress, looked up at him.

"She mightn't like to think we had seen it, and, of course, I didn't know what the thing was," he said, and then added, without moving his eyes from Ingleby, "I wonder where she got it?"

Ingleby said nothing, though he knew. He had bought her the little trinket in England long ago, but it seemed to him that Hetty might not like her brother to know it. Apart from that, he was scarcely sensible of anything clearly, for he was overwhelmed by a horrible confusion, and he looked down at Leger vacantly until a little shiver seemed to run through the girl.

"Now see if you can find the coffee," said his comrade sharply. "There is a little somewhere. We have nothing else to give her."

Ingleby waited another moment until he saw a faint tinge of colour creep into Hetty's face, and then he moved towards the box of stores, dazed from relief. He was busy for a moment or two, and when he turned again Hetty was lying in the low hide-chair with her brother's arm about her and the blanket-coat clutched closely to her neck. Leger flashed a swift glance at him and pointed towards the door.

"I think it would be better if you got out of this," he said.

Ingleby also thought so and went forthwith. He felt that he could not meet Hetty's eyes just then, and he wanted to be alone and get rid of the almost insufferable confusion that afflicted him. He had never made love to Hetty. They had been comrades, almost as brother and sister to each other; but she had worn his locket hidden on her breast, which was, he surmised, considerably more than a sister would have done. Brotherly tenderness could also, he realized, scarcely account for the uneasiness he had felt and the relief that had replaced it; but it appeared quite out of the question – in fact, a thought to shrink from – that he could be in love with two women. It was as unpleasant to contemplate the probability of two women being in love with him. He could find no solution of the problem as he swung along beneath the solemn pines, and when he reached his black and silent shanty his brain was still in a whirl. One thing alone was clear to him, and that was that Hetty was alive and apparently recovering.

In the meanwhile Sewell found that Coulthurst, who, it seemed, had gone across to the outpost, had not yet come home. Grace told him so standing in the doorway, with the sweeping lines of her figure cut in black against the light, and though she could see the admiration in his face he could not see her curious little smile. Miss Coulthurst had decided that the struggle between the miners and their rulers had continued long enough, and it was time she made some attempt to put an end to it.

"Still, I really think you might come in," she said. "He will be back before very long."

Sewell came in, and sat down opposite her across the hearth, and Grace glanced covertly at her little watch which hung upon the wall. Major Coulthurst was punctuality in itself, and she realized that she had about twenty minutes in which to do a good deal. Ingleby's devotion to her – and it was, perhaps, significant that she felt that was the best description of it – was evident; but there were points on which he was as unyielding and impervious to suggestion as a rock; while Sewell, with his more delicately balanced nature and wider grasp of comprehension, was, in her hands, at least, as malleable clay.

"How long is this very unpleasant state of affairs to continue, Mr. Sewell?" she asked. "You promised me we should have quietness this winter."

Sewell made a little deprecatory gesture. "Circumstances were too strong for me, but I have done what I could. Unpleasant as things are, they might be worse – considerably."

"It is a little difficult to see how they could be."

She had straightened herself a little, and sat looking at him with a certain quiet and half-scornful imperiousness which she knew became her, and yet was not altogether affected. Sewell, the democrat, understood exactly what she meant, and knew that it was not the loneliness or physical discomfort the blockade entailed that she was thinking of. It was the humbling of the pride of the ruling caste to which she belonged, and the bold denial of its prerogative of authority, that she felt the most. It was curious that he could understand this and sympathize with her as Ingleby, who only saw and did the obvious thing, could not have done.

"Well," he said, "I think this winter might have seen an undreamt-of overturning of constituted authority and the setting up of what you were once pleased to call a visionary Utopia. My comrades were almost ready to undertake it a little while ago. In fact, they only wanted somebody to show them how."

Grace laughed a careless, silvery laugh, which would have been wasted on Ingleby. There was no scorn in it now, only amusement, but Sewell nodded comprehendingly as he looked up at her.

"Your friends would naturally never believe it, but I almost think the inauguration of the Utopia would have been possible," he said. "At least, we could have cleared the ground for it."

"There are," said Grace suggestively, "men enough in this valley to make about one company."

"And between here and the Arctic sea enough to make such a small army-corps of marchers and marksmen as no country has ever enrolled beneath its banner. A very little spark in the right place will kindle a great blaze, you know; but I only want to show you that the thing might have happened. I scarcely think you need expect it now."

Grace looked at him with a curious intensity. "Then," she said, "you were afraid?"

"No," answered Sewell slowly. "I was not sure I was strong enough to control the forces I could set in motion, or that the result of unloosing them would be – Utopia. It seemed too big a risk. That was one reason – you can, perhaps, guess the other. After all, one has to admit that there are certain advantages attached to the direction of affairs by the more highly trained divisions of society."

"To which," said Grace, with a soft laugh, "you, of course, belong. What made – you – a democrat?"

Sewell made a little gesture. "Ah," he said, "that is a different story, and one I hardly care to go into, but perhaps the instincts one is born with can't be entirely rooted out. I am, at least, not the iconoclast I was when I came into the valley. That, however, really isn't very astonishing. I now have a good deal to lose."

He looked at her steadily with grave deference, but as like to like, and the girl recognized this and what his words implied. She was, however, playing a game then, and another swift glance at her watch showed her that she had little time in which to finish it.

"And so, for fear you should lose it, you did not strike the spark? Well, I think that was wise. It would certainly have cost you one thing which you seem to value," she said.

This was vague, but it seemed to Sewell that there could be only one meaning to it. What he had feared to lose was not yet beyond his reach. He did not know that there were in the girl qualities which would have made her a successful Pompadour. Just then her craving for influence was irresistible; but she swept away from the topic with a swift smile expressive only of the indifference which of all the feelings that she could show he most shrank from.

"Still, to be practical, how could the blaze have spread?" she said. "It would have smouldered out in one snow-bound valley, and in the spring there would have been a very inglorious downfall to the strictly limited Utopia."

Sewell was nettled. There was, though it was seldom apparent, vanity in him, as both Hetty and Grace had guessed. Her blame he could have borne, but there was a sting in her smile. That she should think him a visionary schemer led away by his imagination, and without the faculty of execution, hurt him.

"The blaze would have leapt the snowy barriers," he said. "In fact, that was all arranged. Then it would have flashed from range to range across to the Yukon. One tolerably big bonfire has been waiting some time ready for lighting. I had only to send the message. I think you know why I didn't."

Grace saw his eyes, and understood the look in them. It was suggestive of passionate admiration. She also knew that a word would dispel it, perhaps forever, but she was lost in the game now, and what the man might think of her afterwards did not matter.

"Then there is a road out – beside the one you made to the settlement? It must be to Westerhouse?" she said.

"Yes," answered Sewell simply. "I have been there."

Grace had just five minutes left, and a task before her which, under ordinary circumstances, she could scarcely have expected to accomplish; but she had to deal with a man who was, after all, of her own caste, a man with a deep vein of vanity in him, who was also in love with her. The latter fact had been apparent for some little while, and she let him see now that she recognized it, while during the next few minutes she used every attribute with which Nature had endowed her, as well as art of a very delicate description. In fact, Grace had never until then exactly realized her own capabilities.

Neither Sewell nor she could afterwards remember all that she said, and in fact she said very little, though that little was suggestive; there was no great need for a girl with her patrician beauty to waste words unduly when she had her eyes. In any case, Sewell was as wax beneath her hands, and when she had finished with him she knew that the mountain barrier between the Green River country and Westerhouse was not impassable, and how the one gorge ran that traversed it. If Sewell fancied she appreciated the passion which had led him to do so much for her, that was his affair. There was, however, a curious glow in his eyes when he rose as the major came in.

XXXI

BROKEN IDOLS

Coulthurst sat with a big hand clenched on the table and a grim look in his face when Sewell left him, nor did he turn his head until Grace, who came softly out of the inner room, sat down close by him.

"You can't come to terms, father?" she said.

"We can't," and there was an ominous sparkle in Coulthurst's eyes. "I'm not sure that I wish to now. In fact, I've borne quite as much as I'm willing to put up with from both of them, and there's some reason, after all, in Esmond's plan. He'll give them another week, and then we'll cut our way in."

"It's not your affair," and Grace started visibly. "You are the Gold Commissioner."

Coulthurst smiled. "I am also entitled to the rank of major, and that, after all, means a good deal."

Grace mastered her apprehension, for she realized the major's point of view and indeed concurred with it.

"There is no other way than the one you are thinking of?" she asked.

"There are two," said Coulthurst drily. "We can sit still and starve, or march out and leave the valley in the possession of the miners while we try to break through the snow. Neither of them, however, commends itself to Esmond or me."

"Of course!" said Grace, with a little flush in her face, which, however, faded suddenly. "But suppose one or two of the troopers were killed while you forced the barricade?"

"Then," said Coulthurst, "our friends Ingleby and Sewell would certainly be hung."

The major's terseness was more convincing than a great deal of argument, and Grace saw what she must do. The pride of station was strong in her, so strong, in fact, that she would never have come down to Ingleby's level. It was only because he had shown that he could force his way to hers – at least, as it was likely to be regarded in that country – that she had listened to him. When the grapple became imminent that pride alone would have driven her to take part with constituted authority instead of what she considered the democratic rabble. Then there was the peril to her father and to Ingleby. He must be saved – against himself, if it should be necessary.

"There are troopers at Westerhouse across the mountains?" she asked.

"I believe there is a strong detachment and a very capable officer."

Grace sat silent a moment before she spoke again. "Father," she said, "I want you to make a bargain with Reggie Esmond for me. On two conditions I am willing to tell you how he can bring those troopers in. You are to be the Gold Commissioner and peacemaker, but nothing else. As there will be two police officers, they will not want you as major. Then there must be an indemnity for Mr. Sewell and Ingleby."

Coulthurst gazed at her in blank astonishment. "You are quite serious? You mean what you say?"

"Of course! I can tell you – on those two conditions – how to bring the Westerhouse troopers in."

Coulthurst banged his hand down on the table. "Then I think there will be an end of the trouble – and the affair could be arranged to meet your views. But however did you find the way into the Westerhouse country?"

Grace looked at him steadily, though there was a little more colour than usual in her face. "That does not concern Reggie Esmond or you. Hadn't you better go over and see him?"

It was getting late, but Coulthurst went straightway; and as the result of it Esmond and two troopers set out with a hand-sled early next morning for a certain peak that overhung a gorge through the barrier-range that cut off the Westerhouse country. He could not pass up the valley, but that was no great matter since the peak could be seen leagues away. It was a long journey, and he had intended going no farther than the gorge with the troopers, but he was not destined to get even there.

On the second day they came on a tree lying across their path with its branches interlocked among the shattered limbs of a neighbor so that the great trunk was sharply tilted, an obstacle which is frequently to be met with in that country. As the undergrowth all round was tall and thick, Esmond and one trooper swung themselves upon the log to see if they could find an opening, and made their way along it until they came to a branch where the trunk was high above the ground. The trooper crept round it, and then, as Esmond came after him, there was a crash and a shout, and the trooper who had stayed below saw his officer vanish amidst the rattling twigs. It was several minutes before they could reach him, and then he was lying, with a grey face, and with one leg changed in its usual contour and significantly limp. He looked up with a grin of pain when the first trooper bent over him.

"Gone at the thigh-bone. I felt it snap," he said. "Simpkin will get me home on the sled, but you'll go on, Grieve, and tell Captain Slavin how we are fixed. He will come in with every man available."

"I guess I'd better see you safe back, sir," said the trooper.

Esmond stared at him fiercely, though his face was awry with pain.

"You'll go on," he said.

Then he winced, and, moving a little, fell over with his face in the snow, and, because the boughs he had fallen among were thick, it was two hours before the troopers got him out and on the sled. It was not altogether astonishing that they managed to compound the fracture during the operation. After that Grieve pushed on alone, and he was, as it happened, from the wild bush of Northern Ontario, which, though the trees and rocks are smaller, is a very similar country. In the meanwhile Simpkin headed back for the valley with the sled, and it was not his fault that three nights of bitter frost overtook him on the way. Indeed, if he had not been an exceptionally resolute man, inured to fatigue, it is very probable that Esmond would have frozen before they reached the outpost. On the morning after they got there a trooper appeared before the miners' barricade without his carbine and hailed the men on guard.

"Have you brought along the American who fixed up Jackson's foot when he smashed his toes, boys?" he asked.

The man who had nursed Tomlinson climbed up on the log. "I'm here," he said. "Is anybody wanting me?"

"I guess Captain Esmond does," said the trooper. "He fell off a log two or three days ago, and his leg-bone has come right through. The corporal can't get it back inside him. If you can see your way to do anything, we'd be much obliged to you."

"Did Captain Esmond send you?"

"No, sir," said the trooper, "he didn't. He's way too sick to worry about anything."

The American smiled at Ingleby, who stood beneath him. "It's very probable! A compound fracture of the femur is apt to prove rather serious at this temperature, especially if our friend the corporal has been trying to reduce it. We don't owe the man anything, but I guess I'd better go along."

"Of course!" said Ingleby simply, and in another minute the doctor was on his way to the outpost with the trooper.

It was evening when he came back with news of Esmond's condition, which, it appeared, was serious, and Sewell forthwith set out for the Gold Commissioner's dwelling. He did not see Grace at all, and Coulthurst granted him only a two minutes' interview.

"It is quite out of the question that I should worry Captain Esmond now," he said. "Unless you are prepared to make an unconditional surrender, which I should strongly recommend, there is nothing I can do for you."

"That," replied Sewell, "is about the last thing we should think of doing."

He came back, and related what had passed to Leger and Ingleby. The latter looked thoughtful when he heard him.

"One could almost fancy by the change in his attitude that the major had something up his sleeve," he said.

"The game thing occurred to me, though I don't see what it could be. The accident to Esmond has probably upset him. Anyway, we have our own course to consider now."

"Since Esmond's not likely to worry us for awhile, we had better send all the men we can spare down for provisions, for one thing," said Leger.

It was decided on, and still Ingleby looked grave.

"That's all right as far as it goes, but it's only a side issue, after all," he said. "This state of things can't continue indefinitely, and Tomlinson doesn't seem to be getting much better, or we could have simplified the affair by getting him out of the valley. The winter's wearing through, and if nothing is done before the thaw comes we'll be in the troopers' hands. In the meanwhile there's an unpleasant probability of the freighter or somebody else finding his way in now we've broken out a trail. Have you thought about asking the boys at Westerhouse to join us?"

"No," said Sewell, with a momentary trace of embarrassment. "There are a good many reasons why it wouldn't be convenient."

"I should like to hear one or two of them," said Leger bluntly.

Sewell managed to think of several reasons, but none of them appeared altogether satisfactory when his comrades considered them. It was, however, evident that he was determined on not sending to Westerhouse, and they had to be content, though Leger looked very grave when the conference broke up.

"One could almost have fancied that Sewell had lost his nerve, and if I could send Hetty out of the valley it would be a big weight off my mind," he said.