SHE STOOD there gasping for breath, and unable to speak; and to both the others in the cabin it was evident that something startling had occurred. Dick Bracknell found his tongue first.
“What is the matter, Miss La Farge? What has happened?”
Babette found her breath and cried pantingly,
“Some one tried to kill me?”
“To kill you!” her listeners cried together incredulously.
“Yes. I was walking down the creek, wondering where Jim and our dogs were gone to, when I heard a sharp sound, just like the twang of a bowstring and looked round. I could see nothing, and the woods on the banks were quite still and silent, nothing moving anywhere. I was still looking, and convincing myself that I had imagined the sound when it occurred again, and a second later an arrow struck a tree close by me, and remained there, quivering. I did not remain to see any more, or to try and learn who had sent it. I turned in my tracks and ran back here, and once as I ran an arrow passed clean through my parka, and buried itself in the snow beyond.”
Dick Bracknell broke out, suddenly, “Confound[236] it,” he cried, “this is intolerable. That Indian Joe must have gone mad!”
“You think it is your man?” asked Joy quickly.
“I am sure of it! Who else can it be in this God-forsaken wilderness? It must be he, but I will soon find out!”
He moved towards the door and throwing down the bar, opened it. There was nothing visible but the snow, and the dark woods. He took a step forward, and as he did so something came swishing through the air and struck the door post. He knew what it was before he saw it, and cried out.
“Joe, you confounded fool, what——”
The sharp crack of a rifle broke in on the words, and a bullet cut the fur off his coat at the top of the shoulder. He turned quickly round, and tumbled backward into the cabin, kicking the door to behind him. Joy ran forward, and dropped the bar in place, then looked at him.
“You are hurt?” she cried anxiously.
“No,” he answered, as he picked himself up.
“Only knocked over with surprise.”
“But that was a rifle, wasn’t it? Some one fired at you?”
“Yes, some one certainly did!” He gave a wheezy laugh as he lifted a hand to his shoulder.
“And he almost got me. He made the fur fly, and if it had struck an inch or two lower down I should have been out of action for a while at any rate. He must be a rotten shot, for out there on the snow I must have been a perfect mark!”
“But what on earth can your man be——”
“It is not Joe,” broke in Bracknell with conviction.[237] “Even if he has gone clean into lunacy he’d never do a thing like that to me. Besides, Joe had no gun with him. Our guns are there in the corner, and as we’ve run out of ammunition they are no use. It simply can’t be Joe.”
“Then who can it be? And why should he want to do a thing like that?”
“It may be your other man—Jim, didn’t you call him? He may have returned, and thinking you were prisoners here, may have tried to get me in the hope of releasing you.”
“But you forget the attack on Babette! Some one shot arrows at her and——”
“By Jove! I had forgotten something! Stand away from the door. I’m going to open it. There’s something I want to get.”
“Oh, be careful!” cried Joy.
He swung around and looked at her whimsically, then he said quietly, “I’ll be careful for your sake, not my own. I’ve got to get you safely out of this. That much I owe you at any rate.”
He turned again to the door and cautiously opening it a little way, peeped out. There was nothing visible, and quickly he opened the door wider and thrusting out an arm, gripped the arrow which was sticking in the post, and hastily flung the door in place once more. Even as he did so, something crashed into the wood, and the sound of a shot reverberated through the stillness outside.
The two girls looked at him, their faces were white and they were much alarmed. Bracknell looked at the door and laughed shortly.
[238]
“It seems that we are to stand a regular siege,” he said. “That man of yours is of the persevering sort.”
Neither Joy nor her foster-sister replied, and moving towards the stove Bracknell threw on a spruce log, and as it caught and flamed up he stopped, and by its light he examined the arrow in his hand. Quarter of a minute later he stood up.
“This settles it,” he said. “This arrow is not Joe’s. It is too finely made, with an ivory barb on which somebody has spent time. Joe’s bow and arrows were makeshifts, and his barbs were of moose bone!”
“Then who can it be?” asked Joy. “Jim would have no arrows at all, and he certainly would not have fired them at Babette if he had.”
Dick Bracknell shook his head. “I cannot think. It may be a roving band of Indians from the far North. This arrow tells its own story. It is like those made by the Indian Esquimaux in the North Behring. I’ve been up there and I’ve seen arrows like it before.”
“But at least one of our attackers has a rifle,” said Miss La Farge.
“Yes,” answered Bracknell thoughtfully.
“And why should they attack us at all?” asked Joy.
“They may be out for plunder. Most of these fellows have a weakness for the possessions of white men. I’ve seen one of them risk his life for a woodman’s axe, and they’ll give their heads for a sheath knife. They will have seen the cabin and may think that there are things worth having here, but in any[239] case they will find out the mistake in a very few days.”
“Why?”
“Because we haven’t more than two or three days’ stock of food,” replied Bracknell grimly. “There’s only a small stock of coffee, a few beans and some frozen moose meat. That’s why I suspected Joe of trying to get your outfit. But I’ve changed my mind now. I think that those fellows outside may have killed your man—and Joe also, if we only knew!”
“Then our position is rather desperate?”
Bracknell nodded. “If those beggars really mean business, we’re in a pretty tight corner. They may rush the cabin or they may wait. In either case they will get us!”
“There is one possibility that you have not thought of yet,” said Babette slowly.
“What is that?”
“It is that this attack may not have been made by any roving tribe at all.”
“But who——”
“Adrian Rayner!”
“God in heaven!” as the exclamation broke from his lips Dick Bracknell looked at her in amazed conviction. “Of course, I never thought of him!”
“He is the one man who has cause to do such a thing. He knows that Joy and I suspect him of shooting you at North Star. He wanted to marry her, and he knows that that is now out of the question altogether. But he is Joy’s cousin, and Joy, as you know, is immensely wealthy. If she died up here——”
[240]
“Heavens! yes! And I would stake my life that he’s the man Roger is after, the man who caused your father’s death. He——”
“You did not tell me!” cried Joy. “How did my father die?”
“Some one blew up the ice on the river, the ice which he was bound to pass over in the morning. Of course the river froze over again in the night, but it was not strong enough to carry a man, let alone a man and a heavy sled team. He went through—and died, but if Roger is right he was diabolically murdered.”
Joy did not move. She looked at him with horror in her eyes. Then her face grew hard. “I believe, your cousin Roger is right. Adrian Rayner was abroad about the time when my father must have died. And he wanted to marry me after you had been shot at North Star, though he could not have been sure of your death.... It was my money he was after, and——”
“He’s after it yet!” cried Bracknell with conviction, “Miss La Farge is right. If you died up here—but have you made a will?”
Joy shook her head. “It was never suggested to me!”
“No—for a very good reason. As your next of kin Rayner and his father would step in if you died. The fellow has been working to that end all the time—he’s working now! And he’s cunning—most damnably cunning. The way he arranged your father’s death proves that, and if Miss La Farge here is right, and Adrian Rayner is the man behind[241] the gun, then we’re in a hole. The fellow will show us no mercy. He——”
“S-s-s-h-h!”
As she gave the warning, Miss La Farge lifted a hand, in signal for silence, and bent forward in a listening attitude. The other two listened also, but heard nothing save the splutter and hiss of the logs on the fire.
“What is it?” whispered Bracknell.
“Some one walked round the cabin. I heard him quite plainly. Ah—again.”
They listened. Crunch! crunch! came the sound of footsteps in the frozen snow outside. All round the cabin the steps passed, slowly, as if some one were making an inspection, and whilst they still sat listening, the steps receded and passed out of earshot. They looked at one another and Bracknell was the first to break the silence.
“A pretty cool customer, whoever he is! He was spying out the land.”
“Yes!” answered Miss La Farge in a half whisper.
“I wonder what he will do?” said Joy.
“Nothing, if he is wise,” answered Bracknell slowly. “Having walked round he’ll have made the discovery that we keep our wood at the rear of the cabin, and he’ll easily guess that we have no great stock inside. He has only to wait until the necessity for replenishing the stock arrives, and then he can get one of us at any rate.... He’ll know we have no dogs, and that we are tied to the cabin——”
“But are we?” interjected Joy.
[242]
“Well, the open trail without dogs is a risk that few men would care to undertake. I’ve been at it on one or two occasions, carrying my own stores, and it’s not a course to be recommended. The trail——”
“But we’ve very few stores to pack!” said Joy obstinately, “and if we stay here we shall be driven out by hunger. Do you know of any tribe of Indians in the neighborhood?”
Bracknell nodded. “There’s an encampment thirty or forty miles to the North on the Wolverine. Joe was talking to me about them the other day, and we considered once over whether we’d pay them a call or not. In the end we decided against it.”
“Why?”
“Well,” was the reply, “they’re rather a pagan lot, and not over scrupulous. Joe was telling me that in times of scarcity they sometimes offer sacrifices——”
“Sacrifices! What kind of sacrifices?”’
“Well, the most barbaric sort—human. There are some queer things done North of the Barrens, I can tell you. The world up here is still a primitive world, and the police patrol up the Mackenzie to Herschell Island can’t possibly take note of anything that doesn’t come right under its nose.”
“But the Indians cannot possibly be worse than Adrian Rayner!”
“No!” Bracknell laughed hoarsely. “He’s a tiger, for certain. Though I will own he didn’t look it when he was here the other day.” He was silent for a moment, then he said slowly, “Of course if we[243] decide to leave the cabin and if we go North, we may stumble on my Cousin Roger. It’s only a chance, but——” He broke off again, and looked at Joy as if wondering how she would take the suggestion, then added, “Well, we might take it, if we can manage to get away from here. What do you think?”
Joy hesitated. Her face flushed a little, then she said quietly, “I put myself in your hands.”
“Thank you. I am——”
A fit of coughing broke in on his speech, and when it had passed he did not attempt to complete his sentence, but as his eyes from time to time fell on her there was a soft glow in them, which revealed an unspoken gratitude.
They sat for a long time discussing the desperate situation, and late in the afternoon prepared for departure. Such food as the cabin held was made up in three packs, and when that was done, and all was ready, they rested, waiting for the hour of departure, Joy reflecting on the strange irony of circumstances which now made her dependent for help on the man who had so wronged her, and of whom she had lived in fear.
All was quiet outside and Babette was offering a tentative suggestion that perhaps after all the enemy outside had withdrawn, then again they caught the crunch! crunch! of cautious feet on the frozen snow, and as all three grew alert, they heard the steps pause by the door, and the next moment there was a rustling sound on the rough woodwork.
“Somebody feeling for the latch-string,” whispered Bracknell, then he hailed the intruder, as the[244] latter having found the string thrust a heavy shoulder against the barred door. “Hallo! Who goes there?”
To this challenge there was no reply, but a second or two later they again heard the steps receding across the snow.
“Came to make sure we were still here,” commented Bracknell in a low voice, “and whoever he was he has made a bee line from the door. That means that the camp they’re sitting in is somewhere in front; and in all probability they’ve forgotten the window at the back, or as it’s blocked with snow haven’t noticed it. We shall be able to quit that way.”
They waited a little time longer, and then removed the moose hide from the window and very cautiously began to cut away the snow with which it had been blocked. That done they listened. No sound whatever was to be heard. Bracknell put out his head and peered into the darkness. There was nothing visible save the foreground of snow and the shadowy background of the forest. He climbed out, and very cautiously crept to the corner of the cabin to reconnoitre. In the shadow of the trees on the other side of the creek he caught the glow of a fire and discerned three men sitting round it. At that sight he crept back, and, whispering to the two girls to be very careful, assisted them out of the narrow window. Then without pausing they stole quietly across to the shadow of the sheltering woods.