<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</SPAN></span></p>
<div class="break">
<h2 class="p4">CHAPTER VII</h2>
<p class="pch">JOY MAKES A REQUEST</p>
<p class="drop-cap15"><span class="beg">AFTER</span> the mid-day meal, at which Joy Gargrave
did not appear, Corporal Bracknell
left the house, and strolled down the road
until he reached the place where the girl had passed
him on the previous night. There he came to a
standstill, his brow puckered in thought, then he
swung to the right into the same path where he had
found Koona Dick lying in the snow. He had gone
but a little way however, when a noise behind him
caused him to look round. Joy Gargrave was following
him. He waited for her, and as she came
up to him she said, “Mr. Bracknell, do you mind if
I accompany you a little way? I should like to talk
to you—if I may.”</p>
<p>“It will be a pleasure, Miss Gargrave,” he
answered quite sincerely.</p>
<p>“Then if you do not mind we will turn aside into
the wood. I—I do not care for this path, now, and
we might be seen and interrupted by some one, and
I have a request to make of you.”</p>
<p>“I am entirely at your service, Miss Gargrave.”</p>
<p>“Then we will turn—here.”</p>
<p>She indicated a place where the wood thinned a
little, and turning with her, he fell into step at her
side, and waited for her to begin, wondering what
she might have to say to him. Half a minute passed
in silence, then she began abruptly: “You will have<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</SPAN></span>
heard that we are starting for England tomorrow?”</p>
<p>“Yes,” he answered. “Mr. Rayner told me.
The decision is rather sudden, isn’t it?”</p>
<p>She nodded. “The journey is a quite unexpected
one, just now. We had thought of waiting until the
ice broke up and of canoeing down the river. But
a letter has just come from Sir Joseph—Mr. Rayner’s
father—stating that my presence is required in
England at the earliest possible moment. The letter
has been delayed, and Mr. Rayner tells me that it
is requisite that we should start at once.”</p>
<p>“The business must be very urgent if you have
to start on such a long journey at a day’s notice,”
commented the corporal.</p>
<p>“It is not altogether that,” was the reply,
“though Mr. Rayner insists that it is imperative
that we shall make an early start. The truth is—”
she broke off, and then resumed in a quavering
voice: “I am much upset by that mysterious affair
of last night, and, Mr. Bracknell, I am afraid—horribly
afraid.”</p>
<p>“Of what?” he asked, looking into her beautiful
face to find it white and tense with emotion.</p>
<p>“Of my—my—of Dick Bracknell,” she answered
quietly.</p>
<p>“But if he is dead, what—”</p>
<p>“Do you think he is dead?” she cried sharply.
“Tell me, Mr. Bracknell, what do you really
think?”</p>
<p>“Last night,” he answered slowly, “I had no
doubt whatever about it. But today—”</p>
<p>“Yes, today?” she prompted anxiously.</p>
<p>“I am not quite so sure. His complete disappearance<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</SPAN></span>
perplexes me. If he were dead as I
thought, then some one has carried his body away;
and if he were not dead, then some one must still
have helped him, for he was in no condition to help
himself.”</p>
<p>“That is what you think? Mr. Bracknell, do
you know that there was a sledge in the wood to the
left of that path?”</p>
<p>“I saw the trail,” he answered quietly, “and I
saw you following it.”</p>
<p>“Whose sled was it?” she asked thoughtfully.
“It was none of ours, and it was not yours, and it
could not be that of a miner, for any such would
have come to the Lodge, as we keep open house for
the men on trail.”</p>
<p>“I do not know whose it can have been,” answered
the corporal thoughtfully. “If we knew
that we should have the key to the whole of this
mysterious affair, possibly. But whoever it was he
was anxious as far as possible to cover his tracks.
He did not follow the trail up the river. He crossed
to the track on the other side, and then turned off
into the wood; he lit a fire there. I found the ashes
after I left you this morning. He must have halted
there for a little time, for the snow was pretty well
trampled, and when he resumed his journey, he
marched parallel with the river, and descended to
the ice again just south of the bluff. I found his
tracks coming down the bank there, and I imagine
that from the point he must have followed the trail
up-river.”</p>
<p>“Whoever could he be?” asked the girl in perplexity.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</SPAN></span></p>
<p>“I do not know. But tomorrow I am going to
find out; my dogs will be fresh then, and after the
rest I shall be able to travel fast. Of one thing I
am convinced: whoever the man was he was not
your husband. Dick Bracknell, as I said just now,
was in no condition to help himself, certainly not to
take the trail.”</p>
<p>For a moment Joy Gargrave did not speak, and
as he looked at her he wondered what her thoughts
were. He was still wondering when she broke the
silence.</p>
<p>“Mr. Bracknell, I am afraid, terribly afraid.
Somehow I feel that your cousin is not dead. I feel
that he will come back here, and that is why we are
hurrying away tomorrow morning. The letter
from Sir Joseph Rayner serves for an excuse. Do
you understand?”</p>
<p>“I think I do,” answered the corporal sympathetically.
“You are afraid that Dick, having found
out where you are, will return to worry you?”</p>
<p>“You know him, I have told you how I was
trapped into marrying him, do you think that he
is the man to leave me in peace?”</p>
<p>“He is likely to consult only his own interests,”
agreed her companion.</p>
<p>“But I shall be safe from him in England, if what
you tell me is true. He dare not go there openly,
and if he were to appear at all, I should be able to
protect myself, by invoking the police.”</p>
<p>“The police would only be too happy to afford
you protection here,” answered the corporal earnestly.</p>
<p>The girl looked at him with grateful eyes. “You<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</SPAN></span>
mean yourself. Yes! I know, but there is another
service that I want from you—”</p>
<p>“You have but to name it, Miss Gargrave,” he
answered as she hesitated. “So far as duty allows,
I am entirely at your service. Tell me what it is
that I can do for you.”</p>
<p>“You can find out for me whether Dick Bracknell
is alive or dead.”</p>
<p>The corporal had not anticipated the request, and
he was a little startled by it. Instantly his mind
reverted to the conversation he had had with Rayner.
He recalled the hopes which the latter
entertained, and wondered if this white-faced girl
at his side was willing to help their realization. As
that possibility flashed into his mind, he was conscious
of a constriction about his heart. But he
gave no sign.</p>
<p>“I should be compelled to do that in any case,”
he answered quietly. “I cannot relinquish the
work on which I started until I know what has
become of the man who is known at headquarters
as Koona Dick. Some one must know about him—probably
the driver of the sled whose trail I followed,
and I’ve got to find out. Vague reports are
not regarded as satisfactory by the heads of the
force.”</p>
<p>“You will let me know?” she asked instantly.</p>
<p>“I shall be glad to do so,” he answered quietly,
and again he was conscious of the tightening about
his heart.</p>
<p>“You see,” she explained, “my position is so
anomalous. All my little world with the exception
of my Newnham friend and yourself, my foster-sister,<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</SPAN></span>
whom I told only last night, thinks of me
as a spinster.”</p>
<p>“You are sure Mr. Rayner does not know of
your marriage?” asked the corporal quickly, as a
thought struck him.</p>
<p>“I am quite sure,” answered Joy readily, without
giving any indication that she found any special
significance in the question. “You see the part
played by Lady Alcombe was not very credible,
and I used my knowledge of it to ensure her silence.
I wrote to her and told her that if the wedding was
not kept secret, I should proclaim all that had
happened to the world. Her vulnerable spot is the
position she holds in society, and she knew how that
would suffer if it became a matter of common
knowledge that for a bribe she had schemed to
marry to a scamp an innocent girl left in her charge.
She wrote me a short note in reply, in which she
said, that she would forget that the marriage had
even taken place, and that I need not fear that it
would ever become known. That is why I am so
sure Mr. Rayner does not know. Lady Alcombe
dare not betray me.”</p>
<p>Bracknell nodded. “I dare say you are right,
but of course you cannot marry again until you are
sure of that—”</p>
<p>“I do not want to marry again!” interrupted
the girl quickly, the blood flaming in her pale face.
“Why should you think that I do, Mr. Bracknell?”</p>
<p>As the corporal met her blue eyes, clear and
unshadowed by guile, his heart grew suddenly light,
and on the moment he dismissed from his mind the<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</SPAN></span>
thought that Joy Gargrave in any way shared Mr.
Rayner’s aspirations. He laughed cheerfully as he
replied, “I did not say that I thought you wished
to marry again, Miss Gargrave. I was merely
stating the law on the matter, and there is no personal
significance to be attached to such a statement.”</p>
<p>Joy Gargrave smiled austerely. “I am not
likely ever to marry again,” she said. “Once
bitten, twice shy, you know.”</p>
<p>The corporal smiled in return, but as he marked
her loveliness and remembered the figure at which
the Northland had estimated Rolf Gargrave’s
wealth, he thought to himself that many a man
would endeavour to persuade her to a different
mind, but he did not say so.</p>
<p>“Miss Gargrave, one never knows what the future
holds—but whatever happens you can count me
as your friend. I am not proud of my relationship
to Dick Bracknell, even though it does make me
some sort of a cousin to you. There is nothing
that I will not do to serve you, and if anything that
I learn will deliver you from your anomalous position,
you may rest assured that I will let you know
of it at the earliest possible moment.”</p>
<p>“Thank you, Mr. Bracknell,” she answered
simply. “I shall be very grateful.”</p>
<p>They walked on a little way without speaking,
then she turned to him suddenly. “You are my
cousin, more or less, Mr. Bracknell, but I do not
know your christian name.”</p>
<p>“It is Roger,” he answered smilingly.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</SPAN></span></p>
<p>“And if at any time I want to communicate with
you, where—”</p>
<p>“Headquarters at Regina. That will always
find me sooner or later, no matter what part of the
Territory I may be in.”</p>
<p>“I am glad to know that,” she said, “and if at
any time you have news for me, any letter sent care
of Sir Joseph Rayner will reach me.” She turned
in her steps as she spoke. “I think I had better
return now. There is much to do at the Lodge,
and they will miss me. But I am glad to have met
you, and glad to think that I can count you among
my friends.”</p>
<p>She held out her mittened hand, and as he took
it Roger Bracknell felt the blood surge warmly in
his face, and in his grey eyes as he looked at her
there was a flame that had she observed it would
have told her that she had secured more than a
friend. But she did not see it, and as she walked
away there was a pensive look on the beautiful face.</p>
<p class="p2">The next day Corporal Bracknell, with his own
team ready harnessed, watched Joy Gargrave and
her escort take their departure. Four full teams of
dogs drew their equipment, and snow having fallen
during the night, Joy and her foster-sister wore the
great webbed snowshoes of the North. They
stood making their good-byes, then the half-breed
driver gave the word.</p>
<p>“Mooch! Mooch! Linka!”</p>
<p>The leading dog gave a yelp, and strained at his
collar, and a moment later all the teams were moving<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</SPAN></span>
southward. Joy Gargrave waved her hand as
she moved on, and he waved back and stood watching
till the cavalcade was out of sight, then turning
to his own dogs, he gave the word to move and set
his face towards the snowy solitudes of the North.</p>
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