<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</SPAN></span></p>
<div class="break">
<h2 class="p4">CHAPTER VIII</h2>
<p class="pch">KOONA DICK</p>
<p class="drop-cap15"><span class="beg">AS HE TRAVELLED</span>, Roger Bracknell’s mind was
busy with the events of the past two days,
and with the information he had gathered.
That his cousin Dick should have turned out to be
the man whose trail he had followed had occasioned
no wonder after the first shock of surprise; but the
mystery of the attack upon him, and of his subsequent
disappearance, afforded him much food for
thought. Some one had determined that Dick
Bracknell should die, and some one had shot him.
The question was—who was it? He had dismissed
from his mind any idea that Joy herself had any
complicity in that business, her frankness having
quite killed the suspicions he had at first been inclined
to entertain.</p>
<p>His thoughts swung round to Rayner. Did he
know anything of the matter? He could find no
satisfactory answer. It was true that immediately
after the crime he had seen him entering the Lodge
with a rifle, and he had certainly shown a keen interest
about the sled which had waited in the wood,
but from the first he had casually offered a sufficient
explanation, and the instinct which turns every man
into an amateur detective on the occasion of a mysterious
crime would easily account for the second.</p>
<p>Besides—Rayner could have had nothing to do<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</SPAN></span>
with the disappearance of Dick Bracknell’s body,
for the corporal was quite sure that he had never
left the house until he had done so with himself.
True, he had betrayed a certain knowledge as to
the place where the crime had been committed, but
he himself might easily have communicated that
knowledge to Rayner, though he could not recollect
having done so, whilst on the other hand, the motive
for such a serious crime as murder was not immediately
apparent. It was true that Rayner designed
to marry Joy Gargrave, but that of itself was not
a sufficient motive unless he knew of the previous
marriage.</p>
<p>“But does Rayner know of that marriage?”
He uttered the question aloud, and answered it the
same way, speech helping him to precipitate his
thoughts.</p>
<p>“I think not! The girl is so positive ... and
Rayner has given no sign. There’s the deuce of a
coil to be unwound somehow.”</p>
<p>He reached the bluff, turned it, and saw the
junction of the tributary Elkhorn with the main
river. When he reached it he halted his dogs and
made a careful inspection of the trail. The new
snow had drifted, but the thick pinewood which
grew on the banks of the smaller stream had turned
the snow in places, and about two hundred yards
up, he came on the half-obliterated traces of sled-runners.
He examined them carefully, stood for
a minute or two in thought, then nodded his head.</p>
<p>“Turned up here out of the main trail, and will
probably have made a camp somewhere. Anyway
it is worth trying.”</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</SPAN></span></p>
<p>He went back for his dogs, and turned up the
Elkhorn. The trail at first was not very bad, and
he made a good pace; but after the first two miles
it worsened, and he struck an abundance of soft
snow, presenting an absolutely virgin surface. This
made the going very hard, and he marched ahead
of his labouring dogs, packing the snow with the
great webbed shoes of the North, lifting each foot
clear almost perpendicularly, then planting it down
to harden the surface for his canine team. Three
miles or so he made, in spite of the cold, sweating
like a bull, and then he reached a place where the
wind had swept the ice like a broom leaving it almost
clear of snow.</p>
<p>He examined the frozen surface, and after a
little search found the marks of sled-runners on the
ice. He searched further, but found nothing save
these twin scars running parallel to one another.
But one sled had passed that way, and he was sure
that he was on the right track. A smile of satisfaction
came on his lean face, and seating himself,
on the sled he swung forward at a rattling pace.</p>
<p>The short day was coming to a close when the
leading dog yelped suddenly, and with his followers
began to manifest signs of canine excitement.
Roger Bracknell himself sniffed the keen air.
There was a fire somewhere, for the unmistakable
odour of burning resinous wood reached his nostrils.
He stepped off the sled, and hanging on to the gee-pole
tried to check the pace of his team. His
efforts however, were in vain. The dogs bent their
heads to the ice and threw themselves against the
collars, hurrying forward, as they had not hurried<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</SPAN></span>
all day. They too smelt the burning pinewood,
and to them it signified not merely human habitation,
but freedom from the traces, and the frozen
salmon which constituted their evening meal.</p>
<p>The corporal, finding his endeavours to restrain
them vain, prepared for eventualities. Hanging on
to the sled with one hand, with the other he unfastened
the holster wherein he carried his service
pistol. He did not know what to expect. That
aromatic odour might come from an Indian tepee,
from the hut of some lonely prospecting party, or
from the camp of the man he was following; in any
case it was as well to be prepared.</p>
<p>The leading dog yelped again, and the others
responded in joyful chorus. The team swung suddenly
towards the left bank, up a slight incline
towards a clearing in the wood. Out of the gathering
gloom a faint glow appeared, and then the
shadowy outline of a hut. The glow was from
a frosted parchment window, and the hut was the
typical miner’s cabin of the North. Corporal
Bracknell smiled and dropped his hand from the
pistol-holster, finding the look of the place altogether
reassuring. The dogs came to a standstill
on the packed snow in front of the cabin, yelping
delight, and whip in hand Bracknell waited, listening.
If there were dogs at the cabin they might be
expected to charge the new-comers, who fastened in
the traces would be heavily handicapped. The
charge he waited for did not come. There was no
challenging answer to the yelping of his own team,
and apparently the owner of the cabin was without
dogs, or if he owned a team it was absent from<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</SPAN></span>
home. This fact further reassured him and threw
him still more off his guard. He stepped forward
to the door of the cabin and rapped upon it with the
butt-end of his dog-whip.</p>
<p>“Come in,” answered a hoarse voice.</p>
<p>The corporal felt for the moose-hide thong that
worked the wooden catch, opened the door, and
stepping inside turned to close it behind him.</p>
<p>“That’s right,” said the voice again. “Now put
your hands up.”</p>
<p>The corporal jumped and his hands moved instinctively
towards the holster as he swung round.</p>
<p>“Don’t!” snapped the voice. “Put them up,
or by—” Bracknell recognized the folly of resistance,
and as he raised his hands above his head,
his eyes swept the cabin for the speaker. A
slush lamp against the wall, and the glow from the
roaring Yukon stove gave light to the middle of the
cabin, but the corners were in comparative darkness,
and it was a second or two before he located
the owner of the voice. Then, in a bunk in the
corner furthest from the door, he caught sight of a
man propped among furs and blankets. On the
edge of the bunk rested a hand which held a heavy
pistol pointing at himself. The face that he looked
into was that which he had last seen in death-like
repose in the snow near North Star Lodge—the
face of Koona Dick. The eyes of the latter glittered
wickedly in the firelight, and whilst the officer
waited the voice spoke again, mockingly.</p>
<p>“The end of the long trail—hey, bobby?”</p>
<p>The corporal did not reply. Apparently his<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</SPAN></span>
cousin was alone and comparatively helpless, or he
would scarcely have waited his entrance lying in
the bunk. His eyes measured the distance between
them and he speculated what chance there was of
the success of a sudden spring proving successful.
But the man on the bunk evidently divined what was
passing through his mind, for a second later he
broke the silence again.</p>
<p>“I wouldn’t try it, officer, not if I were you. I
may be a sick man, but I can still shoot.”</p>
<p>Roger Bracknell looked at the hand resting on
the edge of the bunk. It was perfectly steady. He
recognized the hopelessness of any attack proving
successful, until the sick man was off his guard, and
nodded casually.</p>
<p>“I give you best,” he answered, speaking for
the first time.</p>
<p>The man on the bunk gave a chuckling laugh.
“You seem wise,” he replied, “and if you do just
what I tell you you’ll prove you are. You’ve got
a gun, of course, in that holster of yours? Well,
when I give the word, you will unbuckle the belt,
and fling it pistol and all under the bunk here. No
tricks, mind you. If your hand strays an inch from
the buckle, I fire, and I warn you that I am a dead
shot.... Now you can get to work.”</p>
<p>The corporal dropped his hands to his belt, and
as his fingers worked at the stiff buckle, wondered
if he might run the risk of trying for his pistol.</p>
<p>“Quick! You’re too long!” cried the man in
the bunk. Roger Bracknell hesitated for a second.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</SPAN></span>
His fingers fumbled at the buckle, then the belt
swung loose in his hands.</p>
<p>“Throw it!” came the command in a peremptory
voice.</p>
<p>The corporal threw it along the floor and it slid
to the edge of the bunk, then his cousin laughed
again.</p>
<p>“‘Wisdom is justified of her children.’ If you
had a pious upbringing, bobby, you will recognize
the Scripture. And now having got rid of your
arsenal, you can sit down at the table, and put your
hands upon it. That will be easier for you than
standing there trying to touch the roof, but I warn
you again—no monkey tricks or—”</p>
<p>The pistol moved significantly, and the corporal
moved towards the rough table, constructed out of
a packing case.</p>
<p>“Keep your hands up, and shove that stool forward
with your feet.”</p>
<p>The “stool” referred to was a log of wood, which
as the corporal recognized, would prove a very good
missile if a man had time to lift and throw it. Evidently
his mentor realized that also, and was taking
no chances, so, still at the pistol point, Corporal
Bracknell pushed the log forward to the table, and
then on his captor’s instructions seated himself
with his arms resting on the table.</p>
<p>“Now,” said the sick man, with a short laugh,
“we can talk in peace.”</p>
<p>“Talk away,” answered the corporal cheerfully.</p>
<p>“I will,” replied the other sharply. “There’s a
question that I want to ask you.... Why did you
pot me in the wood at North Star Lodge three<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</SPAN></span>
nights ago? That sort of thing is against the rules
of your service, isn’t it?”</p>
<p>“It is,” answered the corporal, “and the answer
to your other question is that I didn’t pot you.”</p>
<p>“You didn’t, hey? Then who the devil did?”</p>
<p>“I would give a goodish bit to know,” was the
corporal’s reply. “The thing is a mystery to me.”</p>
<p>“But it’s no mystery to me,” answered the other,
a trifle passionately. “You did it, and it’s no use
trying to bluff me. I know you’ve been on my
track for weeks, and that you were determined to
get me by fair means or foul. If you think that
lying is going to help you—”</p>
<p>“I am not lying,” interrupted Roger Bracknell.
“I give you my word of honour that I am telling
you the truth—and I say that not because I am
afraid. It is true that I was trailing you, and that
I was close at your heels at North Star. But I
never shot you, I found you lying in the snow, as I
thought, dead, but I’d nothing whatever to do with
the shooting.”</p>
<p>“The devil!” cried the sick man, and from his
tones the corporal knew that he was convinced.
“Then who did it?”</p>
<p>The corporal saw a chance of further surprising
his questioner—and took it.</p>
<p>“Well, there was the person whom you went to
meet—your wife, you know.”</p>
<p>“My wife!” There was amazement in Dick
Bracknell’s tones, and for a moment after the exclamation
he stared at the officer like the man who
could not believe his ears.</p>
<p>“Yes, your wife, Joy Gargrave,” answered the<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</SPAN></span>
corporal steadily. “You went to meet her in the
wood, didn’t you?”</p>
<p>Dick Bracknell did not reply. His lips pursed
themselves and he began to whistle thoughtfully to
himself the while he stared at the man whose question
he left unanswered. The corporal smiled a
little, and continued—</p>
<p>“I should think that you would be the first to
admit that Joy Gargrave was not without grievances
sufficient to warrant extreme action on her
part.”</p>
<p>“You can put that notion out of your noddle, at
once,” replied the other harshly. “If you know
Joy at all, you know that the idea of shooting me
is the very last thing that would enter her head.
She’s not that sort.”</p>
<p>The corporal remembered Joy’s confession and
smiled whimsically at the unconscious irony of her
husband’s testimony, then, still trying to move the
other to some indiscretion of speech, he answered
quietly, “You believe in Joy Gargrave? But have
you thought what she must feel like? There are
plenty of women who—”</p>
<p>“Drop it,” broke in the sick man harshly. “The
motion is preposterous. I won’t listen to it; and I
warn you, I don’t share Joy’s scruples about shooting.”</p>
<p>“Nor about anything else, I imagine?” answered
the corporal with a short laugh. “But we can
easily settle whether Joy did it or not. Which side
did the shot come from?”</p>
<p>“Now you’re asking me something,” answered
the wounded man. “There were two shots, and<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</SPAN></span>
they came from both sides of me. It was a regular
ambuscade, and whoever fired meant to get me.”</p>
<p>“Where were you hit?” asked the corporal.</p>
<p>“Left shoulder! Drilled clean through,” was
the reply.</p>
<p>“And which way were you facing when the thing
happened?” asked the corporal. “Think carefully.
It is rather important.”</p>
<p>“I was facing up the path, with my back to the
main road. I had heard something moving and
had turned round, just at the moment.”</p>
<p>“That settles it,” answered the corporal emphatically.
“It was the shot from the left that did for
you, and your wife was on the right.”</p>
<p>“But who was on the left? Tell me that if you
can, my Solomon.”</p>
<p>Corporal Bracknell shook his head. “There you
hit one of the mysteries of this business. I don’t
know, I wish I did, but as sure as my name is Roger
Bracknell—”</p>
<p>“As sure as what?” The interruption came like
a pistol shot, and the wounded man leaned forward
with amazement showing in his face. “What name
did you say you called yourself?”</p>
<p>“Roger Bracknell!” answered the corporal
quietly.</p>
<p>“H’m!” responded the other, peering at him
thoughtfully, then he said suddenly, “Take off that
chapeau of yours!”</p>
<p>The corporal removed his fur cap, and sat with
it in his hand, whilst the other searched his face
with inquisitive eyes. There was a moment’s silence,
and then the wounded man spoke again.</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</SPAN></span></p>
<p>“It beats the band. You are my cousin Roger
right enough, and this is a nice dramatic meeting.
Drury Lane isn’t in it with us, though what the
blazes you are doing as a ‘Mounter’ beats me. I
thought you were at the bar.”</p>
<p>“And I didn’t know you were Koona Dick until
three nights ago. I had your description given me,
and that cut across your cheek bone was particularized.
That and the beard you wear are acquisitions
since the old days at Harrow Fell, and even
when I looked at your face the other night I never
associated Koona Dick with Dick Bracknell.”</p>
<p>“How did you come to know?” asked the other
curiously.</p>
<p>“I picked up that note which you sent to your
wife asking her to meet you, and naming the place.
You had begun to write your surname and then
crossed it out. That gave me the first inkling that
you and Koona Dick were one and the same, and of
course when I talked to Joy Gargrave I knew that
what I suspected was the fact.”</p>
<p>“And knowing what you now know, you would
still arrest me?”</p>
<p>As he asked the question, Dick Bracknell leaned
forward a little, and the hand that held the pistol
hung loosely over the edge of the bunk. The corporal
noticed it, and shifted his grip on the heavy
fur cap in his hand.</p>
<p>“I should be compelled to. Duty is duty—you
know.”</p>
<p>“But, man, I’m your cousin!” came the protest.</p>
<p>“Yes! more’s the pity.”</p>
<p>As he replied, the corporal’s arm moved suddenly,<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</SPAN></span>
and the fur cap was jerked across the room
right into the sick man’s face. The corporal himself
followed it like lightening, and, as he reached
the bunk, gripped his cousin’s pistol-hand. The
weapon went off, once, twice, and the bullets plugged
the logs of the cabin, whilst Dick Bracknell shouted
imprecations. The policeman caught the barrel
of the pistol, and turned it away from himself,
whilst with the other hand he caught his cousin’s
wrist, and dug his thumb into the sinews of it, in
order to force him to release his hold. In the midst
of the struggle there was a sudden clamour of dogs
outside, but neither of the men noticed it. The
pistol cracked again, and at that moment the door
opened, and an Indian rushed in. Apparently, he
took in the situation in a glance. There was a
heavy dog-whip in his hand, and in an instant he
had swung it, and brought the loaded stock down
on the corporal’s head. The latter did not even cry
out. He doubled up like a doll out of which the
stuffing had been ripped, and lay in a crumpled
heap upon the hard mud floor.</p>
<hr class="chap" /></div>
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