<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</SPAN></span></p>
<div class="break">
<h2 class="p4">CHAPTER XVIII</h2>
<p class="pch">ADRIAN RAYNER’S STORY</p>
<p class="drop-cap04"><span class="beg">“JOE</span>, I thought I heard the yelping of dogs.
Did you hear anything?”</p>
<p>The Indian shook his head and Dick Bracknell
sank back on his improvised couch of spruce,
with a sigh.</p>
<p>“Of course,” he muttered, “I’m dreaming. No,
by Jove! I’m not. There it is again. Don’t
you hear it, Joe?” This time the Indian nodded
and going to the door of the cabin looked down the
creek. Three men and a dog sled were coming up
the trail. He turned and informed Bracknell of
the fact. A thoughtful frown came on the sick
man’s face.</p>
<p>“Who can they be? Not Roger, certainly, for
it is but two days since he was here, and he had
but one man with him. Perhaps——” Then as
a thought struck him he broke off and cried excitedly,
“I say, Joe, does one of the men look at all
like a prisoner?”</p>
<p>The Indian shook his head.</p>
<p>“That’s a pity,” commented his master. “I had
a wild hope that Roger might have overtaken the
man. Anyway we shall know who they are in a
few minutes, and patience is a virtue that I’ve
plenty of opportunity for practising just now.”</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</SPAN></span></p>
<p>Laboriously he rose from his couch and seated
himself near the fire. The effort brought on a fit
of coughing, which was still shaking him, when a
whipstock rapped upon the door. His servant
opened it, and a white man entered, and stood for
a moment watching Bracknell as he coughed and
groaned. Then suddenly an alert look came in
his face and for one instant into his eyes there came
a flicker of recognition. He waited until the
paroxysm had passed, then in a voice that had in
it a note of sympathy he spoke—</p>
<p>“You seem in a bad way, friend.”</p>
<p>The voice of a cultured man, as Bracknell instantly
noted, and as he wiped his eyes the sick man
looked sharply at the new-comer.</p>
<p>“Yes,” he replied, “and so would you be if you’d
had your lungs frozen.”</p>
<p>“Is it as bad as that?” asked the other in a voice
that was still sympathetic.</p>
<p>“It is, and worse! I’ve got scurvy too. I
suppose you haven’t such a thing as a potato with
you?”</p>
<p>The stranger smiled. “As it happens I have.
I never travel without in winter, because, as you
seem to know, a raw potato is better than lime
juice for scurvy, and a sight handier to carry. I
shall be happy to oblige you.”</p>
<p>He went to the door of the cabin and called an
order to the men outside. A few moments later
an Indian entered bringing with him seven or eight
potatoes. Bracknell instantly seized one, and
taking out a clasp knife began to cut thin slices
of the tuber, and to eat regardless of everything<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</SPAN></span>
but the one fact that here was salvation from one
of the diseases which afflicted him. He chewed
methodically, without speaking, and Adrian Rayner,
for he was the arrival, watched him with
curious eyes, reflecting on the irony of the situation
which made the heir of an ancient estate glad to
eat raw potato; for though he himself remained
incognito, he had already recognized Dick Bracknell.</p>
<p>“I’d go slow if I were you,” he said warningly,
as having finished one tuber, the sick man stretched
his hand for another. “You had better not
overdo it. A little every day is better than a glut;
and, of course, my stock is limited.”</p>
<p>Dick Bracknell laughed weakly. “You’re right,
of course. But if you knew what I suffer you’d
understand the impulse to stuff oneself! I’ll go
slow, as you advise, and perhaps I shall get quit of
one disease at any rate, though the other will get
rid of me as sure as a gun.”</p>
<p>“You think so?” asked Rayner, with an eager
interest which Bracknell failed to note.</p>
<p>“Sure of it! I’ve seen other men this way—and
there was always a funeral at the end of it;
though not always a burial service. Parsons are
scarce up here!”</p>
<p>“Have you been long in the country?” asked
Rayner carelessly.</p>
<p>Bracknell looked at him sharply, as if suspicious
of so simple a question, and then gave a short
laugh. “I’ve been here a year or two. And you?
You’re pretty new to the North, aren’t you?”</p>
<p>Rayner laughed. “A regular tenderfoot. I’ve<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</SPAN></span>
been here before, but only for a short spell, and
this time I’m straight from England.”</p>
<p>“Is that so?” asked Bracknell, and appraised the
stranger anew. “In the mining line, I suppose?”</p>
<p>“Nothing half so profitable,” answered Rayner
smilingly. “I am merely representing a legal firm,
and have come out on a rather curious mission, one
with little profit in it in fact, and with even a possibility
of loss.”</p>
<p>“That’s poor business for a lawyer,” said Bracknell
encouragingly.</p>
<p>“It is,” agreed Rayner, “and it’s not only that,
but it is about the queerest business that I ever
struck.” He turned and addressed a remark to
one of his men who had entered the cabin, and then
resumed, “It is quite a romance in high life, and
very interesting. Would you like to hear the
story?”</p>
<p>“I was always fond of romance,” answered
Bracknell with a laugh, “and as up here we’ve no
penny dreadfuls, I shall be glad to have a slice of
the real thing.”</p>
<p>“Oh, it’s real enough,” answered Rayner, “and
it’s interesting, because it has a rich and young and
beautiful girl for the heroine.”</p>
<p>“Romance always must have!” commented
Bracknell. “Your story, I can see, is going on the
penny plain and twopenny coloured line!”</p>
<p>“Not quite. It has deviations and some original
features. This girl’s father was immensely
rich, and whilst he remained in this country looking
after his mining properties, he sent his daughter to
England to be educated. There she ran against<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</SPAN></span>
the heir of an old Westmorland family, and married
him secretly—”</p>
<p>He broke off as his host rose unexpectedly to his
feet. “What is the matter?” he asked innocently.
“Are you not feeling well?”</p>
<p>“Just a spasm,” growled Bracknell. “It will
pass in a minute. Get on with your tale.”</p>
<p>The other smiled a little to himself, and resumed
his narrative. “As I was saying, she married this
young gentleman secretly, and immediately after
the marriage separated from him for some reason,
and at the same time something else happened,
which compelled her husband to leave England and
to reside abroad.... Did you say something?”</p>
<p>“No! It’s only this confounded wheeze of
mine!”</p>
<p>“About the same time news reached England
that the girl’s father had died in an accident out
here, and as by the terms of his will the daughter
was to reside for three years in the home he had
built in the woods here, she returned to the Dominion
without having said anything about the marriage
to her uncle and guardian, the well-known
solicitor Sir Joseph Rayner, of whom you perhaps
have heard?”</p>
<p>“Yes, I’ve heard of him! Go on, man. Your
story is very interesting.”</p>
<p>“Fortunately Sir Joseph was not left in ignorance
of the marriage, for the girl’s husband wrote and
informed him of it. Sir Joseph was astonished;
but he kept the news to himself, because the
husband, though of good family, had done something
that was—er—scarcely creditable. He did<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</SPAN></span>
not even inform the girl of the information which
had reached him, hoping that time would solve
what appeared to be a difficult situation.”</p>
<p>“And hasn’t it?”</p>
<p>“No, sir. Time may solve many things, but the
policy of <i>laissez-faire</i>, whilst sometimes a good
one, is not without its dangers! This happens to
be one of the cases where the dangers predominate,
and time has but brought a new complication.”</p>
<p>“What is that?” asked Bracknell sharply.</p>
<p>“Well, the girl is thinking of marrying again.”</p>
<p>“God in heaven!” Dick Bracknell had staggered
to his feet. His eyes were burning and
there was a ghastly pallor on his haggard face.
He glared at the narrator as if he could slay him.
“Man, do you know what you are saying?”</p>
<p>“Yes,” answered Rayner, with well-affected surprise.
“I am saying that in her inexperience this
girl-wife is thinking of contracting a flesh marriage,
one in which her heart is engaged, as it
appears not to have been in the first. Of course
she may not understand the law as it relates to
bigamy, or she may believe that her husband is
dead——”</p>
<p>“Who is the man?” asked Bracknell, in a strangled
voice.</p>
<p>“The man? I do not understand. Do you
mean the husband?”</p>
<p>“No, the man whom she is thinking of marrying?”</p>
<p>“Oh, I see. Well, that’s the curious part of the
whole business, for this new lover is the cousin of
her husband, one time a barrister, but now out here<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</SPAN></span>
in the Mounted Police. What did you say? A
strange story. Yes, it is that; but there is one
piquant detail that you have not yet heard, sir!”</p>
<p>“What is that?”</p>
<p>“Well, it is this, the husband, as I informed you,
is the heir to an old estate in Westmorland. He
had a younger brother who since the elder’s disappearance
had slipped into the position of heir—at
least people had come to look upon him as such,
it being fairly well known that the elder could not
return to claim the succession. This younger son
is dead——”</p>
<p>“Dead!” The word came in a gasp from Dick
Bracknell’s lips, and immediately after he was
taken with a fit of coughing which lasted for some
little time, and left him exhausted with his face
hidden in his hands.</p>
<p>“Your cough is very bad, sir,” said Rayner with
affected sympathy. “Are you sure that you wish
me to continue the narrative?”</p>
<p>Bracknell lifted a tortured face, and in his deep-sunk
eyes there was a moisture that was more
than suspicious. “Yes,” he said hoarsely. “Go
on!”</p>
<p>“As you wish,” replied Rayner with affected
solicitude, and then continued, “As I was saying,
this younger son is dead——”</p>
<p>“How did he die?” interrupted Bracknell.</p>
<p>“Something went wrong with his gun when he
was out grouse shooting. It burst, I believe, anyhow
it killed him, and by his death, failing the succession
of the older son, the cousin becomes the
heir, and you have the rather unique situation of<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</SPAN></span>
the cousin stepping into the shoes of the heir and
the husband at one and the same time. Quite a
little drama in its way, is it not?”</p>
<p>Dick Bracknell’s reply to the question was an
inarticulate one, and afterwards for a little time he
stared into the fire with eyes that looked almost
ferocious. Then he asked abruptly, “How do you
know all this?”</p>
<p>“As I explained, I am the representative of the
firm of Sir Joseph Rayner and Son, and I have been
sent out to find the girl wife——”</p>
<p>“To find J—er—the girl?”</p>
<p>“Yes! she left England very suddenly a few
weeks ago without informing Sir Joseph. She, as
we have ascertained, came to the Dominion, and
my principal suspecting that she was going to
marry the man I have mentioned, sent me to intervene.
Two courses are open for me to follow,
either to find the young lady, and explain to the
former that in the absence of proof of her husband’s
death such a marriage is of more than
doubtful legality; or to find the policeman and
point out that the young lady is already a wife.”</p>
<p>“But he—but what if he already knows?”</p>
<p>“Then in that case I shall be called upon to explain
the law to him also! But so far I have
accomplished none of these things. The policeman,
as I learned at Regina, is missing; and when
I arrived there the young lady had already left her
home up here for an unknown destination....
I do not know, of course, but I have my suspicions
as to who may be awaiting her at that destination.”</p>
<p>“What do you mean?”</p>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</SPAN></span></p>
<p>“Well, sir, you appear to be a man of education,
and you will remember that the great Antony
thought the world well lost for love, and what
Cleopatra thought, her actions proved. Human
nature does not change, and love is the strongest
passion it knows, and I suspect that her lover being
missing, the young lady has gone to look for him,
or if not that to meet him at some appointed rendezvous.
The two are young, between them they
will be fabulously rich and they will not be the first
pair of lovers to set the world and the world’s
conventions at defiance. At least they will be able
to afford it!”</p>
<p>“Never! by—— never!”</p>
<p>The words came from the sick man’s lips explosively.
He rose from his seat, and gripped Rayner’s
shoulder in a way that made him grimace with
pain.</p>
<p>“Man,” he cried, “are you telling me the
truth?”</p>
<p>“Certainly, sir! Why——”</p>
<p>“Do you know who I am?”</p>
<p>Bracknell’s eyes, full of wild light, glared down
into Rayner’s but the latter, as he lied, met them
unflinchingly.</p>
<p>“I do not, sir! We have not exchanged——”</p>
<p>“My name is Bracknell—Dick Bracknell; and I
can guess it is my wife and my cousin of whom you
have been talking. By—— if I had him here. And
to think that two days ago he was here, and that I
let him go.”</p>
<p>“He was here two days ago?”</p>
<p>“Two days ago—and I let him go because he<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</SPAN></span>
pitched a cock and bull story which I believed!
And I might have known all the time that it was so
much bunkum, just a yarn to get out of my hands.
I ought to have killed him as he tried to kill me by
poisoning my dogs. I remember now that once
before when we met, he showed a tenderness for
Joy that was more than natural in a mere cousin by
marriage. He suggested to me that I should
make reparations to my wife by allowing her to
divorce me!”</p>
<p>“That was a very crafty suggestion on his part!”
broke in Rayner suavely. “It would have cleared
his own way to your wife!”</p>
<p>The sick man was stung to madness at the
thought. His eyes burned and his face grew convulsed.
“Reparation!” he cried hoarsely in jealous
rage. “Reparation! The viper! If ever I
put eyes on him again, I will——” he broke off as a
fit of coughing took him, and when it was over he
dropped to his seat utterly exhausted, gasping painfully
for breath.</p>
<p>The man whose lying story had brought on this
attack, watched him unmoved, and calculated cynically
whether Bracknell’s own estimate of the
span of life remaining to him was correct; then he
said, “I am very sorry for you, Mr. Bracknell, but
I cannot allow private wrongs to interfere with my
own mission. You say that your cousin was here
two days ago; perhaps you can tell me which way
he was travelling?”</p>
<p>“He was going up the river—to meet Joy as like
as not!”</p>
<p>“Then I shall follow! Perhaps I shall meet the<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</SPAN></span>
lady; if so, I shall be able to assure her that the
marriage she is contemplating is quite out of the
question.”</p>
<p>“Say nothing to the man about my threats, if you
find him,” said Bracknell, rousing himself. “Say
I’ve news for him, that I want to see him; as by—— I
do! Tell him what you like, but get him to
come back here.”</p>
<p>“I will do my best, sir!”</p>
<p>“If I’d dogs, sick though I am, I’d follow him
myself. But that’s out of the question. I shall
rely on you to——”</p>
<p>“You may, sir,” broke in Rayner obsequiously.
“If I find him, I will certainly induce him to come
back to you, if I can. But I hope you will not be
violent——”</p>
<p>“Violent! Bring him here,” Bracknell laughed
almost deliriously, “and you will see.”</p>
<p class="pc ls3">.......</p>
<p>In the morning when Adrian Rayner took the
trail, he looked back at the haggard man standing
by the cabin door. Bracknell had been delirious
in the night, and now as he stood there swaying,
the other looked at him without pity.</p>
<p>“Booked!” he muttered to himself, “and knows
it. If Roger Bracknell should happen to return
here, Harrow Fell will require a new heir, and I
shall be saved from a disagreeable necessity. But
that chance is not to be depended on. I must find
him if I can.”</p>
<p>And as he followed the Northward trail there
was the index of grim purpose in his face.</p>
<hr class="chap" /></div>
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