CHAPTER XXI
Jim Maxwell, left alone in his cabin, had company a-plenty in thronging thoughts. His mood, on the whole, was nearer to one of happiness than any he had known before in the years since the wrecking of his home. The discovery of his daughter had filled him with pure delight. Had she been other than she was, this recovery of her would still have filled him with gladness. To find her so lovely and so winsome in her personality moved him to proud exaltation. He looked forward to companionship with her in the years to come, and thanked Providence for this assuagement of past loneliness and sorrow. He was grateful, too, for the fact that she had entrusted her life's happiness to one who seemed worthy, so far as any man might be, of such a treasure. Since he had no son of his own, Jim Maxwell rejoiced over this gift of his daughter's bringing to him.
Nevertheless, it was in this connection that the otherwise happy father found ground for anxiety, and that anxiety pressed upon him heavily. His understanding of the circumstances, which was wider than that of the young persons involved, made him appreciate the evil consequence that must ensue from the present situation. Either Jack would escape across the Border, or he would not. In the latter contingency, there would be immediate peril of his life on being brought back to Kalmak; for Jim had been told, what Nell had not, of the probable lynching by men impatient of the law's delay. But, with the fugitive's escape safely accomplished, there would remain always a stigma on the young man's reputation. Throughout his life, he would go in constant danger of being pointed out as a jail-breaker and murderer. Jim Maxwell would not tolerate such a fate for one near and dear to him, and dearest to his daughter. He made a last round of his traps, bringing them in and storing them in the cabin preparatory to his departure. And in his progress over the miles, his thoughts were grappling always with the problems by which he was confronted. It was not until nightfall, as he sat smoking cozily in the warm comfort of the cabin, which had been blest by his daughter's presence, that he at last reached a decision. He had little fear of a lynching in case of Jack's recapture; for he meant to take a hand himself in coming events, and he believed that the sheriff at Kalmak, though he knew the official to be of a spineless sort, would make a stand against the mob with his backing. So he dismissed any immediate concern over the retaking of the escaped prisoner. There remained, however, the matter of the stigma. He would not let his son-in-law, Nell's husband, whom she loved, be thus branded by the world. There was only one means of prevention. The young man's innocence must be proved. With the evidence against him such as it was, that innocence could be established in a single way, and in none other—by proving the identity of Sam Ward's actual slayer. Since this was so, Jim Maxwell decided that he himself must bend every energy to tracing out the truth concerning the crime of which Jack Reeves stood accused. Before he slept that night, he resolved that with the dawn he would start for Kalmak, there to begin his work.
In the morning, then, Jim Maxwell set forth on his quest. On arrival at Kalmak, he halted his dogs before the Grand Hotel, where he judged, from a slight acquaintance with the sheriff, that he would find the official in the bar-room. In this he was proven right; for, on entering the saloon, the first person his gaze encountered was the sheriff himself, who stood at the end of the bar facing the door, with an expression of profound melancholy upon his horse-like face. Jim, with only a nod to the others, went straight to the sheriff, whom he greeted with an assumption of deference, since he was well aware of the fellow's pet vanity.
"And what's new?" he asked innocently, after he had given an order to the bar-tender.
The sheriff could hardly pause to drain his glass, so eager was he to pour out his woes to one who had not yet heard them. There was nothing in the narrative that increased the stock of information already possessed by the questioner. It was not until Jim Maxwell had pursued a cross-examination for some time that there came a revelation of importance. This, when it did come, crashed on him like a thunderbolt.
"Have there been any other strangers in the place lately?" he demanded, desirous of any clew to the possible murderer.
"Nary one," the sheriff responded dismally. "It's been dull as ditch-water all winter hereabouts. Hain't anybody come in for a month—leastways, only Dan McGrew, and he ain't a stranger exactly—not by a long shot!"
Dan McGrew! The name screamed in Jim Maxwell's brain. Dan McGrew, here—within reach of his two hands!
He stood motionless, unhearing, unseeing. Beneath the concealing beard, his cheeks were bloodless. His thoughts were chaos. The despair of the years seemed crystallized in this new anguish over the fact that the enemy had been here, almost within his grasp, and he had not known. He seemed to realize as never before the monstrousness of the crime committed against him. Hate more savage than he had known hitherto filled his heart with its black flood. It seemed the final crushing blow of fate, that the wrecker of his home should have come so nearly within his power and then have escaped unscathed. For, somehow, he sensed details given by the sheriff concerning Dan McGrew's going from Kalmak, though he heard not a word of the babbling voice.
Presently, Jim Maxwell aroused from this trance of rage. He found himself weak and shaken, and his tone was husky as he ordered more drinks for himself and for the gratified sheriff. He gulped the raw liquor hurriedly, and welcomed the sting of it. He regained his usual stern composure soon, and, immediately then, his thoughts took a new turn. He resumed the prosecution of his inquiries with increased eagerness. It may have been that the association of ideas drove him on. Dan McGrew was to him the epitome of crime. The presence of Dan McGrew in the neighborhood struck him as of possible significance. He was without a shred of evidence, in the matter of Sam Ward's death, against the man he hated. Yet, he felt a strange conviction that here was the clew for which he had been searching.... The sheriff was highly pleased by the manifest interest of this trapper, who, in their previous meetings, had shown no trace of geniality.
"You say this Dan McGrew—" Jim stumbled a little over the name—"was here when this Reeves chap came in?"
"Blew in that very self-same day, jest a little while before the murderer got here."
"I suppose he hadn't heard of the murder until he got here?" Jim suggested.
The sheriff shook his head.
"We didn't any of us know a thing about Sam Ward having been killed, until the young feller drove up and told that cussed yarn about seein' the murder through his glasses. The nerve of him! And he'd got away with it, too, if it hadn't been for Dan McGrew puttin' it into my head to search his pack."
The listener started perceptibly at this information.
"Oh, it was Dan McGrew who first directed suspicion against this young man, was it?"
The sheriff was deeply chagrined by his inadvertent revelation of the truth. He attempted to hedge.
"Why, not exactly. Maybe he was the first to speak right out plain, but I'd been thinkin' jest that same thing."
Jim did not care to press the point. He had no wish to wound the sheriff's sensibilities, at least while further information might be extracted from the man. But he regarded this news concerning the part Dan McGrew had played in the affair as of vital importance. While the sheriff maundered on, he rapidly reviewed the details of the case, so far as he knew them.
The murderer, according to Jack's account, must have seen the approach of the bridal pair. The fact was, indeed, proven by his hasty flight from the scene of the crime. Thereafter, he might have watched, and probably had watched, the arrival of the sled, and he doubtless had been aware that the newcomers camped on the creek for the night. Already, in previous study of the questions involved, Jim had arrived at these conclusions, which established a plausible explanation for the presence of the knife-handle in Jack's pack. Certainly, it could have been no difficult feat for the assassin to secrete this evidence during the night encampment. As certainly, there could have been no other opportunity. Nor could there be any doubt as to the motive for the action. It had been for the purpose of fixing guilt upon the innocent, that the guilty might go free.
Now, in addition to these conclusions already established, there appeared another and salient fact.
The person who first suggested the searching of the pack wherein the knife-handle lay concealed had been Dan McGrew. The inference was undeniable. It was made stronger still by the correlated fact that Dan McGrew had arrived at Kalmak only shortly before the coming of the alleged murderer. By further questioning, Jim drew from the loquacious sheriff additional data. Dangerous Dan had arrived on foot. He had talked of having been in the stampede; but he had given no precise account of his movements, nor had he explained the reason for his coming to Kalmak, over which the sheriff had puzzled. The day following his arrival, he had set out for Malamute with a hired outfit.
A rapid survey of all these circumstances brought Jim Maxwell to the conviction that Dangerous Dan McGrew had added murder to his other crimes. The evidence was by no means conclusive, but it was sufficient to any one reasoning from the facts. Jim, sure of Jack's innocence, regarded the guilt of Dan McGrew as actually established. There remained the necessity of final proof, which would brand the murderer as such before the world and clear the innocent from unjust suspicion.
It was reasonable to suppose that the slayer of Sam Ward had taken to himself, in payment for his crime, anything of value on the dead man's body. Thus there was a possibility, even a probability, that Dangerous Dan McGrew now carried with him some tangible evidence that would serve to convict him. This evidence must be secured. In no other way could the innocence of Jack Reeves be proclaimed to the world. And Dangerous Dan had gone to Malamute. Jim smiled slowly, staring fixedly, as if his gaze reached out across the miles. The sheriff, though hardly a coward, shrank a little from some strange quality in that look.
Jim Maxwell, in truth, was wondering as to his exact purpose in going to Malamute. Was it to save Jack Reeves, or was it to kill Dangerous Dan McGrew? Both, perhaps.
He put a last question to the sheriff, who was puzzled by it—not the less so by reason of a certain hesitation in the questioner's voice as he spoke.
"There wasn't any—any woman with this—Dan McGrew?"
"Nope! He's been here three or four times for a game with the boys. He's square, Dan is. An' I hain't never seen him look at nary one of the gals."
Jim Maxwell turned away abruptly from the sheriff, without a word in parting. The careless words screeched in his brain, mocking devils of derision:
"He's square, Dan is."
Jim Maxwell set his face homeward, and urged the dogs to their best speed, for he had much to do and time pressed. He reached the cabin with the first shadows of dusk, and, after attending to the dogs, busied himself in collecting important papers, which must be carried with him, since he could hazard no guess as to when he might return to the cabin, if ever. His skins were to be left behind, though their total value was a considerable sum. He had put out his line of traps for the solace afforded by occupation, rather than for profit from the pelts. He would leave them with no regret over the loss involved. He cared little for money at any time—now, not at all. The only consideration was that he must travel fast and light.
With the dawn Jim Maxwell was off. At the last, he experienced a pang of regret over leaving this humble dwelling, where, though he had companioned so long with misery, he had, nevertheless, found soothing from the serenity and the silence, and where, in the end, he had found a daughter and a daughter's love. But this regret at parting from the familiar place was, after all, a trivial thing compared with the desire to hasten from it to the accomplishment of the work that awaited. He was obsessed by the purpose to avenge his own wrongs and those of his children, as he had already come to term Nell and Jack in his thoughts. The object of that vengeance was Dan McGrew. In these hours of pursuit after the man who had injured him and his so foully, his mood was all of fierce hatred. The tenderness that had stirred and wakened in his heart with the recognition of his daughter now slept again. A fury of rage filled him. This nearness to his enemy inflamed every passionate memory of wrong. Usually considerate of every creature, he was now merciless, and sent the dogs forward at top speed, cursing them when they lagged.
As the day advanced, heavy gray clouds covered the whole face of the heavens. The light wind which had been blowing from the east, veered to the north soon after mid-day, and quickened. It quickened more and more. Presently it was blowing a gale. And it came icy cold from the floes within the Circle. Jim, under the numbing touch, was compelled to go afoot oftener, in order to make the sluggish blood bestir itself. Yet his action was almost automatic, the result of habit formed in like experiences. He was hardly conscious of the changed conditions. Though his flesh felt the ice-lash of the air and fought against it, the brain inhibited sensation. His thought was all of the task that awaited. The chill of the body was nothing to him. He knew only the hot wrath that throbbed in his blood. He gave no heed, even when the powdery snow came in almost level flight. It was solely the slackening pace of the dogs that had power to arouse him. Sorely reluctant, he gave them a breathing spell, and fed them. He desired no food for himself. He was sustained by the spirit of vengeance which was flaming within him. He was not afraid of the cold, which grew momently more deadly; nor of the snow, though it fell so thickly that, when the journey was resumed, the dogs attained hardly half their former speed. The flakes flew in masses so dense that it was difficult to tell whether the darkness were of its own making or the night were come. He could still distinguish the peaks by which he set his course, and, since he went to his destination, nothing else mattered at all—except that the dogs dawdled. He cursed them again. His voice went out to them by turns raucously savage and imploring.
The dogs ran floundering through the snow, which deepened dangerously fast. Ever afterward, Jim Maxwell believed that, somehow, the power of righteousness had gone with him, triumphing in his behalf over the elements that would have barred his way. It seemed, indeed, that only a miracle could have carried him safely through the cold and storm. He had expected, by unsparing driving of the dogs, to reach Malamute well before dark. He himself now had no sense of time, only as it meant delay in coming face to face with Dan McGrew. As a matter of fact, it was ten o'clock at night when his eyes picked out faint yellow gleams twinkling through the snow-wrack, which he knew to be the lighted windows of the Malamute saloon. The dogs understood that they were come to the journey's end. They strained at the breast-straps in a last desperate burst of speed, and then, unbidden, halted before the door of the saloon and dropped on their bellies, panting and slavering. Jim Maxwell with difficulty stirred his cold-stiffened muscles and clambered down from the sled. He stood dazed for a full minute, as if not yet fully conscious that he had reached the end of the way, that the hour of vengeance had at last struck.
Then, suddenly, Jim Maxwell straightened himself and squared his shoulders. He walked to the door of the saloon and opened it with a steady hand and stepped within, shaking the snow from his parka as he went. He halted just inside and stood quietly. At his entrance, silence had fallen on the noisy room and the eyes of all were turned on him.
HE HALTED JUST INSIDE AND STOOD QUIETLY.