XVI
Ned Quin hadn't been down in the coast country for years. Indeed, the last time he had been in New Westminster he had gone there by coach. Now it was a new world for him, a world of strange hurry and excitement. B.C. was in a hurry: the people of the East were in a hurry: the very river in the roaring Fraser Cañon seemed to run faster. And he, of all the world, was the one thing that seemed to go slow, he and his train. He was sober now, and in terror of what he had done.
"By God, they'll hang me," he said. They hanged men for murder in British Columbia, hanged them quickly, promptly, gave them a short quick trial, and short shrift.
"I wish I was over the Line," said Ned, as he huddled in a corner seat and nursed his chin almost on his knees. Across the Line they didn't hang men quick, unless they stole horses and were exceedingly bad citizens who wouldn't take a clean cut threat as a warning. "I wish I was over the Line."
And the 49th Parallel wasn't far away. Yet to get to it wasn't easy. He had galloped from what he believed a house of death with no money in his pocket. He had borrowed from the skipper of the sternwheeler, which took him from Kamloops to the Ferry, enough to pay his fare down to Port Moody. He must go to George's to get more.
"They'll catch me," said Ned Quin, "they'll catch me: they'll hang me by the neck. That's what they say—'by the neck till you are dead'—I've heard Begbie say it, damn him!"
Yes, that was what Judge Begbie said to men who cut their klootchmen to pieces with a shovel.
"I—I was drunk," said old Ned. "Poor Mary."
She had been as good a klootchman as there was in the country, sober, clean, kind, long-suffering. He knew in his heart how much she had endured.
"Why didn't she leave me?" he whined. Whenever the train stopped he looked up. He saw men he knew, but no one laid his hand on his shoulder. Few spoke to him: they said that it was as clear as mud that he was rotten with liquor and half mad. They left him alone. He wanted them to speak to him, for he saw Mary on the floor of his shack. He saw the shovel.
"Pete will find her," said Ned. "He said he'd kill me if I hurt her. He'll take her horse and ride to Kamloops and tell 'em, and they'll telegraph and catch me, they'll catch me!"
At Port Moody he saw a sergeant of police and felt a dreadful impulse to go up to him and have it all over at once. He stopped and reeled, and went blind. When he saw things again the sergeant was laughing merrily. He looked Ned's way and looked past him.
"They don't know yet," said Ned. He got a drink and took the stage over to New Westminster. A postman with some mail-bags sat alongside him. A postman would naturally hear anything that anyone could hear, wouldn't he? This postman didn't speak of a murder. He told the driver bawdy stories, and once Ned laughed.
"Good story, ain't it?" said the pleased postman.
They came to the City late, and as soon as they pulled up Ned slipped down on the side away from the lights, and went down the middle of the street towards the Mill. He knew that George now lived in a new house and wondered how he should find it. He didn't like to speak to anyone. But by the Mill he found an old Chinaman and spoke to him.
"Boss live up there," said the Chinaman. "You tee um, one plenty big house, velly good house."
He pointed to George's house and Ned followed the path he indicated. Ten minutes later he knocked at the door and it was opened by Sam. But he was not let in till Sam had satisfied himself that this was really the brother of the Boss. He went to the door of the sitting-room, opened it just enough to put his head in, and said——
"One man, alla same beggar-man my tinkee, say he wantee see you, Sir. My tinkee him velly dlunk. He say your blother. My tinkee t'at not tlue."
But George ran out and found the beggar man shivering on the steps.
"Ned, why, what's brought you?"
The hall was dimly lighted and he couldn't see Ned's face. But by his voice he knew he was in trouble. He trembled.
"George, I've—I've killed Mary," he said in a dreadful whisper, "help me to get away."
"You—my God," said George. He took the wretched man by the sleeve. "You've done what?"
"Killed Mary," said Ned shivering. "For God's sake help me over the border or they'll hang me."
He broke down and wept. George stood and looked at him in the dim light. Sam could not pass them to go back to the kitchen, and waited. The sitting-room door was ajar. Someone inside moved.
"Who's with you?" asked Ned.
He knew nothing about Jenny. But George forgot that he knew nothing.
"Go in," he said, "it's Jenny."
He thrust Ned inside and turned to Sam.
"Sam, boy, you savvy no one has come. If anyone ask you say no one. You savvy?"
"My savvy all light, my savvy plenty," said Sam doubtfully. "My tinkee him your blother all light, Sir?"
"Yes," said Quin. He stood with his hand on the handle of the door after Sam had returned to the kitchen.
"My God," said George again. He went into the room.
When Ned had gone in he failed to recognise Jenny, and thought she was a white woman. She was nicely dressed, and now her hair was done very neatly. Sam had taught her how to do it. When she stood up, in surprise at the unexpected entrance of Ned, it was obvious even to his troubled eyes that she was near to becoming a mother. She gasped when she saw him.
"Oh, Mr. Ned," she cried. He looked dreadful: his clothes were disordered, ragged; his grizzled beard and hair unkempt and long. He looked sixty, though he was no more than fifty, and his eyes were bloodshot.
"Who are you?" asked Ned sharply.
"I'm Jenny," she murmured, looking abashed and troubled.
And then George came in. When Jenny saw him she cried out—
"What's the mattah, Tchorch?"
There was matter enough to make her man pallid. But he was master of himself, for he had to look after the poor wretch who now fell into a chair by the fire and sat huddled up in terror.
"I'll tell you by and by," said George. "Give him a drink, Jenny girl, and give me one. I've got to go out."
She brought the whisky to him. He poured some out for Ned, who swallowed as a man, who had thirsted for a tropic day, would swallow water. George took some himself.
"Sit quiet, Ned," said George. "I'll be back in half an hour, Jenny!"
She followed him to the door.
"Don't let him move. If anyone calls, say I'm out, dear."
"What's the mattah, Tchorch? He looks very ill," she murmured, with her hand on his shoulder. George told her what Ned had told him, and Jenny trembled like a leaf.
"Poor, poor Mary!" she sobbed. "Oh, the cruel man!"
"Oh, hell," said George, and Jenny controlled her tears.
"What you do, Tchorch?"
"I'm going to get someone to take him across the other side," said George. "I must, I must."
He ran out and down the hill path, and Jenny went back reluctantly to the room where the murderer sat. He was shivering, but the liquor had pulled him more together for the time. He wanted to talk. How was it that Jenny was here? He remembered he had seen Pete on the road.
"I saw Pete to-day," he said suddenly.
Jenny stared down at the floor and answered nothing.
"I'm a wretched man, girl," said Ned; "did George tell you?"
Jenny did not reply, and Ned knew that she knew. He burst into tears.
"I've killed Mary," he said. His face was stained with the dust of the road and the tears he shed channelled the dirt. He looked dreadful, ludicrous, pathetic, hideously comic. "I—I killed her with a shovel. She was a good woman to me, and I got mad with drink. I'll never touch it again."
He looked eagerly towards the bottle on the table. He had taken some more when the others were out of the room.
"I've killed her, and they'll hang me, Jenny! Where's George gone?"
The tears ran down Jenny's face.
"He's gone to get someone to take you away, Mr. Ned!"
They might come any moment and take him away! There was quite a big jail in the City.
"I—I saw Pete this morning, no, yesterday. I don't know when," said Ned. "When did you come here, Jenny?"
Jenny said it was long ago. She dried her tears for shame was hot within her. And yet joy was alive within her. She loved Tchorch!
"I couldn't leave Tchorch now," she said to herself, as Ned went on talking. "I'd rather he killed me. Poor Mary!"
If Pete had been brutal, Mary had always been kind. She hated Ned suddenly.
He took another drink and sat crouched over the fire. Every now and again he looked round. At any noise he started. Perhaps the police were trying to look into the house. Jenny could have screamed. It seemed hours since George went away. Ned muttered to the fire.
"Mary, Mary," he said in a low voice. He and Mary had been lovers once, for when she first went to him he was a man, and she was quite beautiful. Across the dark years he saw himself and her: and again he saw her as she lay in blood upon the earthen floor of his shack, what time he had run out and taken his horse for flight.
"They'll hang me," said Ned, choking.
And there were steps outside. He sprang to his feet and hung to the mantel-shelf.
"What's that?" he asked. The next minute they heard George enter the house with some other man.
"It's the police," screamed Ned thinly. He believed George had denounced him. And George put his head inside the room and beckoned to him. Ned ran to him stumbling. The door closed on them and Jenny fell upon her knees. Then she sank in a heap upon the floor. She had fainted.
In the hall was someone Ned did not know. But George knew him and knew that he was a capable strong man. He was Long Mac of the Pony Saw, as strong as he was long. In the winters he hunted, and knew all the country round about.
"Take him across the river to-night, and away by Whatcom to-morrow, Mac," said George; "do your best."
Mac never did less, whether it was for evil or for good. On the balance he was a good and fine man. But he cared nothing for the Law and had a curious respect and liking for George Quin.
"I'll do that," said Long Mac. He took Ned by the arm, and Ned without a backward glance shuffled into the darkness.
George went in to Jenny and found her unconscious on the floor. He sprinkled cold water in her face, and she moaned.
"Poor little woman," said George. "Oh, but it's hard lines on these poor squaws. If I died what'd happen to her?"
He knew their nature and knew his own.
"But Mary's dead," said Quin. "Better for her."
Yet Mary wasn't dead, though Mac was dragging a whining, puling wretch of a man on a dark trail to a country where there's a very poor trail indeed cut for the slow and burdened army of the Law.