“We made the injured man as comfortable as we could, but we could not do much, for it was a hopeless case from the first. I stayed with him, for I knew most of what was best to be done. I took the medical course before I joined the Mounted Police, and that is such a help at times like this. I told the man that if he had anything to say he had better out with it while he had the power to talk. Then he told me his name was Mose Paget, that he came from this part of New Brunswick, and that there was something on his mind that must be told before he died.”
“Ah! I thought it was strange that he should leave here in such a hurry, it was such a trumped-up story!” said Mrs. Buckle. George Lester nodded, then went on with his story, only now he was turning over the papers and sorting out some sheets covered closely with writing.
“The man told me that he owned a strip of ground running by the side of land belonging to Sam Buckle, who had the creek frontage, but only a narrow strip about two hundred yards deep. This bit of land had always been coveted by Mose, who felt that he could develop the land that was his own so much better if he could front the creek. Often and often he had asked Sam Buckle to put a price on it, but he could never get a satisfactory reply.”
“Sam was just like that!” sighed Mrs. Buckle, dropping a tear to her husband’s memory, while she shook her head in disapproval of his unneighbourly ways.
Again George Lester nodded; but he never took his eyes from the papers, and when Mrs. Buckle ceased speaking, he took up the thread of his narrative once more.
“It came to the ears of Mose that Sam Buckle intended planting his strip of frontage with black spruce; the young trees had been already bargained for, and were to be planted before the frost came if the ground could be got ready. This was like a deathknell to the hopes of Mose, and he determined to make one more effort to get Sam to put a price on the land. He had made up his mind that if he could get hold of that piece of ground he would leave off his lazy ways and work hard to retrieve the past. He would have a saw-mill on the creek, and he knew that with the help of his young step-brother he would be able to make his venture pay in very quick time.
“He went in search of Sam Buckle directly he heard the rumour, and meant to have it out with him and to know for certain what he had to expect. When he got near to this house he saw Sam leaving the door and going off across the field in the direction of Ripple, so, without approaching the house, Mose started in pursuit, for he guessed that the other was going to a fence which had been a bone of contention between Sam Buckle and his neighbour for many years past. When he reached the place he found Sam Buckle in a towering rage. It appeared that Sam had been working on putting up the fence on the previous day, and that Wrack Peveril must have come at dawn and chopped it all down, and then gone away in such a hurry that he had left his axe lying on the ground.
“Mose started on his grievance right away, asking Sam if it was neighbourly, kind, or Christian to try to take the bread out of a man’s mouth. Sam answered that he treated his neighbours as his neighbours in their turn treated him; then he pointed to the demolished fence, and to Wrack’s axe lying on the ground, and he said that because of that last outrage from the old man at Ripple he would do as he chose about planting his frontage with black spruce. It was his right to do as he liked with his land, and no one should stop him. Then Mose seemed to go mad, and flying at Sam, the two fought as only madmen will. Of course Sam got the worst of it. Mose was the younger man; he was, too, the man with the grievance, and that lent power to his arms, while his passion gave him double strength. But it was not until Sam dropped apparently dead at his feet that he realized where his strength had led him. Then he was afraid and fled, for the curse of Cain was on him, and he believed that he had killed his fellow-man.”
“Oh, why did he not come for help straight away? We might have saved poor Sam if only help had been there in time. The Doctor said so!” wailed Mrs. Buckle, while Pam cried from sheer sympathy, and Jack sat staring out through the open door, making the most horrible grimaces at the landscape, as if the peaceful scene had in some way offended him.
“A good deal of misery would be averted if only people would own up when they have done wrong,” remarked George Lester. Then he went on again: “It was not until quite late in the evening that Mose chanced to hear that Sam Buckle was still alive. He had been making up his mind to leave the neighbourhood that night, for he felt that he was a murderer, and from thenceforth he must be a wanderer. If Sam was alive, however, then there was hope for him still. But Sam Buckle died, and, as of course you know, he died saying nothing but the last words that had been on his lips before he and Mose fought—it was his right to do what he would with his own. Mose would have run away then, but he realized that, Wrack Peveril having disappeared, it was safest for him to stay where he was, while the old man’s memory bore the blame.”