Murder Point: A Tale of Keewatin

by Coningsby Dawson

Having pulled the body aside and heaped branches against the log, he rekindled the fire. In the light which it cast he could see the blurred trail of Spurling, where he had crawled to and from the cabin; also he could see the tracks which the slayer's snowshoes had left as he strode away through the forest following the portage. He stooped and examined them. By so doing he learnt a new fact—that the man who had done the deed was of Indian blood, for the toes of his footprints inclined to turn inwards, and in carrying his feet forward he had kept them closer together than does a white man; also he judged that he was lightly built, for the snow beneath his steps was not much crushed.

So Beorn was not the culprit, nor was his phantom-self from the Klondike. He thought of Eyelids; but Eyelids was a tall man and his stride ought to have been longer. That which he had witnessed in the mirage led him to believe that the act had been premeditated, and therefore had some strong motive; either it had been done for the reward or for the sake of theft.

He looked round for Spurling's sled and found it in the cabin; it was still loaded—the gold had not been touched. He was puzzled. If theft was not the object, why had the body been left? Without its production or some part of it that was recognisable, the thousand dollars would not be awarded. The best way to solve the mystery was to follow up the murderer; and, if he were to do that, there was no time to lose.

Dragging the remains into the cabin, he made fast the door, that the wolves might not destroy them; he would care for them on his homeward journey—if he survived to come back. Harnessing the four grey huskies into his sled, since they were the freshest, he set out across the portage. Turning his head, as he entered the forest, he took one last look at the deserted camp. The fire, burning brightly, with no one to sit by it, added the final touch to the general aspect of melancholy. Wailing through the darkness the huskies wandered; and in the background, when the flames shot up, appeared the crosses, bending one toward another, which marked the sleeping-places of men who, years since, had lived and suffered, and obtained their rest.

Beneath the trees, the gloom was so heavy that he could see nothing; but on coming out on to the banks of the river on the other side he again picked up the murderer's trail. It led up the Last Chance in a south-westerly direction towards God's Voice, which was only ten miles distant. He had begun to take it for granted that the man was a Hudson Bay employee, hurrying toward the fort to claim the reward, when the tracks, branching off to the left, climbed out of the river and plunged into a low-lying, thickly wooded wilderness, striking due south.

In Keewatin the rivers are the only highways; to leave them even in summer time, if you have no guide and are not a man born in the district, is extremely dangerous; to do so in winter when, after every precaution has been taken, travel remains precarious, is to court almost certain death. For a moment Granger hesitated. He examined the prints of the snowshoes and saw that they were very recent. The man must have waited somewhere, and seen him coming. He must know now that he was being followed, and could not be far ahead. "Well, it's death whatever happens," thought Granger; "to go on to God's Voice is death; to return to Murder Point is death. I'd just as soon die by this man's hand, trying to avenge Spurling, as one cold morning in Winnipeg with a rope about my neck."

The day rose late and cloudy. The sun did not show itself. The sky weighed down upon the tree-tops, as if too heavy to support itself. Presently large flakes of snow, the size of feathers, drifted through the air, making a gentle rustling as they fell. Granger pressed on more hurriedly, for he feared that, if he dropped too far behind, the snow would cover up all traces of the man, and so he would escape him. Sometimes he fancied that he could hear him going on ahead, for every now and then a twig would snap. In the heat of his pursuit he took no account of direction.

About midday he halted; of late all sounds had grown rarer and the snow had thickened, causing even his own footprints to appear blurred a few seconds after they had been made. Of the trail which he followed he could see nothing himself, trusting to his huskies' sense of smell to lead him aright.

Soon he grew strangely nervous, for he thought that he heard the crunch of snowshoes coming up behind. He persuaded himself that it was imagination, until his dogs, swinging round in a half-circle, began to travel back in a direction parallel to the route they had already traversed. He paused and listened again; behind him he could distinctly hear the sound of something stirring. Then he knew that he was no longer the pursuer.

His blood froze in his veins, and he began to lose confidence. He realised that if the murderer knew the district and was moving in a circle purposely, he was doing so in order that he might lure him to his death. Abandoning all thought of pursuit, his sole endeavour became to regain the river-bed. He lashed his dogs, urging them forward to the limit of their strength; but he came to nothing that was familiar; and, when he paused for breath, he could always hear the snowshoes following.