So far as is known, these were the last words which Strangeways ever said.
CHAPTER VIII
THE LAST OF STRANGEWAYS
Granger returned to his shack and, closing the door, sat down beside the stove in his accustomed place. He commenced to fill his pipe slowly, stretching out his legs as if he were preparing for a long night of late hours and thoughtfulness. But he could not rest, his whole sensitiveness was listening and alert; the muscles of his body twitched, as if rebuking him for the delay which he imposed on them. He was expecting to hear a cry; whose cry, and called forth by what agony, he did not dare to surmise, only he must get there before it was too late. Somewhere between his shack and the Forbidden River he must get before the agony began. He rose up, and putting on his capote and snowshoes hurriedly, went out following Strangeways' trail. He had no time to realise the folly of his action—this leaving of his store unguarded and setting forth without an outfit at a season of the year when, perhaps, within a week the ice would break. He did not consider how far he might have to follow before he could hope to come up with Strangeways; nor what Strangeways would think of and do with him if, turning on a sudden his head, he should see the man who had lied to him coming swiftly up behind. He would probably shoot him; but Granger in his frenzy to save Strangeways' life did not think of that. His brain was throbbing with this one thought, that if he did not catch him up before he reached the Forbidden River, he would have seen the last of him alive which any man would ever see in this world, unless that man were Spurling.
So now there were three men spread out across the ice, two of whom followed in the other's steps. The first man was racing to preserve his own life, the second was pursuing to take it, and the third was following with all his strength that he might save the pursuer's life from danger. Of these three the last man alone had no fear of death. The other two were so eager to live, and one of them took such delight in life! Yet, Strangeways was rushing to his destruction as fast as that evil yellow-faced beast, tugging at the traces with might and main, could take him—to where beneath the ice, or in some forest ambush, lay crouched the hidden death. And if he should die, whose fault would that be? Granger was man enough to answer, "The fault would be mine. I told him untruth till he could not believe me when I spoke the truth which would save his life."
Now that he was left solitary again, he resumed that old habit of lonely men of arguing with himself. Between each hurrying stride, he panted out within his brain his unspoken words, his thoughts gasping one behind the other as if his very mind was out of breath. Why had Spurling come back? Why hadn't he killed all ten huskies outright, and so prevented Strangeways from pursuing farther until the break-up of the ice? He would have gained a month by that. His deed bore about it signs of the ineffectual cunning of the maniac; it had been only worth the doing if carried out bitterly to the end. Yet Spurling had not gone mad; he was too careful of his life and future happiness to permit himself to do that. Then he must have done it for a threat, hoping by the daring and grim humour of his brutality to strike terror into Strangeways and warn him back. Perhaps this was only one of many such experiences which had occurred all along the trail from Selkirk, and the pursuer had recognised both the motive and the challenge. Well, if you're compelled to play the game of life-taking, you may as well keep your temper, and set about it sportsmanly with a jest. Even in this horrid revelation of character there was some of the old Spurling left.
Then his thoughts turned to Strangeways. He wondered, had he lied or told the truth when he asserted that the body was not Mordaunt's which was found at Forty-Mile? He hoped for the best, but he doubted. His manner had been against it, and so had Spurling's; they had both been keeping something back. Perhaps he had lied out of jealousy, because he could not endure to think that this girl, for whom he had been searching, who now was dead, had been loved by another man—and not a worthy man either, but one whom he despised.
(Granger knew that he also would have felt like that. The mere denial of such a fact would have seemed somehow to reserve her more entirely for himself.)