Delilah of the Snows

by Harold Bindloss

"It's rather an important one," said the major gravely. "You can't well have a murder without a corpse, you see."

Esmond failed to hide a little sardonic smile. "That is a trifle obvious, sir. You have no advice to offer me?"

"I have. It's good as far as it goes. Lie low, and keep your eyes open until you find Probyn."

Esmond rose. "I suppose that is the only thing, after all, though it looks very much like wasting time. I feel quite sure there will be a nicked forty-four bullet in him when I do."

He went out; but the longer he considered the major's advice the more reasonable it appeared to him. Esmond, with all his shortcomings, had a keen sense of duty, and had he consulted his own inclination would have wasted no time in seizing Tomlinson. He was, however, quite shrewd enough to recognize that he was not regarded with favour, and that, although the major did not seem to realize it, the miners were not likely to content themselves with looking on while he did anything that did not meet their views. He had reasons for believing that once Tomlinson's culpability was evident he need expect no trouble from them; but it was equally plain that unless he had definite proof it would be a risky thing to lay hands on him. Esmond was arrogant and impulsive, but he had discovered in the Northwest that it is not always advisable to run counter to popular opinion, and in this case there was a faint probability that Tomlinson's friends might be right. He therefore set himself to wait as patiently as he could until Trooper Probyn should be found; while the men, who for the most part believed Probyn to be living, waited for him to come back—which he eventually did, though by no means in the fashion they had expected.

There had been a sudden rise of temperature, and a warm wind from the Pacific had sent the white mists streaming across the mountain land. It had rained for several days, as it usually does in the northern wilderness in those circumstances, and the snow on the lower slopes had melted under the warm deluge. The river swirled by, thick with the wreckage of the forests the snow had brought down, frothing between its crumbling banks; and on a certain Saturday evening most of the men in the valley assembled by the ford where the trail crept perilously down the opposite side of the cañon. It appeared very doubtful whether any man or beast could cross it then, but the freighter, with mails and provisions, was already overdue, and they had awaited him anxiously for a week or so. It was possible that he might arrive that evening; and, in any case, the six o'clock supper was over and there was very little else to do.

Ingleby, Leger, Hetty, and Tomlinson were there with the rest, and they sat among the roots of a great cedar where it was a little drier. The rain had stopped at last, but all the pines were dripping, and the river came swirling out of a curtain of drifting mist. The hoarse roar it made filled all the cañon.

Hetty was vacantly watching the slow whirl of an eddy when a great trunk that plunged into it held her eye. It had been a stately hemlock well over a hundred feet in height and great of girth, and now it gyrated slowly round the pool, a splendid wreck, with far-flung limbs that thrashed the water as they rose and fell. Then the great butt tilted, and there was a crash that rang high above the turmoil of the flood as the branches that smashed and splintered struck a boulder whose wet head rose just above the foam. The forks held for a moment, and then the ponderous trunk swung again and, with its shattered limbs whirling about it, drove madly down the white rush of a rapid.

It was an impressive sight, and the sound of rending and smashing was more impressive still; but when the trunk had gone Hetty found her attention fixed upon the pool. It swirled and lapped upon the rocks with nothing on its surface now but muddy smears of foam, but she watched it with a vague sense of expectancy. It seemed to her that she and that sullen eddy alike were waiting for what should follow. Another trunk, with branches that heaved out of the turmoil and sank into it again, was coming down the river, but a dusky, half-submerged object slid on in front of it. Hetty could scarcely see it save when it was lifted by the buffeting of the flood, until it plunged into the head of the eddy. Then she rose suddenly.

"Look at it," she said. "It's like—a bundle of old clothes!"