CHAPTER XXI
Jim Maxwell, left alone in his cabin, had company a-plenty in thronging thoughts. His mood, on the whole, was nearer to one of happiness than any he had known before in the years since the wrecking of his home. The discovery of his daughter had filled him with pure delight. Had she been other than she was, this recovery of her would still have filled him with gladness. To find her so lovely and so winsome in her personality moved him to proud exaltation. He looked forward to companionship with her in the years to come, and thanked Providence for this assuagement of past loneliness and sorrow. He was grateful, too, for the fact that she had entrusted her life's happiness to one who seemed worthy, so far as any man might be, of such a treasure. Since he had no son of his own, Jim Maxwell rejoiced over this gift of his daughter's bringing to him.
Nevertheless, it was in this connection that the otherwise happy father found ground for anxiety, and that anxiety pressed upon him heavily. His understanding of the circumstances, which was wider than that of the young persons involved, made him appreciate the evil consequence that must ensue from the present situation. Either Jack would escape across the Border, or he would not. In the latter contingency, there would be immediate peril of his life on being brought back to Kalmak; for Jim had been told, what Nell had not, of the probable lynching by men impatient of the law's delay. But, with the fugitive's escape safely accomplished, there would remain always a stigma on the young man's reputation. Throughout his life, he would go in constant danger of being pointed out as a jail-breaker and murderer. Jim Maxwell would not tolerate such a fate for one near and dear to him, and dearest to his daughter. He made a last round of his traps, bringing them in and storing them in the cabin preparatory to his departure. And in his progress over the miles, his thoughts were grappling always with the problems by which he was confronted. It was not until nightfall, as he sat smoking cozily in the warm comfort of the cabin, which had been blest by his daughter's presence, that he at last reached a decision. He had little fear of a lynching in case of Jack's recapture; for he meant to take a hand himself in coming events, and he believed that the sheriff at Kalmak, though he knew the official to be of a spineless sort, would make a stand against the mob with his backing. So he dismissed any immediate concern over the retaking of the escaped prisoner. There remained, however, the matter of the stigma. He would not let his son-in-law, Nell's husband, whom she loved, be thus branded by the world. There was only one means of prevention. The young man's innocence must be proved. With the evidence against him such as it was, that innocence could be established in a single way, and in none other—by proving the identity of Sam Ward's actual slayer. Since this was so, Jim Maxwell decided that he himself must bend every energy to tracing out the truth concerning the crime of which Jack Reeves stood accused. Before he slept that night, he resolved that with the dawn he would start for Kalmak, there to begin his work.
In the morning, then, Jim Maxwell set forth on his quest. On arrival at Kalmak, he halted his dogs before the Grand Hotel, where he judged, from a slight acquaintance with the sheriff, that he would find the official in the bar-room. In this he was proven right; for, on entering the saloon, the first person his gaze encountered was the sheriff himself, who stood at the end of the bar facing the door, with an expression of profound melancholy upon his horse-like face. Jim, with only a nod to the others, went straight to the sheriff, whom he greeted with an assumption of deference, since he was well aware of the fellow's pet vanity.
"And what's new?" he asked innocently, after he had given an order to the bar-tender.
The sheriff could hardly pause to drain his glass, so eager was he to pour out his woes to one who had not yet heard them. There was nothing in the narrative that increased the stock of information already possessed by the questioner. It was not until Jim Maxwell had pursued a cross-examination for some time that there came a revelation of importance. This, when it did come, crashed on him like a thunderbolt.
"Have there been any other strangers in the place lately?" he demanded, desirous of any clew to the possible murderer.
"Nary one," the sheriff responded dismally. "It's been dull as ditch-water all winter hereabouts. Hain't anybody come in for a month—leastways, only Dan McGrew, and he ain't a stranger exactly—not by a long shot!"
Dan McGrew! The name screamed in Jim Maxwell's brain. Dan McGrew, here—within reach of his two hands!
He stood motionless, unhearing, unseeing. Beneath the concealing beard, his cheeks were bloodless. His thoughts were chaos. The despair of the years seemed crystallized in this new anguish over the fact that the enemy had been here, almost within his grasp, and he had not known. He seemed to realize as never before the monstrousness of the crime committed against him. Hate more savage than he had known hitherto filled his heart with its black flood. It seemed the final crushing blow of fate, that the wrecker of his home should have come so nearly within his power and then have escaped unscathed. For, somehow, he sensed details given by the sheriff concerning Dan McGrew's going from Kalmak, though he heard not a word of the babbling voice.