The next morning he started an hour before dawn. Light snow was falling, but he could not afford to regard that, and on snowshoes he pressed forward steadily. It began to blow, and he sought the lee of the river-bank for shelter, then that happened which put a term to his journey. A great tree, well up the bank, collapsed under its weight of snow. Roger Bracknell caught the rending sound of its fall and instinctively leaped aside, but the snowshoes embarrassed him and he fell. A bough of the falling tree alighted on his right leg, snapping it like a pipestem, and pinning him down in the snow.
Under the first shock of pain, he almost fainted, but in a minute or two recovered himself sufficiently to take stock of the situation. It was, as he instantly recognized, very desperate. He sat up, and tried to move the weight from his leg. The bough which held him fast was not a very thick one, but the weight of the tree was behind it, and with his hatchet he began to cut through the branch. Every stroke he made jarred him terribly, and more than once he had to desist, but at last the bough parted, and he was able to push the weight from his leg. He was, however, in little better case, since he could not stand upright; and to crawl would have been futile, even if the deepening snow had allowed the possibility of doing so.
He looked round, and through the falling snow caught sight of the sombre pinewoods. They had a funereal look, and in their shadows brooded the menace of the North, which had surely overtaken him at last. Death was staring him in the eyes. He took out his pocket book, and made shift to write a note to his superior down at the Post. Then he took out his pistol, and loaded it with one of the cartridges that had held his life, but which now carried only death, swift and merciful. It was no use waiting. He held the pistol ready, and for a moment his thoughts strayed to Joy Gargrave. Would she ever hear? Would she guess that he—
His thoughts broke off suddenly. Through the gloom of the falling snow he caught a sound of voices. Some one, it seemed, was urging a dog-team to greater efforts. Was he dreaming? He listened carefully. No! There it was again, and with it came the yelp of a dog cut by a whip. A great wave of thankfulness rolled over him. He shouted and fired his pistol in the air. A moment later came an answering shout, and he called back again. Presently, out of the snow-murk emerged the forms of two men—Indians, and as they bent over him he lapsed into unconsciousness.
CHAPTER XI
AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE
SIR JOSEPH RAYNER, as a solicitor, was at the very head of his profession, and was supposed to be trusted with more family secrets than any other man in England. The confidence in him was extraordinary, but no one could be found to urge that it was not merited, and it was notorious that he had averted more scandals and saved more reputations than any other half dozen men in his profession. Erring husbands, and wives deeply wronged, sought his advice, and to the husbands he was a man of the world, and to the wives a sympathetic counsellor, always against the extreme remedy of the divorce courts. To prodigal sons he was the dispenser of paternal allowances, and to the men caught in the toils of the blackmailer he was like a delivering providence. As a family solicitor he was unsurpassed, discreet as a cabinet minister at question time, and as secret as the grave. And in spite of his burden of secrets, usually as he walked abroad among men, he wore a jaunty air, as befitted a man with not a trouble of his own in the wide world.
But one winter morning as he sat in his private office his brow was black with care, and his demeanour was as far removed as possible from the gay one which his confreres knew. Before him was a small ledger with a lock upon it, and a number of documents, and as he bent over them, from time to time he wrote figures upon a sheet of foolscap. Presently he began to add up the figures, and that done sat staring at the total.