The Triumph of John Kars: A Story of the Yukon

by Ridgwell Cullum

The first gray shadow lit the distant hilltops. To him it was like the first stirring of broken slumber. Strange but familiar sounds broke the profound stillness. The cry of belated beast, and the waking cries of the feathered world. The light spread northward. It moved along stealing, broadening towards the south. It mounted the vault of night. Again, to him it was the growth of conscious life, the passing from dream to reality.

He saw the stubborn darkness yield reluctantly. He watched the silver ghosts flee from the northern sky, back, back to the frigid bergs which inspired their fantastic steps; the challenge hurled at the star-world's complacent reign. Even the perfect burnish of the silver moon was powerless before the victorious march of day.

His spirit responded in perfect harmony. As the flush of victory deepened it reminded him of all that a life of effort meant. The myriad hues growing in the east were the symbol of human hope of success so hardly striven. The massing billows, fantastic cloud-shapes, rich in splendid habiliments, suggested the enthronement of joy supreme. And then, in blazing splendor, the golden rising sun pointed the achievement of that perfect happiness which the merciful Creator designs for every living creature.

It was a moment when there should have been no room for shadowed memory. It was a moment when only the great looking forward should have filled him. But the strong soul of the man had been deeply seared by the conflict which had been fought and won. In the midst of all the emotion of that day of days memory would not wholly be denied, and he dwelt upon those events of which he had read so deeply in the pages of his book of life.

For all his desire to forget, the rapid moving scenes of the summer days came back to him now, vivid, painful. It was as though the pure search-light of dawn had a power of revealing no less than its inspiration of hope and delight. He contemplated afresh his journey down the river with his prisoner and his loyal friends. He remembered his landing on that very spot when sleep wrapped the Mission of St. Agatha, as it did now. He thought of his first visit to the Padre, and of his ultimate telling of his story to the two women who had suffered so deeply at the hands of the murderer. It had been painful. Yet it had not been without a measure of compensation. Had he not run the man to earth? And was not the avenging of the girl he loved yet to come? Yes, this had been so, and he dwelt on the courage and patience which governed the simple women who listened to the details of man's merciless villainy.

The story told, then had come the great looking forward. His work completed, he had promised that not a consideration in the world should stay his feet from the return. And Jessie had yielded to his urgency. On that return she would give herself to him, and the beloved Padre should bless their union in the little Mission House. Then had come the mother's renunciation of all the ties which had so long held her to the banks of the Snake River. Happiness had been hers in the long years of her life there, but the overwhelming shadow of suffering weighed her down completely now, and she would gladly renounce the home which had known her so long.

So it had been arranged under the strong purpose the man had put forth, and, in consequence, added energy was flung into his labors. That night his canoe glided from the landing, and he was accompanied by Keewin, and two other Indians, who had been witnesses of Murray's movements on the day of the murder in Leaping Horse.

The memory of these things carried him on to his journey's end where he encountered again the tawdry pretentiousness of Leaping Horse, seeking to hide its moral poverty under raiment of garish hue. He remembered the anxious, busy days when the machinery of outland justice creaked rustily under his efforts to persuade it into full and perfect motion. The labor of it. How Bill Brudenell had labored. The staunch efforts of the Mounted Police. And all the time the dread of a breakdown in the rusted machinery, and the escape of the murderer from the just penalty of his crimes.

None knew better than Kars the nearness of that disaster. Money had flowed like water in the interests of the accused. It had correspondingly had to flow in the interests of the prosecution. The tradition of Leaping Horse had been maintained throughout the whole trial. And loathing and disgust colored his every recollection. The defending counsel had set out to buy and corrupt. Kars had accepted the challenge without scruple. The case was one of circumstance, circumstance that was overwhelming. But the power of money in Leaping Horse was tremendous. The verdict remained uncertain to the last moment. Perhaps the balance was turned through weight of money. Kars cared very little. The Jesuitical method of it all was a matter for scruple. And scruple was banished completely from this battle-field.

And Justice had won. Whatever the method, Justice had won. The relief of it. The cold reward. Allan Mowbray was avenged. Jessie and her mother were freed from the threat which had so long over-shadowed their lives. The bitter air of the northland had been cleansed of a pestilential breath. So he turned his back on Leaping Horse with the knowledge that the murderer would pay his penalty before God and man.