The Heart of Unaga Part 61

He completed his operation. The oozing weed was compressed, and the binding cords made fast. Then the lever was raised, and the sticky ma.s.s was pa.s.sed on to the outspread sheet for its final packing.

For all the cloth was spread, however, and the bundle was set in place Steve hesitated before enfolding it. The disturbing sound still haunted him curiously. He could never resist the dread of the deadly atmosphere of the room. It needed only one breath--moments one might count upon the fingers of a hand. The thought occurred to him to risk all and bar the door. But it remained only a thought. He forced himself to continue his work like a man who recognizes the weakness prompting him.

He folded the cloth about the bale and reached for the solution brush.

But the brush remained where it was. Distinct on the still night air came the sound of a footstep. It was too heavy for An-ina. It had nothing of Indian moccasins in it. It was the heavy footstep of a man, a white man. Marcel!

Steve swung about in an agony of apprehension. But for once in his life his forethought had failed him. He was too late. There was the swift opening and shutting of the door and a man stood inside the room with his back against it. But it was not Marcel. A heavy gun was thrusting forward, and the muzzle of it was covering Steve's body. Helpless, impotent, the man who had taken and survived every chance the Northern world could offer him, stood like any weakling awaiting the shot that must rob him of life in the hour of his triumph.

Steve stared wide-eyed. The man was no taller than himself. He was white, and above his fur clothing was a dark, brutish face with eyes of almost Indian blackness. For a moment they shone fiercely in the lamplight. They were alive with demoniac purpose. A purpose he had come so many weary miles to fulfil. Then, in a moment, the whole picture changed with the rapidity of a kaleidoscope.

The ferocious purpose in the black eyes faded to a ghastly terror. The lids widened, and the eyeb.a.l.l.s rolled upwards. A voiceless gasp escaped through wide open lips, where a moment before they had been firm set with murderous intent. The out-held gun-arm dropped, and the weapon clattered heavily to the ground. The man reeled. He tottered forward.

Then, with a sigh, a deep drawn sigh, his knees gave under him and he plunged face downwards amongst the litter of the Adresol whose secret he had come to steal. The deadly drug had done its work.

Steve pa.s.sed down the room. He came to a stand beside the body of the man, fallen with its face buried amidst the bruised and oozing Adresol.

His features were lost in the very heart of a limply spread white bloom.

It was as though he were seeking to intake the very dregs of the poison with which the air was laden.

Steve stooped. Seizing the heavy body in his strong arms he dragged it clear of the weed, and laid it upon its back. Then he stood up and gazed down from behind his mask upon the lifeless face that gazed sightlessly up at him.

In those long, silent, contemplative moments memory leapt back, bridging the weary years. There was neither pa.s.sion nor pity in his heart. It was almost as if all feeling had pa.s.sed from him, absorbed in a deep curiosity at the signs which the years had set upon a once handsome face. Even in death they remained. And only a dreadful pallor robbed it of the deeper signs which debauchery had impressed.

Yes. Death had been merciful in that it had restored the features to something of their early good looks. Those good looks, which, backed by the subtle tongue of the seducer, had been sufficient to attract the weak vessel of a foolish woman's heart from the path of virtue that had been marked out for it.

Oh, yes. Steve recognized that ghastly, lifeless face. And just for one moment he hoped that as Death secured its stranglehold the dead creature had recognized his. He wondered.

"Garstaing! Hervey Garstaing!"

The words sounded faintly in the heavy atmosphere. It was Steve's voice hushed to something like a whisper. It was a pa.s.sionless whisper. There was neither contempt nor hatred in it. Neither was there a shadow of pity.

He turned back to the lamp. He picked it up, and brought it towards the door. The body of his would-be murderer lay sprawled across the floor barring his way. He thrust out a foot and pushed it aside. Then he pa.s.sed on.

Without one backward glance he turned out the light, and, pa.s.sing out, made fast the door and removed his dreadful mask.

But, for a while at least, he did not return to the woman who was awaiting him. He moved on to the great gateway of the stockade. Then he leant against one of the gate-posts and stood breathing the pure, cold night air, while his thoughts drifted back over a hundred scenes, which, until that moment, had remained deep buried in the back cells of memory. He was thinking hard, wondering and searching, striving to probe the full meaning of the man's attack.

CHAPTER XX

THE HOME-COMING

Steve gave no sign. He saw no reason to admit anyone to the secret of that which had transpired in the store-house. He waited for the approach of an accompanying outfit, he searched to discover the supporters of Hervey Garstaing in his attempt on his life, and, failing all further development, he saw no use in sounding a note of alarm to disturb those who looked to him for leaders.h.i.+p and protection. Besides, he was more than reluctant to lay bare anything that could stir afresh those memories from which only the pa.s.sing of the years had brought him peace.

So he went on with his work, that work whose completion had become well-nigh an obsession. The dead body of Garstaing lay huddled aside, ruthlessly flung where it could least obtrude itself and interfere with the labours upon which he was engaged. Its presence was no matter of concern. It lay there held safe from decay by the power of the drug which had robbed it of life. Later, with leisure, and when the desire prompted, Steve would dispose of it as he might dispose of any other refuse that displeased or disgusted him.

To a man of lesser hardihood, of less singleness of purpose such an att.i.tude must have been impossible. But Steve had learned his lessons of life in a ruthless school. He had no thought for any leniency towards an enemy, alive or dead. He had no reverence for the empty sh.e.l.l, which, in life, had contained nothing but vileness.

To the last he fought out the battle of physical endurance, and he won out. It was a bitter, deadly struggle in which will alone turned the scale. When the last bale of Adresol was packed, and the door of the store-house was made secure, its treasure in the keeping of its dead guardian, Steve knew that he was about to pay the price. The final removal of his mask found him an extremely sick man. And for two weeks he was forced to fight against the effect of the deadly toxins he had been inhaling for so long. He had saved others from the risk of handling the Adresol. Now he was called upon to pay for his self-sacrifice.

In her silent, unquestioning fas.h.i.+on An-ina understood, and, for nearly two weeks, she watched and ministered to the man of her love with smiling-eyed devotion. Steve never admitted his condition, and An-ina never reminded him of it. That was their way. But never in all their years of life together had the woman been more surely her man's devoted slave. Her every service was an expression of the happiness which the privilege yielded her. Every thought behind her dark eyes was a prayer for the well-being of her man.

For all the inroad the poisons had made upon him, Steve's robust, healthy body was no easy prey, and, slowly but surely, it won its way and drove back a defeated enemy. The spirit of the man was invincible, and then, too, his knowledge of the drugs, both Adresol and those ant.i.toxins which he had been forced to oppose to it, was well-nigh complete. The dead father of Marcel had left him in no uncertainty. He had equipped him perfectly through his writings.

So, with the complete break-up of winter Steve was once more in his place at the helm of his little vessel. He was there calm, strong, resourceful, ready to deal with every matter that came along as the rush of the open season's business descended upon the fort.

It, was as well. The rush was considerable as the Sleepers roused from their hibernation. An-ina, Julyman, Oolak, were all his able lieutenants, but Steve's was the guiding mind and hand. The others were people of the same colour as these half Eskimos.

The hubbub and chaffer of it all went on the day long. The store was alive with the squat, black-eyed, dusky creatures, swathed in their Arctic furs. They brought all their trade, surplus stocks of the dried Adresol weed, pelts, beaver and grey fox, wolf and seal. And for these they demanded equipment and supplies for the open season's hunt. They were mainly a good-natured and unsuspicious crowd whose guttural tongue was harsh and very voluble. They needed handling. Essentially they needed handling by the white man.

Steve had been relieved for his midday meal. He was relieved by An-ina, a.s.sisted by Julyman. Oolak stood by with his club, ready for any display of the predatory instincts that yielded to temptation.

Steve had not yet returned from the kitchen. He had finished his hearty meal and lit his pipe. He was standing before the window, from which all covering had been removed at the advance of the open season.

The air was chill. For the moment he was staring out reflectively at the clear, bright sunlight, while the buzz of voices in the store hummed upon his ears. It was well-nigh a perfect Northern spring day. The sky was a-froth with white, sunlit clouds. But the sunlight had little relation to the sunlight of more temperate climates at such a season. It was fiercely bright against the melting snows, with a steely chill that entirely lacked the gracious promise of budding trees and tender shooting gra.s.s. At best it spoke of the final pa.s.sing of the wastes of snow and ice.

These things, however, were not concerning Steve. It was one of those moments of solitude in which he could give run to the thoughts that most nearly concerned him. His eyes had parted from the shadowy smile which they usually wore before the eyes of others. Just now they were scarcely happy, and the drawn brows suggested a lurking trouble that disturbed him. He was thinking of Marcel. Ever since the visitation of Hervey Garstaing, Marcel had rarely been out of his thoughts.

He removed his pipe and pa.s.sed a hand across his broad brow. It was a gesture of weariness. There were no eyes to witness the action, so he attempted no disguise. It mattered little enough to him that the whole world about him was awakening. It mattered nothing to him that the white world was pa.s.sing, and the rivers were starting to flood. The feathered world might wing to greet the new-born season. It might darken the sky with its legions. Such things had no power to stir his pulses, any more than had the thought of the great triumph he had achieved over the desperate Arctic elements, if all was not well with--Marcel.

This was his haunting fear. He was thinking of Marcel--and this white girl, Keeko. Even when he had listened to the delighted tones of An-ina, as she told him the story which she had obtained from the boy's own lips, his fears had been stirred. The woman's delight had been the simple delight of a woman in such romance. That side of it had left him cold. He knew the Northern world, his world, too well. He knew the type of woman that haunted the habitations of man in such regions as Unaga.

And so he had feared for Marcel.

Since that time had happened those things which warned him of a wide-flung conspiracy of which his secret trade in Adresol was the centre. Oh, yes, it had needed but one flash of inspiration to warn him of this thing, and his concern was that this beautiful white woman, Keeko, was a link in the chain of the conspiracy with which he was surrounded.

He saw the hand of Lorson Harris in it, guiding, prompting, from that office he knew so well in Seal Bay.

Hervey Garstaing was his tool. There could be no doubt as to that to which the man had sunk. It was the simple logic of such a career as his.

A man reduced to haunting Mallard's in his endeavour to escape the law must inevitably sink lower and lower. Garstaing was a Northern man.

Sooner or later the Northern wilderness would claim him. The next step would be the embrace of Lorson Harris. No man "on the crook" north of 60 could escape that. Then--? But there was no need to look further in that direction.

But this girl, or woman, this Keeko--her very name suggested to him the vampire creatures haunting the muddy sh.o.r.es of Seal Bay--had discovered Marcel last summer. Marcel, a boy. A boy in years--a child in mind. She would be beautiful. Oh, yes, Lorson Harris would see to that. She would be possessed of every art and wile of the women of her trade. It would be too pitifully easy. She must have returned to her headquarters with the secret he had held so long hidden. And then the coming of the murderer to complete the task Lorson Harris had set.

Now Marcel had gone again to meet this Delilah. He had returned to her in all his splendid youth to be dragged down, down to those backwaters of vice in which her life was spent. Or, having achieved her purpose, would she meet him again? Would she not rather have gone to receive the reward of her betrayal? Anyway it mattered so little. Her mischief was complete. Body and soul, this youth was doubtless hers. What manner of man would he return?

This it was that haunted Steve throughout the long hours of each pa.s.sing day. Mind and heart had been set on one great purpose of selfishness. He had gambled his life against overwhelming odds for the sake of this youth. He had won out at terrific cost to himself. And now the joy of his thought was submerged in the prospect of that moral destruction which the evil scheming of Lorson Harris had brought about.

The hopelessness of it all was in simple proportion to the strength and depth of the love and parental affection of the man's heart. But he knew that until the naked truth, however hideous, was revealed he must continue the labours that were his. If the merciless hand of Lorson Harris had destroyed the simple soul of Marcel, then Lorson should pay as he little dr----

Steve started. His depressed brows lightened. His eyes, so full of brooding, widened as he listened. The sound of a voice, big, strong, reached him over the guttural buzz of the trading Sleepers' tones.

"Uncle Steve? He's back. He's--safe?"

The tone was urgent. It was Marcel. And there was that note of force and anxiety in his voice which Steve never remembered to have heard before.

Impulse urged him. It was quite beyond his power to restrain it. He waited not a moment for An-ina's reply. s.n.a.t.c.hing his pipe from his mouth he shouted swift response as he made for the store.