“What time, if please?” he asked. “I t’ink nine hour, but no sure.”
“It is near nine,” she said. She hastily tidied up the table after his meal, and then came and sat in her chair over against the wall of the rude fireplace. “Nine—dat is good. The moon rise at ‘leven; den I go. I go on,” he said, “if you show me de queeck way.”
“You go on—how can you go on?” she asked, almost sharply.
“Will you not to show me?” he asked. “Show you what?” she asked abruptly.
“The queeck way to Askatoon,” he said, as though surprised that she should ask. “They say me if I get here you will tell me queeck way to Askatoon. Time, he go so fas’, an’ I have loose a day an’ a night, an’ I mus’ get Askatoon if I lif—I mus’ get dere in time. It is all safe to de stroke of de hour, mais, after, it is—bon Dieu—it is hell then. Who shall forgif me—no!”
“The stroke of the hour—the stroke of the hour!” It beat into her brain. Were they both thinking of the same thing now?
“You will show me queeck way. I mus’ be Askatoon in two days, or it is all over,” he almost moaned. “Is no man here—I forget dat name, my head go round like a wheel; but I know dis place, an’ de good God He help me fin’ my way to where I call out, bien sur. Dat man’s name I have forget.”
“My father’s name is John Alroyd,” she answered absently, for there were hammering at her brain the words, “The stroke of the hour.”
“Ah, now I get—yes. An’ your name, it is Loisette Alroy’—ah, I have it in my mind now—Loisette. I not forget dat name, I not forget you—no.”
“Why do you want to go the ‘quick’ way to Askatoon?” she asked.
He puffed a moment at his pipe before he answered her. Presently he said, holding out his pipe, “You not like smoke, mebbe?”
She shook her head in negation, making an impatient gesture.
“I forget ask you,” he said. “Dat journee make me forget. When Injun Jo, he leave me with the dogs, an’ I wake up all alone, an’ not know my way—not like Jo, I think I die, it is so bad, so terrible in my head. Not’ing but snow, not’ing. But dere is de sun; it shine. It say to me, ‘Wake up, Ba’tiste; it will be all right bime-bye.’ But all time I t’ink I go mad, for I mus’ get Askatoon before—dat.”
She started. Had she not used the same word in thinking of Askatoon. “That,” she had said.
“Why do you want to go the ‘quick’ way to Askatoon?” she asked again, her face pale, her foot beating the floor impatiently.
“To save him before dat!” he answered, as though she knew of what he was speaking and thinking. “What is that?” she asked. She knew now, surely, but she must ask it nevertheless.
“Dat hanging—of Haman,” he answered. He nodded to himself. Then he took to gazing into the fire. His lips moved as though talking to himself, and the hand that held the pipe lay forgotten on his knee. “What have you to do with Haman?” she asked slowly, her eyes burning.
“I want safe him—I mus’ give him free.” He tapped his breast. “It is hereto mak’ him free.” He still tapped his breast.
For a moment she stood frozen still, her face thin and drawn and white; then suddenly the blood rushed back into her face, and a red storm raged in her eyes.
She thought of the sister, younger than herself, whom Rube Haman had married and driven to her grave within a year—the sweet Lucy, with the name of her father’s mother. Lucy had been all English in face and tongue, a flower of the west, driven to darkness by this horse-dealing brute, who, before he was arrested and tried for murder, was about to marry Kate Wimper. Kate Wimper had stolen him from Lucy before Lucy’s first and only child was born, the child that could not survive the warm mother-life withdrawn, and so had gone down the valley whither the broken-hearted mother had fled. It was Kate Wimper, who, before that, had waylaid the one man for whom she herself had ever cared, and drawn him from her side by such attractions as she herself would keep for an honest wife, if such she ever chanced to be. An honest wife she would have been had Kate Wimper not crossed the straight path of her life. The man she had loved was gone to his end also, reckless and hopeless, after he had thrown away his chance of a lifetime with Loisette Alroyd. There had been left behind this girl, to whom tragedy had come too young, who drank humiliation with a heart as proud as ever straightly set its course through crooked ways.
It had hurt her, twisted her nature a little, given a fountain of bitterness to her soul, which welled up and flooded her life sometimes. It had given her face no sourness, but it put a shadow into her eyes.
She had been glad when Haman was condemned for murder, for she believed he had committed it, and ten times hanging could not compensate for that dear life gone from their sight—Lucy, the pride of her father’s heart. She was glad when Haman was condemned, because of the woman who had stolen him from Lucy, because of that other man, her lover, gone out of her own life. The new hardness in her rejoiced that now the woman, if she had any heart at all, must have it bowed down by this supreme humiliation and wrung by the ugly tragedy of the hempen rope.
And now this man before her, this man with a boy’s face, with the dark luminous eyes, whom she had saved from the frozen plains, he had that in his breast which would free Haman, so he had said. A fury had its birth in her at that moment. Something seemed to seize her brain and master it, something so big that it held all her faculties in perfect control, and she felt herself in an atmosphere where all life moved round her mechanically, she herself the only sentient thing, so much greater than all she saw, or all that she realised by her subconscious self. Everything in the world seemed small. How calm it was even with the fury within!
“Tell me,” she said quietly—“tell me how you are able to save Haman?”
“He not kill Wakely. It is my brudder Fadette dat kill and get away. Haman he is drunk, and everyt’ing seem to say Haman he did it, an’ everyone know Haman is not friend to Wakely. So the juree say he must be hanging. But my brudder he go to die with hawful bad cold queeck, an’ he send for the priest an’ for me, an’ tell all. I go to Governor with the priest, an’ Governor gif me dat writing here.” He tapped his breast, then took out a wallet and showed the paper to her. “It is life of dat Haman, voici! And so I safe him for my brudder. Dat was a bad boy, Fadette. He was bad all time since he was a baby, an’ I t’ink him pretty lucky to die on his bed, an’ get absolve, and go to purgatore. If he not have luck like dat he go to hell, an’ stay there.”
He sighed, and put the wallet back in his breast carefully, his eyes half-shut with weariness, his handsome face drawn and thin, his limbs lax with fatigue.
“If I get Askatoon before de time for dat, I be happy in my heart, for dat brudder off mine he get out of purgatore bime-bye, I t’ink.”
His eyes were almost shut, but he drew himself together with a great effort, and added desperately, “No sleep. If I sleep it is all smash. Man say me I can get Askatoon by dat time from here, if I go queeck way across lak’—it is all froze now, dat lak’—an’ down dat Foxtail Hills. Is it so, ma’m’selle?”
“By the ‘quick’ way if you can make it in time,” she said; “but it is no way for the stranger to go. There are always bad spots on the ice—it is not safe. You could not find your way.”
“I mus’ get dere in time,” he said desperately. “You can’t do it—alone,” she said. “Do you want to risk all and lose?”
He frowned in self-suppression. “Long way, I no can get dere in time?” he asked.
She thought a moment. “No; it can’t be done by the long way. But there is another way—a third trail, the trail the Gover’ment men made a year ago when they came to