The man fumbled in an inner pocket and produced a folded paper. He opened it, and gazed at it silently. Then he passed it to the wife, whose hands were held out and trembling.
"I've had this. It came in by runner. The poor wretch was badly frost-bitten. It's surely a cruel country."
But Ailsa Mowbray was not heeding him. Nor was Jessie. Both women were examining the paper, and its contents. The mother read it aloud.
"DEAR FATHER JOSE:
"We'll make the Fort to-morrow night if the weather holds. Can you send out dogs and a sled? Have things ready for us.
"MURRAY."
During the reading the priest helped himself to another liberal pinch of snuff. Then he produced a great colored handkerchief, and trumpeted violently into it. But he was watching the women closely out of the corners of his hawk-like eyes.
Ailsa read the brief note a second time, but to herself. Then, with hands which had become curiously steady, she refolded it, retaining it in her possession with a strangely detached air. It was almost as if she had forgotten it, and that her thoughts had flown in a direction which had nothing to do with the letter, or the Padre, or——
But Jessie came at the man in a tone sharpened by the intensity of her feelings.
"Say, Father, there's no more than that note? The runner? Did he tell you—anything? You—you questioned him?"
"Yes."
Suddenly the mother took a step forward. One of her hands closed upon the old priest's arm with a grip that made him wince.
"The truth, Father," she demanded, in a tone that would not be denied. Her eyes were wide and full of a desperate conviction. "Quick, the truth! What was there that Murray didn't write in that note? Allan? What of Allan? Did he reach him? Is—is he dead? Why did he want that sled? Tell me. Tell it all, quick!"
She was breathing hard. Her desperate fear was heart-breaking. Jessie remained silent, but her eyes were lit by a sudden terror no less than her mother's.
Suddenly the priest faced the stove again. He gazed down at it for a fraction of time. Then he turned to the woman he had known in her girlhood, and his eyes were lit with infinite kindness, infinite grief and sympathy.
"Yes," he said in a low voice. "There was a verbal message for my ears alone. Murray feared for you. The shock. So he told me. Allan——"
"Is dead!" Ailsa Mowbray whispered the words, as one who knows but cannot believe.
"Is dead." The priest was gazing down at the stove once more.
No word broke the silence of the room. The fire continued to roar up the stovepipe. The moaning of the wind outside deplorably emphasized the desolation of the home. For once it harmonized with the note of despair which flooded the hearts of these people.
It was Jessie who first broke down under the cruel lash of Fate. She uttered a faint cry. Then a desperate sob choked her.
"Oh, daddy, daddy!" she cried, like some grief-stricken child.
In a moment she was clasped to the warm bosom of the woman who had been robbed of a husband.
Not a tear fell from the eyes of the mother. She stood still, silent, exerting her last atom of moral strength in support of her child.
Father José stirred. His eyes rested for a moment upon the two women. A wonderfully tender, misty light shone in their keen depths. No word of his could help them now, he knew. So with soundless movement he resumed his furs and overshoes, and, in silence, passed out into the night.
The wind howled against the ramparts of the Fort. It swept in through the open gates, whistling its fierce glee as it buffeted the staunch buildings thus uncovered to its merciless blast. The black night air was alive with a fog of snow, swept up in a sort of stinging, frozen dust. The lights of Nature had been extinguished, blotted out by the banking storm-clouds above. It seemed as though this devil's playground had been cleared of every intrusion so that the riot of the northern demons might be left complete.
A fur-clad figure stood within the great gateway. The pitiful glimmer of a lantern swung from his mitted hand. His eyes, keen, penetrating, in spite of the blinding snow, searched the direction where the trail flowed down from the Fort. He was waiting, still, silent, in the howl of the storm.
A sound came up the hill. It was a sound which had nothing to do with the storm. It was the voices of men, urgent, strident. A tiny spark suddenly grew out of the blackness. It was moving, swinging rhythmically. A moment later shadowy figures moved in the darkness. They were vague, uncertain. But they came, following closely upon the spark of light, which was borne in the hand of a man on snowshoes.
The fur-clad figure swung his lantern to and fro. He moved himself from post to post of the great gateway. Then he stood in his original position.
The spark of light came on. It was another lantern, borne in the hand of another fur-clad figure. It passed through the gateway. A string of panting dogs followed close behind, clawing at the ground for foothold, bellies low to the ground as they hauled at the rawhide tugs which harnessed them to their burden behind. One by one they passed the waiting figure. One by one they were swallowed up by the blackness within the Fort. Five in all were counted. Then came a long dark shape, which glided over the snow with a soft, hissing sound.
The waiting man made a sign with his mitted hand as the shape passed him. His lips moved in silent prayer. Then he turned to the gates. They swung to. The heavy bars lumbered into their places under his guidance. Then, as though in the bitterness of disappointment, the howling gale flung itself with redoubled fury against them, till the stout timbers creaked and groaned under the wanton attack.
CHAPTER VI
JOHN KARS
Seven months of dreadful winter had passed. Seven months since the mutilated body of Allan Mowbray had been packed home by dog-train to its last resting place within the storm-swept Fort he had labored so hard to serve. It was the open season again. That joyous season of the annual awakening of the northern world from its nightmare of stress and storm, a nightmare which drives human vitality down to the very limit of its mental and physical endurance.
Father José and Ailsa Mowbray had been absent from the post for the last three months of the winter. Their return from Leaping Horse, the golden heart of the northern wild, had occurred at the moment when the ice-pack had vanished from the rivers, and the mud-sodden trail had begun to harden under the brisk, drying winds of spring. They had made the return journey at the earliest moment, before the summer movements of the glacial fields had converted river and trail into a constant danger for the unwary.
Allan Mowbray had left his affairs in Father José's hands. They were as simple and straight as a simple man could make them. The will had contained no mention of his partner, Murray's name, except in the way of thanks. To the little priest he had confided the care of his bereaved family. And it was obvious, from the wording of his will, that the burden thus imposed upon his lifelong friend had been willingly undertaken.
His wishes were clear, concise. All his property, all his business interests were for his wife. Apart from an expressed desire that Alec should be given a salaried appointment in the work of the post during his mother's lifetime, and that at her death the boy should inherit, unconditionally, her share of the business, and the making of a monetary provision for his daughter, Jessie, the disposal of his worldly goods