Ottwell Binns - The Lady of North Star

“Koona Dick!” he muttered, and then whistled softly to himself.

He struck another match and looked again in order to make sure. As for the second time the flickering light fell on the face in the snow, every doubt vanished. The man who was lying there was the man whom he had followed for four hundred miles through the waste, the man whom he had hoped to make his prisoner, but who now, if appearances were to be trusted, had finally escaped him. Dropping the match as it burned towards the end, he thrust his hand inside the man’s fur parka to feel if the heart were beating. He could detect no movement, and as he withdrew the hand, he stood upright, and as he considered question after question went through his mind at the gallop.

Who had killed Koona Dick? The girl whom he had met with that look of frozen terror on her face? Who was she? Had she shot the man lying at his feet? Why had she done so? Where did she live? As the last question shot in his mind he knew that the answer to it was in his grasp. He had seen the direction she had followed, and he guessed that whatever homestead lay at the end of that road cut through the forest would be her dwelling place. As this conviction surged into his mind the whining of his dogs came to his ears. They were evidently growing restless, and since he could do nothing by lingering there, after one glance at the still form lying in the snow, he swung on his heel, and made all speed back to where his team awaited him. They yelped with delight as he appeared, and when he gave the word, bounded impatiently forward along the well-beaten track.

Four minutes later, a turn in the road unexpectedly brought into view the homestead that he was seeking. It was set in the midst of a large clearing, and from its outline in the darkness was of considerable proportions for a Northland lodge. Lights shone in three of the windows, and just as he reached the wooden fence which ran round the house, a door opened, and a light within streaming through outlined the form of a man in the act of entering.

Corporal Bracknell shouted to him, and the man turned round and peered into the darkness, then he rested something against the wooden wall of the passage, shut the door, and moved towards the policeman.

“Who are you?” he asked, as he came nearer.

“Corporal Bracknell – on Dominion service,” replied the policeman.

“Corporal Bracknell?”

As the man echoed the words the corporal caught a puzzled note in his tones, and explained further.

“Yes, of the Mounted Police.”

“Oh, of course! I was not thinking of the Mounted service. I am a stranger in the Nor’-West – ” Bracknell had already divined that such must be the case, but he did not say so. He laughed lightly, and made his wants known.

“I’m on service, and tired. I should be grateful for supper and a bunk if that is possible.”

“It is quite possible, Officer, and Joy – I mean Miss Gargrave will be very glad to oblige you. She is always pleased to play the Good Samaritan.”

As the man spoke the name, the corporal remembered that he had heard it before. It had been borne by an eccentric Englishman, who had been reported enormously wealthy and who had perished rather tragically on the Klondyke, three years before, and the mystery of whose death had never been cleared up, satisfactorily. He knew now where he was.

“This is the North Star Lodge, then?” he inquired.

“Yes!” was the reply. “Will you go in now and attend to your team afterwards, or – ”

“In my service,” laughed Bracknell, “the dogs come first.”

“Very well,” answered the other. “I will wait for you!”

He lit a cigarette and watched the corporal whilst he loosed the dogs from the traces, and fed them with frozen fish. The light from the window fell on his face and showed that he was less interested in the operation than in the man engaged upon it, for never for a moment did his eyes leave the officer, and there was a ruminative look in them, as if he were speculating what manner of man the policeman was. The corporal was quite conscious of the stare, but gave no sign of it, though once or twice as he moved about, he flashed a glance at the stranger, endeavouring in his turn to take the other’s measure. When he had finished his task he turned to him.

“I am ready now.”

“So am I,” laughed the man; “it is cold waiting about.”

He threw his cigarette away, and moved towards the door of the house. Corporal Bracknell followed him, and as the door opened his guide stumbled over something which fell with a clatter on the pinewood floor.

The man stooped and picked it up.

“My rifle,” he explained. “I had forgotten it was there. I rested it against the wall when you hailed me.”

The corporal nodded, but made no remark. His thoughts were engaged with Koona Bill lying out there under the shadow of the pines, and he was wondering what the meeting with Joy Gargrave would be like, guessing as he did that she must be the girl who had passed him out in the wood. His companion conducted him to a room that for the Northland was positively luxurious, and waved him a chair near the stove.

“You will like to change your socks and moccasins,” he said politely. “I will go and inform Miss Gargrave, and return for you in ten minutes or so. It should be almost dinner time.”

Corporal Bracknell nodded, and when the man had departed looked round the room with some curiosity. Nowhere in the wild region where his work was done was there another such room, he was sure. Even the commandant’s rooms down at the Post were poor beside it. The furniture was of excellent quality. The wall was match-boarded, hiding the outer logs, and there were furs everywhere. Pictures too! Something familiar in one of them caught his eye, and moving towards it he saw that it was a photograph of Newham College, Cambridge.

He stood looking at it, whistling softly to himself. He himself had been at Caius, and having a sister at Newham, had once or twice had tea in its precincts. He wondered what the picture was doing here in this lodge in the northern wilderness, and he was still wondering when a gong sounded. Hastily he began to change his socks, and the operation was scarcely completed, when the man who had introduced him to the house appeared.

“Ready, Corporal?”

“Almost,” he replied, and half a minute later stood up and nodded.

“This way,” said the other laconically, and led the way out of the room and across the wide passage. The policeman was prepared for surprises, but the appearance of the room into which he entered almost took his breath away. Except for the roaring Yukon stove, and the fur rugs on the polished floor, it was a replica of the typical dining-room of an English country house. The furniture was Jacobean, the table was laid with the whitest napery, and silver and glasses gleamed on its whiteness. He had a quick apprehension of oil-paintings on the wall, of a long-cased clock in the corner, and of two girls standing together near the stove, then his companion’s voice sounded.

“Corporal Bracknell! Miss Gargrave! Miss La Farge.”

He bowed to the two ladies in turn. The second he knew as he glanced at her was of French Canadian extraction, with perhaps a dash of Indian blood in her veins; but the first was a golden-haired English girl, tall, blue-eyed, with face a little bronzed by the open-air, and – the girl who had passed him with her face the index of mortal terror and her rifle at the trail. It was she who spoke in a voice that had the indescribable accent of culture.

“We are pleased to see you, Corporal Bracknell. No doubt, if you have been long on the trail, you will be ready for dinner.”