Ottwell Binns - The Lady of North Star

FEELING like a man in a dream, the corporal took his seat at the table, and when the soup was served by an Indian youth, he was too much amazed to attempt conversation. Miss Gargrave looked at him and casually asked, “You have never been to North Star before, Mr. Bracknell?”

“No,” he answered, shaking his head. “I am new to this district. I was transferred from Edmonton four months ago.”

“Then you did not know of our existence?”

The corporal smiled. “I had heard something of it; but the truth is I had forgotten all about it.”

The girl nodded. “I can understand that. We are so far out of the track of things that it is easy for the world to forget us.”

Bracknell would have liked to ask why such as she should continue to live in the wilderness; but he repressed his curiosity, and looking round smiled again.

“Your solitude is not without its amenities. I did not think there was such a room as this anywhere in the north. It reminds one of home!”

“You are English, of course?” she asked.

“Yes,” he answered. “I come from Kendal, in Westmorland.”

“Kendal?” There was an accent of surprise in her voice.

“You know Kendal?” he inquired quickly.

“Yes,” she answered. “I have stayed in the neighbourhood. Are you any relation of Sir James Bracknell of Harrowfell?”

“My uncle and guardian,” he smilingly replied.

Joy Gargrave looked at him thoughtfully. “I have met your uncle,” she said slowly. “I should scarcely have looked for his nephew in the Mounted Police.”

“Why not?” he demanded, with a laugh. “The Force is a packet of surprises. My sergeant at Edmonton was the heir to an Irish peerage, and I know a trooper down at Alberta who is the second son of a marquis.”

“But Sir James!” she murmured. “He did not seem to me the sort of man who would approve – ”

“He does not know,” interrupted the corporal.

“It is very likely that he would not approve if he did. But that does not greatly matter; as before I came out here we quarrelled, and the relations between us are likely to continue strained.”

“Is it permissible to ask the cause of this quarrel?” inquired the man on the other side of the table, whose name the corporal had not yet learned.

Bracknell frowned at the directness of the question and was about to administer a snub, when he caught Miss Gargrave’s eyes fixed upon him expectantly. He laughed shortly as he replied, “Well, Mr. – ar – ”

“Rayner is my name,” said the other. “I forgot I had not introduced myself.”

The corporal nodded. “I was about to say, Mr. Rayner, that it is a private matter; but there can be no harm in saying that my uncle had a matrimonial scheme for me of which I did not approve, so here I am.”

He laughed to hide his embarrassment of which he was conscious, and looked at Miss Gargrave to whom the explanation had really been offered. There was a thoughtful look upon her face.

“Sir James is rather dictatorial,” she said, and then turned the conversation. “Do you like the service?”

“Yes,” was the reply, given wholeheartedly. “It is a man’s work, and the open-air life, with all the many hazards of the North, is infinitely preferable to stewing in chambers waiting for briefs; or devilling the K.C. who wants to keep all the crumbs on his own table.”

The girl nodded. “I can understand that,” she commented, and for a moment she sat there crumbling her bread.

The thoughtful look on her face was accentuated. Remembering what he had seen there when she had passed him in the road, the corporal found himself wondering if there was any connection between the two. Then Miss Gargrave spoke again.

“I suppose you are in this neighbourhood on professional business?”

“Yes,” he answered readily enough. “I have been following a man for a month and have trailed him something like four hundred miles.”

“That is a long journey in winter,” said the girl a trifle absently.

Corporal Bracknell smiled. “Nothing to boast of. There have been many longer trails in the Territory by our men. Did you ever hear how Constable Pedley took the lunatic missionary from Fort Chipewayn to Saskatchewan down the Athabasca River in the very depth of winter?”

“Yes,” answered the girl. “That was an epic. The constable lost his own reason in the end, didn’t he?”

Bracknell nodded. “Yes, but he’s better again now; though naturally that experience has set its mark on him. And if I had got my man my return journey would have been much harder than the journey up, as I should have had to look after him; and sleep with one eye open all the time.”

“You speak as if you had lost your man,” said Rayner. “Is that so?”

“Yes, I have lost him finally,” answered the corporal slowly.

“Who was he? What had he done? Was he a very desperate character?” inquired Miss Gargrave, and to the corporal as he turned to her it seemed as if there was a look of troubled expectancy in her face.

“He was an Englishman,” answered Bracknell quietly, his eyes fixed on the beautiful face. “I do not know that he was a particularly desperate character, but he certainly was not scrupulous, and he was suspected of selling whiskey to the Indians in the reservation, which is a serious offence in the Territory.”

“What name?” asked Miss La Farge.

“His proper name I do not know, but he has been known through the North as Koona Dick!”

As he gave the name he saw Joy Gargrave’s face grow white, and the trouble in her eyes was plain. Also, with the tail of his eye, he saw Mr. Rayner start violently, and guessed that both he and his hostess were not unacquainted with the man who lay out there in the snow under the shadow of the pines. For a moment after his reply there was a strained uneasy silence. The corporal removed his eyes from his hostess’s face and glanced round the table. Mr. Rayner was fingering the stem of a wine-glass nervously, whilst Miss La Farge was looking from him to Miss Gargrave with puzzled eyes. Evidently she was conscious that something unusual was taking place, but the corporal was sure that to her the name he had just spoken was without any special significance. That it was known to the other two people present he was certain, and he waited to see what would follow. The sense of strain grew more pronounced, then Mr. Rayner shuffled uneasily and broke the silence.

“I notice, Corporal Bracknell, that you speak of this – er – fellow in the past tense, and you say that he has escaped you finally. Do you mean to say that he is – a – dead?”

“He is lying in the snow in a path cut through the trees off the main road to the Lodge,” answered the corporal steadily, “and he has been shot, I think.”

“Good God!” ejaculated Mr. Rayner, in a voice that, whilst it expressed astonishment, seemed to the corporal to be a little flat. “And we have been sitting here, gassing, whilst – ” He broke off abruptly. “Joy,” he cried addressing Miss Gargrave, “you are ill. The shock of this story – ”

“It is nothing,” interrupted the girl in a shaking voice. “I – I – feel a little faint. If you will excuse me – ” She rose to her feet, staggered a little, and then, as Miss La Farge ran to her, fainted outright. For a moment Corporal Bracknell did not speak, though a look of utmost concern came upon his face. The situation seemed to him to be thronged with dreadful possibilities. Remembering the look on the girl’s face when he had encountered her in the forest road, and the rifle in her hand, he found in this faint further support for the suspicion which had occurred to him when he had stood by the supine body of Koona Dick. Living in the wilds, it was scarcely likely that the news of a dead man would affect her thus, if that news were without special significance for her. Death in the Northland – death sharp and sudden was not so uncommon as all that. Moving accidents by flood and field, by wild beasts and wild men, were part of the general circumstances of wilderness life; why, therefore, should the girl be thus affected by the news that he had uttered? Whilst Mr. Rayner assisted Miss La Farge to carry their hostess out of the room, he stood there, his mind occupied by this momentous question. The answer was one which took the form of a further question and which filled him with concern. Had she killed Koona Dick, with whom, as he was sure, she was acquainted?