The Lady of North Star

“They were not all deceitful, surely?” expostulated the young man.

“No! Some are my friends still. I am going to England very shortly, and I shall stay with one of them in Westmorland.”

“Will you ever return here?”

“Most certainly. North Star is my home – I love it, and I have always felt myself safe here – until last night.”

Bracknell understood that she meant that she had felt that in this lodge in the wilderness she was safe from his cousin, and nodded his head.

“I understand,” he said, but forbore to add what was in his mind; namely, that if Dick Bracknell had not died on the previous night, North Star would be no longer the sanctuary it had been.

They walked forward for a moment without speaking. A rise in the ground covered with snow-laden saskatoon bushes hid the river from them for a little time, and as they breasted it, and the river came into view again, they surprised a pedestrian climbing up the bank. It was Mr. Rayner.

He was obviously a little startled by the meeting, but a moment later recovered himself.

“Been out for a constitutional,” he explained, “as far as the bend of the river, and I’ve had quite sufficient. Are you ready to return?”

The girl nodded, but the corporal, whose eyes were surveying the empty landscape in front, shook his head.

“I shall walk on a little,” he said, “I may be going up stream tomorrow. The Elkhorn falls in somewhere about here, doesn’t it?”

“Just beyond the bluff there,” answered Joy.

“Then I’ll take a look at it, and see what the trail is like.”

He nodded and walked on leaving Joy Gargrave to return with Rayner. He waited until they were out of sight and then descended to the frozen surface of the river, where the going was easier, the trail having been packed by prospectors moving up and down. He reached the bluff in a short time, but did not go round it. His gaze was arrested by the trail of a sled which had come down the bank to the river at a point just below the bluff, and by recent footmarks. He remembered the figure he had seen whilst walking with Joy Gargrave, unquestionably that of Rayner, for there were his footmarks turning south from the bluff. A thought struck him, and examining the snow carefully, he found no tracks running northward. A little puzzled he looked at the sled trail again, and there made the discovery that the single footmarks that ran side by side with the sled-trail, had been made not by one pair of feet but by two, some one having quite recently adapted his stride to the tracks already made. Puzzled and interested he followed the sled trail up the bank and began to trace it through the wood at the top.

An hour later, still following the sled-trail he struck the river again, and found himself exactly opposite the landing which led to North Star Lodge. As he realized this he nodded thoughtfully. The sled trail he had been following, when he had encountered Joy Gargrave, led directly across the river. But whose sled was it? And why had Rayner traced it so carefully, at the same time endeavouring to cover his own trail? The first question was one for which he had no answer, and the second was an equal puzzle. Clearly Rayner had been interested in the sled-trail since he had followed it for two miles; and plainly he was anxious to conceal his interest, since he had walked so carefully in the footsteps of the unknown driver, and had made no reference to the matter whatever. Did he know something – something that he did not wish to make known?

The corporal thought that very likely he did, but could not even conjecture what the secret knowledge might be. There was a puzzled frown on his face, as he turned in the direction of the Lodge, and when he came in sight of the house he became aware of a considerable bustle. In the open space in front two sleds were drawn up, and a considerable number of dogs were lying about or nosing in the snow for lost fragments of food. Two Indians and a half-breed were standing near the sleds smoking and talking. Bracknell recognized the half-breed for a man who had been in the service of the police as a driver.

“Hallo, Jacques,” he asked, “what brings you to North Star?”

Jacques grinned responsively. “I bring a letter – I and dese, Co’pral. Yees two dog teams to deleever one petite lettre. But we take sometings else back weeth us, I tink.”

“Indeed!” laughed the corporal. “What may that be?”

“I tink we take a lady, de lady of North Star!” The corporal gave vent to a whistle of surprise, and after a few more words passed into the house. There he met Mr. Rayner, who smiled at him.

“We have news for you, Corporal. We start for England tomorrow. A message has just reached us from my father, and Miss Gargrave’s presence is urgently required on a matter of business.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes, and I think we shall all be glad to get away. That mysterious affair of last night would be rather a disturbing thing to reflect upon in a lonely place like this.”

The corporal nodded, made some casual remark, and passed to his own room, where he sat for quite a long time, smoking, with a very thoughtful look upon his face.

CHAPTER VII

JOY MAKES A REQUEST

AFTER the mid-day meal, at which Joy Gargrave did not appear, Corporal Bracknell left the house, and strolled down the road until he reached the place where the girl had passed him on the previous night. There he came to a standstill, his brow puckered in thought, then he swung to the right into the same path where he had found Koona Dick lying in the snow. He had gone but a little way however, when a noise behind him caused him to look round. Joy Gargrave was following him. He waited for her, and as she came up to him she said, “Mr. Bracknell, do you mind if I accompany you a little way? I should like to talk to you – if I may.”

“It will be a pleasure, Miss Gargrave,” he answered quite sincerely.

“Then if you do not mind we will turn aside into the wood. I – I do not care for this path, now, and we might be seen and interrupted by some one, and I have a request to make of you.”

“I am entirely at your service, Miss Gargrave.”

“Then we will turn – here.”

She indicated a place where the wood thinned a little, and turning with her, he fell into step at her side, and waited for her to begin, wondering what she might have to say to him. Half a minute passed in silence, then she began abruptly: “You will have heard that we are starting for England tomorrow?”

“Yes,” he answered. “Mr. Rayner told me. The decision is rather sudden, isn’t it?”

She nodded. “The journey is a quite unexpected one, just now. We had thought of waiting until the ice broke up and of canoeing down the river. But a letter has just come from Sir Joseph – Mr. Rayner’s father – stating that my presence is required in England at the earliest possible moment. The letter has been delayed, and Mr. Rayner tells me that it is requisite that we should start at once.”

“The business must be very urgent if you have to start on such a long journey at a day’s notice,” commented the corporal.

“It is not altogether that,” was the reply, “though Mr. Rayner insists that it is imperative that we shall make an early start. The truth is – ” she broke off, and then resumed in a quavering voice: “I am much upset by that mysterious affair of last night, and, Mr. Bracknell, I am afraid – horribly afraid.”

“Of what?” he asked, looking into her beautiful face to find it white and tense with emotion.

“Of my – my – of Dick Bracknell,” she answered quietly.

“But if he is dead, what – ”

“Do you think he is dead?” she cried sharply. “Tell me, Mr. Bracknell, what do you really think?”

“Last night,” he answered slowly, “I had no doubt whatever about it. But today – ”

“Yes, today?” she prompted anxiously.

“I am not quite so sure. His complete disappearance perplexes me. If he were dead as I thought, then some one has carried his body away; and if he were not dead, then some one must still have helped him, for he was in no condition to help himself.”

“That is what you think? Mr. Bracknell, do you know that there was a sledge in the wood to the left of that path?”

“I saw the trail,” he answered quietly, “and I saw you following it.”

“Whose sled was it?” she asked thoughtfully. “It was none of ours, and it was not yours, and it could not be that of a miner, for any such would have come to the Lodge, as we keep open house for the men on trail.”

“I do not know whose it can have been,” answered the corporal thoughtfully. “If we knew that we should have the key to the whole of this mysterious affair, possibly. But whoever it was he was anxious as far as possible to cover his tracks. He did not follow the trail up the river. He crossed to the track on the other side, and then turned off into the wood; he lit a fire there. I found the ashes after I left you this morning. He must have halted there for a little time, for the snow was pretty well trampled, and when he resumed his journey, he marched parallel with the river, and descended to the ice again just south of the bluff. I found his tracks coming down the bank there, and I imagine that from the point he must have followed the trail up-river.”

“Whoever could he be?” asked the girl in perplexity.

“I do not know. But tomorrow I am going to find out; my dogs will be fresh then, and after the rest I shall be able to travel fast. Of one thing I am convinced: whoever the man was he was not your husband. Dick Bracknell, as I said just now, was in no condition to help himself, certainly not to take the trail.”

For a moment Joy Gargrave did not speak, and as he looked at her he wondered what her thoughts were. He was still wondering when she broke the silence.