The Lady of North Star

For the fraction of a minute Joy hesitated. Sir Joseph, who was watching her, noticed that hesitation, though he was the only one who did. Then Joy spoke.

“Well, if you like, Penelope, and if my uncle doesn’t mind. I am his guest, and – ”

“Oh, Sir Joseph will not mind, I am sure,” answered Mrs. Winter, flashing a smile at the lawyer and assuming his consent, hurried back to her own table.

“Did you say that the young man with Mr. Winter was named Bracknell?” asked Adrian Rayner suddenly.

There was just a splash of colour in Joy’s cheeks as she replied shortly, “Yes!”

“I wonder if he is any relation of that Mounted policeman who came to North Star, when – ”

“He is his cousin,” answered Joy quickly. “His father is Sir James Bracknell of Harrow Fell. Geoffrey is the second son.”

“Ah! I remember them,” broke in Sir Joseph. “There was another son who disgraced himself and his family. He disappeared. I wonder what has become of him. The succession to that estate will offer a pretty tangle for somebody to unravel some day, Adrian.”

His son nodded, but uttered no comment. His eyes were fixed on Joy, as if he found something particularly interesting in her demeanour at the moment. At his father’s words the splash of colour had ebbed swiftly from her cheeks leaving them rather pale, but Joy’s manner was perfectly self-possessed, and there was little to indicate that she was passing through a moment of stress. Her cousin still watched her when the others joined them, and at the moment of meeting flashed a quick searching glance at Geoffrey Bracknell. The young man’s face was eager. There was a light in his eyes that told that Mrs. Winter’s statement about his wish to renew acquaintance with Joy had not been over-coloured, and as he marked it, Adrian Rayner smiled enigmatically to himself.

Sir Joseph also noticed it, and it troubled him a little. He was thoughtful during the remainder of the lunch, and even more thoughtful when, on the evening of that same day, they again encountered young Bracknell in the foyer of the theatre. He was obviously waiting for them, and the lawyer was far from pleased to learn that he had taken the next box to his own. He was still less pleased when the young man made an excuse for visiting them between the acts, and it required all his skill to avoid an acceptance of the invitation to supper which he extended to Sir Joseph’s party.

“My dear Bracknell, you are too late. Our supper is already ordered. On another occasion, perhaps, but tonight it is quite impossible.”

“You did not tell me you had an admirer,” he said to Joy, rallying her a little time later.

“An admirer!” Joy laughed. “Who – ”

“Young Bracknell! He is most obviously in love with you.”

“Oh no! no!” whispered Joy quickly, all the laughter dying suddenly from her face. “You are mistaken. It … it would be too … too…”

The sentence went unfinished, and Sir Joseph, noticing her face, did not press for the conclusion. He was silent for a little time, wondering what lay behind her sudden change of manner. Then he spoke again.

“Young Bracknell is not your only admirer,” he said smilingly. “You have another.”

“Indeed,” said Joy, very obviously embarrassed.

“Yes! Adrian is very deeply in love. He confided the fact to me this morning… I hope, my dear, that you will be able to listen to him, that you will be able to give a favourable – ”

“Oh!” interrupted Joy nervously, “you must not ask me, uncle. I shall never marry. Never!”

“Never, my dear Joy! That, it is often remarked, is a very long time!” He smiled indulgently as he spoke, and then added, “I hope we may yet induce you to reconsider your very youthful decision.”

Joy did not answer. Her face was very pale, and she sat staring at the stage with tragic eyes, not watching the actors, but visioning a body lying in the snow in the sombre woods at North Star.

CHAPTER XII

A DASTARDLY DEED

“HOW!”

As Corporal Roger Bracknell opened his eyes, this characteristic Indian greeting broke on his ears, and he stirred uneasily. Slowly the full consciousness of things came back to him, and with it the sense of intolerable pain in one of his legs. He raised his head to look at the leg and stretched a hand towards it at the same time. Another hand intervened hastily.

“No. Not dat! You damage ze leg, if you touch. It vaire bad!”

The corporal turned his eyes. The two men were standing near the bale of skins on which he was lying, one of them of pure Indian blood, and the second, who had uttered the warning, manifestly a half-breed. Behind them in the darkness of the tepee was a third man, also an Indian. He addressed himself to the half-breed.

“How did I come here?”

“Lagoun and Canim dey find you on ze trail. A tree hav’ fallen an’ crack your leg like a shell of the egg. You not able to move, so dat eef dey not come soon, you dead mans along of ze cold which freeze ze blood. Dey bring you here an’ I set ze leg, so dat it grow together again. Dat is all!”

Coporal Bracknell looked towards the two Indians. “I am very grateful to you, Lagoun and Canim, and I shall not forget,” he said. “I shall report good of them at the Post. But where am I?”

“At ze winter encampment of my people!” was the reply.

“Of your people. Who are you then?”

“I am Chief Louis of ze Elkhorn tribe. You hear of me, maybe?”

“Yes,” answered the corporal quickly. “Who is there that has not?”

He looked with interest on the man, who was the son of a French-Canadian and an Indian mother, and who throwing in his lot with his mother’s people had risen to the headship of the tribe. And whilst he looked at him the Chief spoke again.

“It ees not good to walk alone in ze North without dogs an’ sled as Lagoun and Canim find you.”

“It is very bad,” laughed the policeman weakly. “But part of my dogs were stolen from me, and the others died.”

“Dat is vaire bad,” was the reply. “Lagoun and Canim dey find ze sled, and dead wolves – many of dem. Dey haf been poisoned. How befell it, so?”

The corporal explained, carefully avoiding any reference to his cousin and the latter’s Indian companion, and when he had finished, the Chief nodded approbation.

“Dat was clevaire to poison ze wolves, for dey hav’ ze hunger-madness at dis time, ze mooze being scarce in ze woods.”

For a little time Bracknell did not speak, then he glanced down towards his leg, and asked, “Is it very bad?”

“It veel knit together like ze ice on ze river!” was the reply. “An’ you veel not be lame mans. No! But two months veel pass before you take ze trail again.”

“Two months. The ice will be breaking up by then.”

“Oui! dat so! But what matter? Time it ees long in ze North, an’ we can talk together. Where did the trail lead for you, m’sieu?”

“I was making for North Star Lodge in the first instance. There, I hoped to get dogs to take me to the police post.”

Chief Louis did not speak for a little time. He lit an Indian pipe made of some soft stone with a hollowed twig for stem, pulled thoughtfully at it a few times, blowing out clouds of acrid smoke, then he said slowly, “You were going to North Star? You ever know Missi Gargrave’s father?”

“No!” answered the policeman. “He was dead before I came so far North. I understand that he was caught in the ice in the Yukon – and lost. The bottom dropped out of the trail or something.”

“Him die, oui,” was the brief reply.

Something in the other’s tone caught the policeman’s attention. He looked at him quickly. The half-breed’s face was like that of a wooden image, but there was a glitter in the eyes that betrayed an excitement which the mask-like visage concealed.