Philip Steele of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police Part 15

"Nothing had happened," he said, barely above a whisper. "I found her, and I thank G.o.d for that I loved her, and my theory was doubly shattered, a thousand times cursed. She is my wife, and I am the happiest of men--except for these haunting memories. Before I married her I told her all, and together we have tried to make rest.i.tution for my crime, for I shall always deem it such. I found that the man who died was supporting a mother, and that the girl's parents lived on a little mortgaged farm in Michigan. We sent the mother ten thousand dollars, and the parents the same. We have built a little church in the village where they died. The third couple," finished the doctor, dropping Philip's hand, "came up here. When I got back from the south I found that several of my checks had been returned. I wrote letter after letter, but could find no trace of these last of my experimenters. I sent an agent into the North and he returned without news of them. They had never appeared at Fort Smith. And now--I have come up to hunt for them myself. Perhaps, in your future wanderings, you may be of some a.s.sistance to me. That is why I have told you this--with the hope that you will help me, if you can."

With a flash of his old, quick coolness the doctor turned to one of Pierre Th.o.r.eau's bunks.

"Now," he said, with a strained laugh, "I'll follow your suggestion and go to bed. Goodnight."

Chapter XIV. What Came Of The Great Love Experiment

For an hour after he had gone to bed Philip lay awake thinking of the doctor's story. He dreamed of it when he fell asleep. In a way for which he could not account, the story had a peculiar effect upon him, and developed in him a desire to know the end. He awoke in the morning anxious to resume the subject with McGill, but the doctor disappointed him. During the whole of the day he made no direct reference to his mission in the North, and when Philip once or twice brought him back to the matter he evaded any discussion of it, giving him to understand, without saying so, that the matter was a closed incident between them, only to be reopened when he was able to give some help in the search.

The doctor talked freely of his home, of the beauty and the goodness of his wife, and of a third member whom they expected in their little family circle in the spring. They discussed home topics--politics, clubs and sport. The doctor disliked society, though for professional reasons he was compelled to play a small part in it, and in this dislike the two men found themselves on common ground. They became more and more confidential in all ways but one. They pa.s.sed hours in playing cribbage with a worn pack of Pierre's cards, and the third night sang old college songs which both had nearly forgotten. It was on this evening that they planned to remain one more day in Pierre's cabin and then leave for Fort Smith.

"You have hope--there," said Philip in a casual way, as they were undressing.

"Little hope, but the search will begin from there," replied the doctor.

"I have more hope at Chippewayan, where we struck a clew. I sent back my Indian to follow it up."

They went to bed. How long he had slept Philip had no idea, when he was awakened by a slight noise. In a sub-conscious sort of way, with his eyes still closed, he lay without moving and listened. The sound came again, like the soft, cautious tread of feet near him. Still without moving he opened his eyes. The oil lamp which he had put out on retiring was burning low. In its dim light stood the doctor, half dressed, in a tense att.i.tude of listening.

"What's the matter?" asked Philip.

The professor started, and turned toward the stove.

"Nervousness, I guess," he said gloomily. "I was afraid I would awaken you. I've been up three times during the last hour--listening for a voice."

"A voice?"

"Yes, back there in the bunk I could have sworn that I heard it calling somewhere out in the night. But when I get up I can't hear it. I've stood at the door until I'm frozen."

"It's the wind," said Philip. "It has troubled me many times out on the snow plains. I've heard it wail like children crying among the dunes, and again like women screaming, and men shouting. You'd better go to bed."

"Listen!" The doctor stiffened, his white face turned to the door.

"Good Heavens, was that the wind?" he asked after a moment.

Philip had rolled from his bunk and was pulling on his clothes.

"Dress and we'll find out," he advised.

Together they went to the door, opened it, and stepped outside. The sky was thick and heavy, with only a white blur where the moon was smothered. Fifty yards away the gray gloom became opaque. Over the thousand miles of drift to the north there came a faint whistling wind, rising at times in fitful sweeps of flinty snow, and at intervals dying away until it became only a lulling sound. In one of these intervals both men held their breath.

From somewhere out of the night, and yet from nowhere that they could point, there came a human voice.

"Pier-r-r-r-e Th.o.r.eau--Pier-r-r-r-e Th.o.r.eau--Ho, Pierre Th.o.r.eau-u-u-u!"

"Off there!" s.h.i.+vered the doctor.

"No--out there!" said Philip.

He raised his own voice in an answering shout, and in response there came again the cry for Pierre Th.o.r.eau.

"I'm right!" cried the doctor. "Come!"

He darted away, his greatcoat making a dark blur in the night ahead of Philip, who paused again to shout through the megaphone of his hands.

There came no reply. A second and a third time he shouted, and still there was no response.

"Queer," he thought. "What the devil can it mean?"

The doctor had disappeared, and he followed in the direction he had gone. A hundred yards more and he saw the dark blur again, close to the ground. The doctor was bending over a human form stretched out in the snow.

"Just in time," he said to Philip as he came up. Excitement had gone from his voice now. It was cool and professional, and he spoke in a commanding way to his companion. "You're heavier than I, so take him by the shoulders and hold his head well up. I don't believe it's the cold, for his body is warm and comfortable. I feel something wet and thick on his s.h.i.+rt, and it may be blood. So hold his head well up."

Between them they carried him back to the cabin, and with the quick alertness of a man accustomed to every emergency of his profession the doctor stripped off his two coats while Philip looked at the face of the man whom they had placed in his bunk. His own experience had acquainted him with violence and bloodshed, but in spite of that fact he shuddered slightly as he gazed on the unconscious form.

It was that of a young man of splendid physique, with a closely shaven face, short blond hair, and a magnificent pair of shoulders.

Beyond the fact that he knew the face wore no beard he could scarce have told if it were white or black. From chin to hair it was covered with stiffened blood.

The doctor came to his side.

"Looks bad, doesn't he?" he said cheerfully. "Thought it wasn't the cold. Heart beating too fast, pulse too active. Ah--hot water if you please, Philip!"

He loosened the man's coat and s.h.i.+rt, and a few moments later, when Philip brought a towel and a basin of water, he rose from his examination.

"Just in time--as I said before," he exclaimed with satisfaction. "You'd never have heard another 'Pierre Th.o.r.eau' out of him, Philip," he went on, speaking the young man's name as it he had been accustomed to doing it for a long time. "Wound on the head--skull sound--loss of blood from over-exertion. We'll have him drinking coffee within an hour if you'll make some."

The doctor rolled up his s.h.i.+rt sleeves and began to wash away the blood.

"A good-looking chap," he said over his shoulder. "Face clean cut, fine mouth, a frontal bone that must have brain behind it, square chin--" He broke off to ask: "What do you suppose happened to him?"

"Haven't got the slightest idea," said Philip, putting the coffee pot on the stove. "A blow, isn't it?"

Philip was turning up the wick of the lamp when a sudden startled cry came from the bedside. Something in it, low and suppressed, made him turn so quickly that by a clumsy twist of his fingers the lamp was extinguished. He lighted it again and faced the doctor. McGill was upon his knees, terribly pale.

"Good Heaven!" he gasped. "What's the matter?"

"Nothing, nothing, Phil--it was he! He let it out of him so unexpectedly that it startled me."

"I thought it was your voice," said Philip.

"No, no, it was his. See, he is returning to consciousness."

The wounded man's eyes opened slowly, and closed again. He heaved a great sigh and stretched out his arms as if about to awaken from a deep slumber. The doctor sprang to his feet.

"We must have ice, Phil--finely chopped ice from the creek down there.

Will you take the ax and those two pails and bring back both pails full?

No hurry, but we'll need it within an hour."