Philip Steel of the Royal Northwest mounted Police - James Oliver Curwood (13 inch ebook reader .txt) 📗

of the young woman whom he had seen but two hours before in Le Pas, the face that had pleaded with him that night, that had smiled upon him from the photograph, and that seemed to be masked now in a cold marble-like horror, as its glorious eyes, like pools of glowing fire, seemed searching him out through that narrow slit in the coffin box.
Hodges had advanced, with arms reaching out, and the woman turned with a low, sobbing breath breaking from her lips.
Another step and Hodges would have taken her in his arms, but she evaded him with a quick movement, and pointed to a chair at one side of the table.
"Sit down!" she cried softly. "Sit down, and listen!"
Was it fancy, or did her eyes turn with almost a prayer in them to the box against the wall? Philip's heart was beating like a drum. That one word he knew was intended for him.
"Sit down," she repeated, as Hodges hesitated. "Sit down--there--and I will sit here. Before--before you touch me, I want an understanding. You will let me talk, and listen--listen!"
Again that one word--"listen!"-Philip knew was intended for him.
The chief had dropped into his chair, and his visitor seated herself opposite him, with her face toward Philip. She flung back the fur from about her shoulders, and took off her fur turban, so that the light of the big hanging lamp fell full upon the glory of her hair, and set off more vividly the ivory pallor of her cheeks, in which a short time before Philip had seen the rich crimson glow of life, and something that was not fear.
"We must come to an understanding," she repeated, fixing her eyes steadily upon the man before her. "I would sacrifice my life for him--for my husband--and you are demanding that I do more than that. I must be sure of the reward!"
Hodges leaned forward eagerly, as if about to speak, but she interrupted him.
"Listen!" she cried, a fire beginning to burn through the whiteness of her cheeks. "It was you who urged him to come up here when, through misfortune, we lost our little home down in Marion. You offered him work, and he accepted it, believing you a friend. He still thought you a friend when I knew that you were a traitor, planning and scheming to wreck his life, and mine. He would not listen when I spoke to him, without arousing his suspicions, of my abhorrence of you. He trusted you. He was ready to fight for you. And you--you--"
In her excitement the young woman's hands gripped the edges of the table. For a few moments her breath seemed to choke her, and then she continued, her voice trembling with passion.
"And you--you followed me about like a serpent, making every hour of my life one of misery, because he believed in you, and I dared not tell him. So I kept it from him--until that night you came to our cabin when he was away, and dared to take me in your arms, to kiss me, and I--I told him then, and he hunted you down and would have killed you if there hadn't been others near to give you help. My God, I love him more because of that! But I was wrong. I should have killed you!"
She stopped, her breath breaking in a sob.
With a sudden movement Hodges sprang from his chair and came toward her, his face flushed, his lips smiling; but, quicker than he, Thorpe's wife was upon her feet, and from his prison Philip saw the rapid rising and falling of her bosom, the threatening fire in her beautiful eyes as she faced him.
"Ah, but you are beautiful!" he heard the man say.
With a cry, in which there was mingled all the passion and gloating joy of triumph, Hodges caught her in his arms. In that moment every vein in Philip's body seemed flooded with fire. He saw the woman's face again, now tense and white in an agony of terror, saw her struggle to free herself, heard the smothered cry that fell from her lips. For the first time he strained to free himself, to cry out through the thick bandage that gagged him. The box trembled. His mightiest effort almost sent it crashing to the floor. Sweating, powerless, he looked again through the narrow slit. In the struggle the woman's hair had loosened, and tumbled now in shining masses down her back. Her hands were gripping at Hodges' throat. Then one of them crept down to her bosom, and with that movement there came a terrible, muffled report. With a groan the chief staggered back and sank to the floor.
For a moment, stupefied by what she had done, Thorpe's wife stood with smoking pistol in her hand, gazing upon the still form at her feet. Then, slowly, like one facing a terrible accuser, she turned straight to the coffin box. The weapon that she held fell to the floor. Without a tremor in her beautiful face she went to one side of the room, picked up a small belt-ax, and began prying off the cover to Philip's prison. There was still no hesitation, no tremble of fear in her face or hands when the cover gave way and Philip stood revealed, his face as white as her own and bathed in a perspiration of excitement and horror. Calmly she took away the cloth about his mouth, loosened the straps about his legs and arms and body, and then she stood back, still speechless, her hands clutching at her bosom while she waited for him to step forth.
His first movement was to fall upon his knees beside Hodges. He bowed his head, listened, and held his hand under the man's waistcoat. Then he looked up. The woman was bending over him, her eyes meeting his own unflinchingly.
"He is dead!" he said quietly.
"Yes, my brother, he is dead!"
The sweet, low tones of the woman's voice rose scarcely above a whisper. The meaning of her words sank into his very soul.
"My sister--" he repeated, hardly knowing that the words were on his lips. "My--"
"Or--your wife," she interrupted, and her hand rested gently for a moment upon his shoulder. "Or your wife--what would you have had her do?"
Her voice--the gentleness of her touch, sent his mind flashing back to that other tragic moment in a little cabin far north, when he had almost killed a man, and for less than this that he had heard and seen. It seemed, for an instant, as though the voice so near to him was coming, faintly, pleadingly, from that other woman at Lac Bain--the woman who had almost caused a tragedy similar to this, only with the sexes changed. He would have excused Colonel Becker for killing Bucky Nome, for defending his own honor and his wife's. And here--now--was a woman who had fought and killed for her own honor, and to save her husband. His sister--his wife-- Would he have had them do this? Would he have Mrs. Becker, the woman he loved, defend her honor as this woman had defended hers? Would he not have loved her ten times--a hundred times--more for doing so?
He rose to his feet, making an effort to steel himself against the justice of what he had seen--against the glory of love, of womanhood, of triumph which he saw shining in her eyes.
"I understand now," he said. "You had me brought here--in this way--that I might hear what was said, and use it as evidence. But--"
"Oh, my God, I did not mean to do this," she cried, as if knowing what he was about to say. "I thought that if he betrayed his vileness to you--if he knew that the world would know, through you, how he had attempted to destroy a home, and how he offered my husband's freedom in exchange for--but you saw, you heard, you must understand! He would not dare to go on when he knew that all this would become public. My husband would have been free. But now--"
"You have killed him," said Philip.
There was no sympathy in his voice. It was the cold, passionless accusation of a man of the law, and the woman bowed her face in her hands. He put on his service cap, tightened his belt, and touched her gently on the arm.
"Do you know where your husband is confined?" he asked. "I will take you there, and you may remain with him to-night."
She brightened instantly. "Yes," she said.
"Come!"
They passed through the door, closing it carefully behind them, and the woman led the way to a dark, windowless building a hundred yards from the dead chief's headquarters.
"This is the camp prison," she whispered.
A man clad in a great bear-skin coat was on guard at the door. In the moonlight he recognized Philip's uniform.
"Here are orders from the inspector," said Philip, holding out MacGregor's letter. "I am to have charge of the prisoner. Mrs. Thorpe is to spend the night with him."
A moment later the door was opened and the woman passed in. As he turned away Philip heard a low sobbing cry, a man's startled voice. Then the door swung heavily on its hinges and there was silence.
Five minutes later Philip was bending again over the dead man. A surprising transformation had come over him now. His face was flushed and his strong teeth shone in sneering hatred as he covered the body with a blanket. On the wall hung a pair of overalls and a working-man's heavy coat. These and Hodges' hat he quickly put on in place of his own uniform. Once more he went out into the night.
This time he came up back of the prison. The guard was pacing back and forth in his beaten path, so thickly muffled about the ears that he did not hear Philip's cautious footsteps behind him. When he turned he found the muzzle of a revolver within arm's length of his face.
"Hands up!" commanded Philip.
The astonished man obeyed without a word.
"If you make a move or the slightest sound I'll kill you!" continued Philip threateningly. "Drop your hands behind you--there, like that!"
With the quickness and skill which he had acquired under Sergeant Moody he secured the guard's wrists with one of the coffin box straps, and gagged him with the same cloth that had been used upon himself. He had observed that his prisoner carried the key to the padlocked cabin in one of his coat pockets, and after possessing himself of this he made him seat himself in the deep shadow, strapped his ankles, and then unlocked the prison door.
There was a light inside, and from beyond this the white faces of the man and the woman stared at him as he entered. The man was leaning back in his cot, and Philip knew that the wife had risen suddenly, for one arm was still encircling his shoulders, and a hand was resting on his cheek as if she had been stroking it caressingly when he interrupted them. Her beautiful, startled eyes gazed at him half defiantly now.
He advanced into the light, took off his hat, and smiled.
With a cry Thorpe's wife sprang to her feet.
"Sh-h-h-h-h!" warned Philip, raising a hand and pointing to the door behind them.
Thorpe had risen. Without a word Philip advanced and held out his hand. Only half understanding, the prisoner reached forth his own. As, for an instant, the two men stood in this position, one smiling, the other transfixed with wonder, there came a stifled, sobbing cry from behind. Philip turned. The woman stood in the lamp glow, her arms reaching out to him--to both--and never, not even at Lac Bain, had he seen a