The Hound From The North. Cullum Ridgwell

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      “That’s curious-smelling stuff you’re smoking,” said Grey, rousing himself with an effort after a moment’s dead silence. “What do you call it?”

      “Can’t say–a weed,” said Zachary Smith, glancing down his nose towards the bowl of his pipe. “Not bad, is it? Smells of almonds–tastes like nutty sherry.”

      Grey stifled a yawn.

      “I feel sleepy, d–d sleepy. Wonder if Rainy-Moon has got the sleigh loaded.”

      Smith emitted another dense cloud of smoke from between his pursed lips; he seemed wrapt in the luxurious enjoyment of his smoke. Robb Chillingwood’s eyelids were drooping, and his pipe had gone out. Quite suddenly the trapper’s eyes were turned on the face of Grey, and the smoke from his pipe was chiefly directed towards him.

      “There’s time enough yet,” he said quietly. “Half-an-hour more or less won’t make much difference to you on the road. You were talking of travellers’ tales, and I reckon you were thinking of fairy yarns that some folks think it smart to spin. Well, maybe those same stories have some foundation in fact, and ain’t all works of imagination. Anyhow, my experience has taught me never to disbelieve until I’ve some good sound grounds for doing so.”

      He paused and gazed with a far-off look at the opposite wall. Then a shadowy smile stole over his face, and he went on. His companions’ heads had drooped slowly forward, and their eyes were heavy with sleep. Grey was fighting against the drowsiness by jerking his head sharply upwards, but his eyes would close in spite of his efforts.

      “Well, I never thought that I’d get caught napping,” continued Smith, with a chuckle. “I thought I knew these regions well enough, but I didn’t. I lost my way, too, and came near to losing my life–”

      He broke off abruptly as Robb Chillingwood slowly rolled over on his side and began to snore loudly. Then Smith turned back to Leslie Grey, and leaning forward, so that his face was close to that of the officer, blew clouds of the pungent smoke right across the half-stupefied man’s mouth and nostrils.

      “I lost other things,” he then went on meditatively, “but not my life. I lost that which was more precious to me. I lost gold–gold! I lost the result of many weary months of toil. I had hoarded it up that I might go down to the east and buy a nice little ranch, and settle down into a comfortable, respectable man of property. I didn’t even wait until the spring opened so that I could take the river route. No, that wasn’t my way, because I knew it would cost a lot of money and I wasn’t overburdened with wealth. I had just enough–”

      He puffed vigorously at his pipe. Grey’s head was now hanging forward and his chin rested on his chest.

      There came the sound of Rainy-Moon’s voice adjuring the dogs outside the door of the dugout. The trapper’s eyes flashed evilly in the direction of the unconscious Indian.

      “–to do what I wanted,” he resumed. “No more–no less; and I set out on foot.” He was anxiously watching for Grey’s collapse. “Yes, I was going to tramp to the sea-coast through these mountains. I hit the wrong trail, decoyed by a false track carefully made by those who waited for me in these hills.”–Grey was swaying heavily and his breathing was stertorous.–“I met my fate and was robbed of my gold. I was drugged–as you poor fools are being drugged now. When it was too late I discovered how it was done, and determined to do the same thing by the first victim that fell into my clutches. I tried the weed and soon got used to its fumes. Then I waited–waited. I had set my decoy at the cross-roads, and you–you–came.”

      As the trapper ceased speaking Grey slowly rolled over, insensible.

      In a moment the watching man was upon his feet. His whole face was transfigured. Alertness was in every movement, in every flash of his great eyes. He moved quickly across the floor of the hut and took two shallow pannikins from the sack which lay upon the floor, dropped some of the flaky weed into the bottom of each one, and then from the stove he scraped some coals of fire into them. The fire set the dry weed smouldering, and the thick smoke rose heavily from the two tins. These he placed upon the ground in such a position that his hard-breathing victims should thoroughly inhale the fumes. Thus he would make doubly sure of them.

      This done he stood erect and gazed for some seconds at the result of his handiwork; he was satisfied, but there was no look of pleasure on his face. He did not look like a man of naturally criminal instincts. There was nothing savage about his expression, or even callous. His look merely seemed to say that he had set himself this task, and, so far, what he had done was satisfactory in view of his object. He turned from the heavy-slumbering men and his eyes fell upon the two small gold chests. Instantly his whole expression changed. Here was the keynote to the man’s disposition. Gold! It was the gold he coveted. At all costs that gold was to be his. His eyes shone with greed. He moved towards the boxes as though he were about to handle them; but he paused abruptly before he reached them. The barking of the dogs and the strident tones of the Indian’s voice outside arrested him. He suddenly remembered that he had not yet completed his work.

      Now he moved with unnecessarily stealthy steps over to the darkest corner of the hut, to where a pile of rough skins stood. The steady nerve which had hitherto served him seemed in a measure to have weakened. It was a phase which a man of his disposition must inevitably pass through in the perpetration of a first crime. He was assailed by a sensation of watching eyes following his every movement; with a feeling that another presence than those two slumbering forms moved with him in the dim light of the dugout. He was haunted by his other self; the moral self.

      From beneath the pile of furs he drew a heavy revolver which he carefully examined. The chambers were loaded.

      Again came the sound of the dogs outside. And he even fancied he heard the shuffling of Rainy-Moon’s moccasins over the beaten snow just outside the door. He turned his face in the direction. The expression of his great hungry eyes was malevolent. Whatever moral fear might have been his, there could be no doubt that he would carry his purpose out. He gripped his pistol firmly and moved towards the door.

      As his hand rested on the latch he paused. Just for one instant he hesitated. It seemed as though all that was honest in him was making one final appeal to the evil passions which swayed him. His eyelids lowered suddenly, as though he could not even face the dim light of that gloomy interior. It was the attitude of one who fully realizes the nature of his actions, of one who shrinks from the light of honest purpose and prefers the obscure recesses of his own moral darkness. Then with an effort he pulled himself together; he gripped his nerve. The next moment he flung wide the door.

      A flood of wintry sunshine suffused the interior of the dugout. The glare of the crystal white earth was dazzling to a degree, and the hungry-looking trapper stood blinking in the light. His pistol was concealed behind him. The sleigh was before the door. Rainy-Moon stood on the far side of the path in the act of hitching the dogs up. One of the animals, the largest of them all, was already harnessed, the others were standing or squatting around, held in leash by the Indian.

      When he heard the door open Rainy-Moon looked up from his work. He was standing with his back to the precipice which bordered the narrow ledge. His great stolid face expressed nothing but solemn gravity. He grunted and turned again to his work.

      Like a flash the trapper’s pistol darted from behind him, and its report rang out echoing and re-echoing amongst the surrounding hills. There was an answering cry of pain from the harnessed dog, and Rainy-Moon with a yell stood erect to find himself gazing into the muzzle of the revolver. The expression of the trapper’s face was relentless now. His first shot had been fired under the influence of excitement, and he had missed his object and only wounded the dog. Now it was different.

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