Read Ebook: The Hound From The North by Cullum Ridgwell Bull Charles Livingston Illustrator

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Ebook has 1177 lines and 63613 words, and 24 pages

Mr. Danvers bent to his work with a full appreciation of the tragedy which had happened. His face was solemn, and expressive of the most tender solicitude for the injured man. In a whisper he dispatched his assistant for warm water and bandages, whilst he unfastened and removed the fur coat. Inside the clothing was saturated with still warm blood. The minister's lips tightened as the truth of what had happened slowly forced itself upon his mind.

So absorbed was he in his ministrations that he failed to heed the sound of excited whisperings which came to him from beyond the door. It was not until the creaking of the hinges had warned him that the door was ajar, that he looked up from his occupation. At that moment there was a rustle of silk, the noise of swift footsteps across the bare boards, and Prudence was at the opposite side of the bed.

The soft oval of the girl's face was drawn, and deep lines of anxious thought had broken up the smooth expanse of her forehead. Her eyes seemed to be straining out of their sockets, and the whites were bloodshot. She did not speak, but her look displayed an anguish unspeakable. Her eyes were turned upon the face of the prostrate man; she did not appear to see the minister. Her look suggested some mute question, which seemed to pass from her troubled eyes to the silent figure. Watching her, Danvers understood that, for the present, it would be dangerous to break the dreadful silence that held her. He stooped again and drew back the waistcoat and began to cut away the under-garments from Grey's chest.

Swiftly as the minister's deft fingers moved about the man's body, his thoughts travelled faster. He was not a man given to morbid sentimentality; his calling demanded too much of the practical side of human nature. He was there to aid his flock, materially as well as spiritually, but at the moment he felt positively sick in the stomach with sorrow and pity for the woman who stood like a statue on the other side of what he knew to be this man's deathbed. He dared not look over at her again. Instead, he bent his head lower and concentrated his, mind on the work before him.

The silence continued, broken only by an occasional heavy gasp of breath from the girl. The dripping shirt was cut clear of the man's chest, and the woollen under-shirt was treated in a similar manner. The exposed flesh was crimson with the blood which was slowly oozing from a small wound a few inches higher up in the chest than where the heart was so faintly beating. One glance sufficed to tell the parson that medical aid would be useless. The wound was through the lungs.

For a moment he hesitated. His better sense warned him to keep silence, but pity urged him to speak. Pity swayed him with the stronger hand.

"He is alive," he said. And the next moment he regretted his words.

The tension of the girl's dreadful expression relaxed instantly. It was as the lifting of a dead weight which had crushed her heart within her. She had been numbed, paralyzed. Actual suffering had not been hers, she had experienced a suspension of feeling which had resulted from the shock. But that suspension was far more dreadful than the most acute suffering. Her whole soul had asked her senses, "What is it?" and the waiting for the answer had been to her in the nature of a blank.

The minister's low murmured sentence had supplied her with an answer. "He is alive." The words touched the springs of life within her and a glad flush swept over her straining nerves. Reason once more resumed its sway, and thought flowed through her brain in an unchecked torrent It seemed to Prudence as though some barrier had suddenly shut off the simple life which had always been hers, and had opened out for her a fresh existence in which she found herself alone with the still, broken body of her lover. For one brief instant her lips quivered, and a faint in-catching of the breath told of the woman, which, at the first return of feeling, had leapt uppermost in her. But before the maturity of emotion brought about the breakdown, a calm strength came to her aid and steadied her nerves and checked the tears which had so suddenly come into her eyes. Women are like this. At a crisis in sickness they rise superior to all emotion. When the crisis is past, whether for good or ill, it is different.

The water was brought, and the minister set about cleaning the discoloured flesh, while Prudence looked on in silence. She was very pale, and her eyes were painfully bright. While her gaze followed the gentle movements of the minister, her thoughts were running swiftly over the scenes of her life in which the wounded man had played his part. She remembered every look of the now closed eyes, and every expression of his well-loved features. She called to mind his words of hope, and the carefully-laid plans for his advancement. Nor was there any taint of his selfishness in her recollection of these things. Everything about him, to her, was good and true. She loved him with all the passionate intensity of one who had only just attained to perfect womanhood. He had been to her something of a hero, by reason of his headstrong, dominating ways--ways which more often attract the love of woman in the first flush of her youth than in her maturer, more experienced years.

The sponging cleaned the flesh of the ghastly stain, and the small wound with its blackened rim lay revealed in all its horrid significance. The girl's eyes fixed themselves on it, and for some seconds she watched the blood as it welled up to the surface. The meaning of the puncture forced itself slowly upon her mind, and she realized that it was no accident which had laid her lover low. Her eyes remained directed towards the crimson flow, but their expression had changed, as had the set of her features. A hard, relentless look had replaced the one of tender pity--a look which indexed a feeling more strong than any other in the human organism. She was beginning to understand now that a crime had been committed, and a vengeful hate for some person unknown possessed her.

She pointed at the wound, and her voice sounded icily upon the stillness of the room.

"That," she said. "They have murdered him."

"He has been shot." The parson looked up into the girl's face.

Then followed a pause. Sarah Gurridge and Prudence's mother stole softly in and approached the bedside. The former carried a tumbler of brandy in her hand and came to Mr. Danvers's side; Mrs. Malling ranged herself beside her daughter, but the latter paid no heed to her.

The farm-wife lifted the girl's hand from the bedpost and caressed it in loving sympathy. Then she endeavoured to draw her away.

"Come, child, come with me. You can do no good here."

Prudence shook her off roughly. Nor did she answer. Her mother did not renew her attempt.

All watched while Danvers forced some of the spirit between Grey's tightly-closed lips and then stood up to note the effect.

He was actuated by a single thought. He knew that the man was doomed, but he hoped that consciousness might be restored before the tiny spark of life burnt itself out. There was something to be said if human aid could give the dying man the power to say it. Prudence seemed to understand the minister's motive, for she vaguely nodded her approval as she saw the spirit administered.

All waited eagerly for the sign of life which the stimulating properties of the spirit might reveal. The girl allowed her thoughts to drift away to the lonely trail over which her lover had driven. She saw in fancy the crouching assailants firing from the cover of some wayside bluff. She seemed to hear many shots, to see the speeding horses, to hear the dull sound of the fatal bullet as her man was hit. She pictured to herself the assassins, with callous indifference, as the cutter passed out of view, mounting their horses and riding away. Her thoughts had turned to the only criminals she understood--horse-thieves.

The sign of life which had been so anxiously awaited came at last. It was apparent in the flicker of the wax-like eyelids; in the faintest of sighs from between the colourless lips. Danvers bent again over the dying man and administered more of the spirit It took almost instantaneous effect. The eyelids half opened and the mouth distinctly moved. The action was like that of one who is parched with thirst. Grey gasped painfully, and a strange rattle came from his throat.

Danvers shook his head as he heard the sound. Prudence, whose eyes had never left the dying man's face, spoke sharply. She voiced a common thought "Who did it, Leslie?"

The minister nodded approval. For a moment his eyes rested admiringly on the girl's eager face. Her courage astonished him. Then, as he read her expression aright, his wonder lessened. The gulf is bridged by a single span at the point of transition from the girl to the woman. He understood that she had crossed that bridge.

Grey struggled to speak, but only succeeded in uttering an inarticulate sound. The minutes dragged. The suspense was dreadful. They all realized that he was fast sinking, but in every heart was a hope that he would speak, would say one word which might give some clue to what had happened.

The minister applied the rest of the brandy. The dying man's breathing steadied. The eyes opened wider. Prudence leaned forward. Her whole soul was in the look she bestowed upon the poor drawn face, and in the tones of her voice.

"Leslie, Leslie, speak to me. My poor, poor boy. Tell me, how did it happen? Who did it?"

The man gasped in response. He seemed to be making one last great struggle against the overwhelming weakness which was his. His head moved and a feeble cough escaped his lips. The girl put her arm under his head and slightly raised it, and the dying eyes looked into hers. She could no longer find words to utter; great passionate sobs shook her slight frame, and scalding tears coursed down her cheeks and fell upon the dingy coverlet.

A whistling breath came from between the dying man's parted lips, and culminated in a hoarse rattling in his throat. Then his body moved abruptly, and one arm lifted from the elbow-joint, the head half turned towards the girl, and words distinct, but halting, came from the working lips.

"He is dead," she said with studied calmness, as she straightened herself up from the bed.

She moved a step or two away. Then she paused uncertainly and gazed about her like one dazed. Her mother went towards her, but before she reached her side Prudence uttered a strange, wild cry and rushed from the room, tearing wildly at the fastenings of her silk dress as though to rid herself of the mocking reminder of that awful day.

LONELY RANCH AT OWL HOOT

In spite of the recent tragic events the routine of the daily life at Loon Dyke Farm was very little interfered with. Just for a few weeks following upon the death of Leslie Grey the organization of Mrs. Malling's household had been thrown out of gear.

The coming of the police and the general scouring of the country for the murderers of the Customs officer had entailed a "nine days' wonder" around the countryside, and had helped to disturb the wonted peace of the farm. But the search did not last long. Horse-thieves do not wait long in a district, and the experience of the "riders of the plains" taught them that it would be useless to pursue where there was no clue to guide them. The search was abandoned after a while, and the dastardly murder remained an unsolved mystery.

The shock to Prudence's nervous system had been a terrible one, and a breakdown, closely bordering upon brain fever, had followed. The girl's condition had demanded the utmost care, and, in this matter, Sarah Gurridge had proved herself a loyal friend. Dr. Parash, with conscientious soundness of judgment, had ordered her removal for a prolonged sojourn to city life in Toronto; a course which, in spite of heartbroken appeal on the girl's part, her mother insisted upon carrying out with Spartan-like resolution.

"Broken hearts," she had said to Sarah, during a confidential chat upon the subject, "are only kept from mending by them as talks sympathy. There isn't nothin' like mixing with folks what's got their own troubles to worrit over. She'll get all that for sure when she gets to one o' them cities. Cities is full of purgat'ry," she added profoundly. "I shall send her down to sister Emma, she's one o' them hustlin' women that'll never let the child rest a minute."

And Sarah had approved feelingly.

So Prudence was safely dispatched eastwards for an indefinite period before the spring opened. But Hephzibah Malling had yet to realize that her daughter had suddenly developed from a child, who looked to her mother's guidance in all the more serious questions of life, into a woman of strong feelings and opinions. This swift casting off of the fetters of childhood had been the work of those few passionate moments at the bedside of her dying lover.

Prudence had submitted to the sentence which her mother, backed by the doctor's advice, had passed, and she went away. But in complying with the order she had performed the last act which childhood's use had prompted. The period of her absence was indefinite. The fiat demanded no limitation to her stay with "sister" Emma. She could return when she elected so to do. Bred in the pure air of the prairie, no city could claim her for long. And so she returned to the farm against all opposition within two months of leaving it.

The spring brought another change to the farm, a change which was as welcome to the old farm-wife as the opening of the spring itself. Hervey returned from Niagara, bringing with him the story of the failure of his mission. True to herself and the advice of Iredale, Hephzibah made her proposition to her son, with the result that, with some show of distaste, he accepted the situation, and with his three-legged companion took up his abode at the farm.

And so the days lengthened and the summer heat increased; the hay in the sloughs ripened and filled the air with its refreshing odours; the black squares of ploughed land were quickly covered with the deepening carpet of green, succulent grain; the wild currant-bushes flowered, and the choke-cherries ripened on the laden branches, and the deep blue vault of the heavens smiled down upon the verdant world.

George Iredale again became a constant and welcome visitor at the farm, nor in her leisure did Sarah Gurridge seek relaxation in any other direction.

The morning was well advanced. The air was still and very hot. There was a peaceful drowsiness about the farm buildings and yard which was only broken by the occasional squeal of the mouching swine routing amongst any stray garbage their inquisitive eyes happened to light upon. The upper half of the barn door stood open, and in the cool shade of the interior could be seen the outline of dark, well-rounded forms looming between the heel-posts of the stalls which lined the side walls. An occasional impatient stamp from the heavily-shod hoofs told of the capacity for annoyance of the ubiquitous fly or aggravating mosquito, whilst the steady grinding sound which pervaded the atmosphere within, and the occasional "gush" of distended nostrils testified to healthy appetites, and noses buried in mangers well filled with sweet-smelling "Timothy" hay.

The kitchen doorway was suddenly filled with the ample proportions of Hephzibah Malling. She moved out into the open. She was carrying a large pail filled with potato-parings and other fragments of culinary residuum. A large white sun-bonnet protected her grey head and shaded her now flaming face from the sun, and her dress, a neat study in grey, was enveloped in a huge apron.

She moved out to a position well clear of the buildings and began to call out in a tone of persuasive encouragement--

"Tig--tig--tig! Tig--tig--tig!"

She repeated her summons several times, then moved on slowly, continuing to call at intervals.

The swine gathered with a hungry rush at her heels, and their chorus of acclamation drowned her familiar cry. Passing down the length of the barn she reached a cluster of thatched mud hovels. Here she opened the crazy gate to admit her clamorous flock, and then deposited the contents of her pail in the trough provided for that purpose. The pigs fell-to with characteristic avidity, complaining vociferously the while as only pigs will.

She stood for a few moments looking down at her noisy charges with calculating eyes. It was a fine muster of young porkers, and the old lady was estimating their bacon-yielding capacity.

Suddenly her reflections were interrupted by the sound of footsteps, and turning, she saw Hervey crossing the yard in the direction of the creamery. She saw him disappear down the steps which led to the door, for the place was in the nature of a dugout She sighed heavily and moved away from her porkers, and slowly she made her way to the wash-house. The sight of this man had banished all her feelings of satisfaction. Her son was a constant trouble to her; a source of grave worry and anxiety. Her hopes of him had been anything but fulfilled.

In the meantime Hervey had propped himself against the doorway of the creamery and was talking to his sister within. The building, like all dugouts, was long and low; its roof was heavily thatched to protect the interior from the effects of the sun's rays. Prudence was moving slowly along the two wide counters which lined the walls from one end to the other. Each counter was covered with a number of huge milk-pans, from which the girl was carefully skimming the thick, yellow cream. She worked methodically; and the rich fat dropped with a heavy "plonk" into the small pail she carried, in a manner which testified to the quality of the cream.

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