Books: Isobel

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It was her voice that brought him about. She had risen to her feet,
and she stood before him panting like a hunted animal, and Billy saw
in her face the thing which he had feared more than the sting of
death. No longer were her blue eyes filled with the sweetness and
faith of the angel who had come to him from out of the Barren. They
were hard and terrible and filled with that madness which made him
think she was about to leap upon him. In those eyes, in the quivering
of her bare throat, in the sobbing rise and fall of her breast were
the rage, the grief, and the fear of one whose faith had turned
suddenly into the deadliest of all emotions; and Billy stood before
her without a word on his lips, his face as cold and as bloodless as
the snow under his feet.

"And so you-- you followed-- after-- that!"

It was all she said, and yet the voice, the significance of the
choking words, hurt him more than if she had struck him. In them there
was none of the passion and condemnation he had expected. Quietly,
almost whisperingly uttered, they stung him to the soul. He had meant
to say to her what he had said to Deane-- even more. But the crudeness
of the wilderness had made him slow of tongue, and while his heart
cried out for words Isobel turned and went to her husband. And then
there came the thing he had been expecting. Down the ridge there raced
a flurry of snow and a yelping of dogs. He loosened the revolver in
his holster, and stood in readiness when Bucky Smith ran a few paces
ahead of his men into the camp. At sight of his enemy's face, torn
between rage and disappointment, all of Billy's old coolness returned
to him.

With a bound Bucky was at Scottie Deane's side. He looked down at his
manacled hands and at the woman who was clasping them in her own, and
then he whirled on Billy with the quickness of a cat.

"You're a liar and a sneak!" he panted. "You'll answer for this at
headquarters. I understand now why you let 'em go back there. It was
her! She paid you-- paid you in her own way-- to free him! But she
won't pay you again--"

At his words Deane had started as if stung by a wasp. Billy saw
Isobel's whitened face. The meaning of Buck's words had gone home to
her as swiftly as a lightning flash, and for an instant her eyes had
turned to him! Bucky got no further than those last words. Before he
could add another syllable Billy was upon him. His fist shot out--
once, twice-- and the blows that fell sent Bucky crashing through the
fire. Billy did not wait for him to regain his feet. A red light
blazed before his eyes. He forgot the presence of Deane and Walker and
Conway. His one thought was that the scoundrel he had struck down had
flung at Isobel the deadliest insult that a man could offer a woman,
and before either Conway or Walker could make a move he was upon
Bucky. He did not know how long or how many times he struck, but when
at last Conway and Walker succeeded in dragging him away Bucky lay
upon his back in the snow, blood gushing from his mouth and nose.
Walker ran to him. Panting for breath, Billy turned toward Isobel and
Deane. He was almost sobbing. He made no effort to speak. But he saw
that the thing he had dreaded was gone. Isobel was looking at him
again-- and there was the old faith in her eyes. At last-- she
understood! Dean's handcuffed hands were clenched. The light of
brotherhood shone in his eyes, and where a moment before there had
been grief and despair in Billy's heart there came now a warm glow of
joy. Once more they had faith in him!

Walker had raised Bucky to a sitting posture, and was wiping the blood
from his face when Billy went to them. The corporal's hand made a limp
move toward his revolver. Billy struck it away and secured the weapon.
Then he spoke to Walker.

"There is no doubt in your mind that I hold a sergeancy in the
service, is there, Walker?" he asked.

His tone was no longer one of comradeship. In it there was the ring of
authority. Walker was quick to understand.

"None, sir!"

"And you are familiar with our laws governing insubordination and
conduct unbecoming an officer of the service?"

Walker nodded.

"Then, as a superior officer and in the name of his Majesty the King,
I place Corporal Bucky Smith under arrest, and commission you, under
oath of the service, to take him under your guard to Churchill, along
with the letter which I shall give you for the officer in charge
there. I shall appear against him a little later with the evidence
that will outlaw him from the service. Put the handcuffs on him!"

Stunned by the sudden change in the situation, Walker obeyed without a
word. Billy turned to Conway, the driver.

"Deane is too badly injured to travel," he explained, " Put up your
tent for him and his wife close to the fire. You can take mine in
exchange for it as you go back."

He went to his kit and found a pencil and paper. Fifteen minutes later
he gave Walker the letter in which he described to the commanding
officer at Churchill certain things which he knew would hold Bucky a
prisoner until he could personally appear against him. Meanwhile
Conway had put up the tent and had assisted Deane into it. Isobel had
accompanied him. Billy then had a five-minute confidential talk with
Walker, and when the constable gave instructions for Conway to prepare
the dogs for the return trip there was a determined hardness in his
eyes as he looked at Bucky. In those five minutes he had heard the
story of Rousseau, the young Frenchman down at Norway House, and of
the wife whose faithlessness had killed him. Besides, he hated Bucky
Smith, as all men hated him. Billy was confident that he could rely
upon him.

Not until dogs and sledge were ready did Bucky utter a word. The
terrific beating he had received had stunned him for a few minutes;
but now he jumped to his feet, not waiting for the command from
Walker, and strode up close to Billy. There was a vengeful leer on his
bloody face and his eyes blazed almost white, but his voice was so low
that Conway and Walker could only hear the murmur of it. His words
were meant for Billy alone.

"For this I'm going to kill you, MacVeigh," he said; and in spite of
Billy's contempt for the man there was a quality in the low voice that
sent a curious shiver through him. "You can send me from the service,
but you're going to die for doing it!"

Billy made no reply, and Bucky did not wait for one. He set off at the
head of the sledge, with Conway a step behind them. Billy followed
with Walker until they reached the foot of the ridge. There they shook
hands, and Billy stood watching them until they passed over the cap of
the ridge.

He returned to the camp slowly. Deane had emerged from the tent,
supported by Isobel. They waited for him, and in Deane's face he saw
the look that had filled it after he had struck down Bucky Smith. For
a moment he dared not look at Isobel. She saw the change in him, and
her cheeks flushed. Deane would have extended his hands, but she was
holding them tightly in her own.

"You'd better go into the tent and keep quiet," advised Billy. "I
haven't had time yet to see if you're badly hurt."

"It's not bad," Deane assured him. "I bumped into a rock sliding down
the ridge, and it made me sick for a few minutes."

Billy knew that Isobel's eyes were on him, and he could almost feel
their questioning. He began to take wood from the sledge she had
loaded and throw it on the fire. He wished that Scottie and she had
remained in the tent for a little longer. His face burned and his
blood seemed like fire when he caught a glimpse of the steel cuffs
about Deane's wrists. Through the smoke he saw Isobel still clasping
her husband. He could see one of her little hands gripping at the
steel band, and suddenly he sprang across and faced them, no longer
fearing to meet Isobel's eyes or Deane's. Now his face was aflame, and
he half held out his arms to them as he spoke, as though he would
clasp them both to him in this moment of sacrifice and self-abnegation
and the dawning of new life.

"You know-- you both know why I've done this!" he cried, "You heard
what I said back there, Deane-- when you was in the box; an' all I
said was true. She came to me out of that storm like an angel-- an'
I'll think of her as an angel all my life. I don't know much about
God-- not the God they have down there, where they take an eye for an
eye an' a tooth for a tooth and kill because some one else has killed.
But there's something up here in the big open places, something that
makes you think and makes you want to do what's right and square; an'
she's got all I know of God in that little Bible of mine-- the blue
flower. I gave the blue flower to her, an' now an' forever she's my
blue flower. I ain't ashamed to tell you, Deane, because you've heard
it before, an' you know I'm not thinking it in a sinful way. It 'll
help me if I can see her face an' hear her voice and know there's such
love as yours after you're gone. For I'm going to let you go, Deane,
old man. That's what I came for, to save you from the others an' give
you back to her. I guess mebbe you'll know-- now-- how I feel--"

His voice choked him. Isobel's glorious eyes were looking into his
soul, and he looked straight back into them and saw all his reward
there. He turned to Deane. His key clicked in the locks to the
handcuffs, and as they fell into the snow the two men gripped hands,
and in their strong faces was that rarest of all things-- love of man
for man.

"I'm glad you know," said Billy, softly. "It wouldn't be fair if you
didn't, Scottie. I can think of her now, an' it won't be mean and low.
And if you ever need help-- if you're down in South America or
Africa-- anywhere-- I'll come if you send word. You'd better go to
South America. That's a good place. I'll report to headquarters that
you died-- from the fall. It's a lie, but blue flower would do it, and
so will I. Sometimes, you know, the friend who lies is the only friend
who's true-- and she'd do it-- a thousand times-- for you."

"And for you," whispered Isobel.

She was holding out her hands, her blue eyes streaming with tears of
happiness, and for a moment Billy accepted one of them and held it in
his own. He looked over her head as she spoke.

"God will bless you for this-- some day," she said; and a sob broke in
her voice. "He will bring you happiness-- happiness-- in what you have
dreamed of. You will find a blue flower-- sweet and pure and loyal--
and then you will know, even more fully, what life means to me with
him."

And then she broke down, sobbing like a child, and with her face
buried in her hands turned into the tent.

"Gawd!" whispered Billy, drawing a deep breath.

He looked Deane in the eyes; and Deane smiled, a rare and beautiful
smile.

For a quarter of an hour they talked alone, and then Billy drew a
wallet from his pocket.

"You'll need money, Scottie," he said. "I don't want you to lose a
minute in getting out of the country. Make for Vancouver. I've got
three hundred dollars here. You've got to take it or I'll shoot you!"

He thrust the money into Deane's hands as Isobel came out of the tent.
Her eyes were red, but she was smiling; and she held something in her
hand. She showed it to the two men. It was the blue flower Billy had
given her. But now its petals were torn apart, and nine of them lay in
the palm of her hand.

"It can't go with one." She spoke softly and the smile died on her
lips. "There are nine petals, three for each of us."

She gave three to her husband and three to Billy, and for a moment the
men stared at them as they lay in their rough and calloused palms.
Then Billy drew out the bit of buckskin in which he had placed the
strands of Isobel's hair and slipped the blue petals in with them.
Deane had drawn a worn envelope from his pocket. Billy spoke low to
Deane.

"I want to be alone for a while-- until dinner-time. Will you go into
the tent-- with her ?"

When they were gone Billy went to the spot where he had dropped his
pack before crawling up on Deane. He picked it up and slipped it over
his shoulders as he walked. He went swiftly back over his old trail,
and this time it was with a heart leaden with a deep and terrible
loneliness. When he reached the ridge he tried to whistle, but his
lips seemed thick, and there was something in his throat that choked
him. From the cap of the ridge he looked down. A thin mist of smoke
was rising from out of the spruce. It blurred before his eyes, and a
sobbing break came in his low cry of Isobel's name. Then he turned
once more back into the loneliness and desolation of his old life.

"I'm coming, Pelly," he laughed, in a strained, hard way. "I haven't
given you exactly a square deal, old man, but I'll hustle and make up
for lost time!"

A wind was beginning to moan in the spruce tops again. He was glad of
that. It promised storm. And a storm would cover up all trails.

VII

THE MADNESS OF PELLITER

Away up at Fullerton Point amid the storm and crash of the arctic
gloom Pelliter fought himself through day after day of fever, waiting
for MacVeigh. At first he had been filled with hope. That first
glimpse of the sun they had seen through the little window on the
morning that Billy left for Fort Churchill had come just in time to
keep reason from snapping in his head. For three days after that he
looked through the window at the same hour and prayed moaningly for
another glimpse of that paradise in the southern sky. But the storm
through which Isobel had struggled across the Barren gathered over his
head and behind him, day after day of it, rolling and twisting and
moaning with the roar of the cracking fields of ice, bringing back
once more the thick death-gloom of the arctic night that had almost
driven him mad. He tried to think only of Billy, of his loyal
comrade's race into the south, and of the precious letters he would
bring back to him; and he kept track of the days by making pencil
marks on the door that opened out upon the gray and purple desolation
of the arctic sea.

At last there came the day when he gave up hope. He believed that he
was dying. He counted the marks on the door and found that there were
sixteen. Just that many days ago Billy had set off with the dogs. If
all had gone well he was a third of the way back, and within another
week would be "home."

Pelliter's thin, fever-flushed face relaxed into a wan smile as he
counted the pencil marks again. Long before that week was ended he
figured that he would be dead. The medicines-- and the letters-- would
come too late, probably four or five days too late. Straight out from
his last mark he drew a long line, and at the end of it added in a
scrawling, almost unintelligible, hand: "Dear Billy, I guess this is
going to be my last day." Then he staggered from the door to the
window.

Out there was what was killing him-- loneliness, a maddening
desolation, a lifeless world that reached for hundreds of miles
farther than his eyes could see. To the north and east there was
nothing but ice, piled-up masses and grinning mountains of it, white
at first, of a somber gray farther off, and then purple and almost
black. There came to him now the low, never-ceasing thunder of the
undercurrents fighting their way down from the Arctic Ocean, broken
now and then by a growling roar as the giant forces sent a crack, like
a great knife, through one of the frozen mountains. He had listened to
those sounds for five months, and in those five months he had heard no
other voice but his own and MacVeigh's and the babble of an Eskimo.
Only once in four months had he seen the sun, and that was on the
morning that MacVeigh went south. So he had gone half mad. Others had
gone completely mad before him. Through the window his eyes rested on
the five rough wooden crosses that marked their graves. In the service
of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police they were called heroes. And in
a short time he, Constable Pelliter, would be numbered among them.
MacVeigh would send the whole story down to her, the true little girl
a thousand miles south; and she would always remember him-- her hero--
and his lonely grave at Point Fullerton, the northernmost point of the
Law. But she would never see that grave. She could never come to put
flowers on it, as she put flowers on the grave of his mother; she
would never know the whole story, not a half of it-- his terrible
longing for a sound of her voice, a touch of her hand, a glimpse of
her sweet blue eyes before he died. They were to be married in August,
when his service in the Royal Mounted ended. She would be waiting for
him. And in August-- or July-- word would reach her that he had died.

With a dry sob he turned from the window to the rough table that he
had drawn close to his bunk, and for the thousandth time he held
before his red and feverish eyes a photograph. It was a portrait of a
girl, marvelously beautiful to Tommy Pelliter, with soft brown hair
and eyes that seemed always to talk to him and tell him how much she
loved him. And for the thousandth time he turned the picture over and
read the words she had written on the back:

"My own dear boy, remember that I am always with you, always
thinking of you, always praying for you; and I know, dear, that you
will always do what you would do if I were at your side."

"Good Lord!" groaned Pelliter. "I can't die! I can't! I've got to
live-- to see her--"

He dropped back on his bunk exhausted. The fires burned in his head
again. He grew dizzy, and he talked to her, or thought he was talking,
but it was only a babble of incoherent sound that made Kazan, the
one-eyed old Eskimo dog, lift his shaggy head and sniff suspiciously.
Kazan had listened to Pelliter's deliriums many times since MacVeigh
had left them alone, and soon he dropped his muzzle between his
forepaws and dozed again. A long time afterward he raised his head
once more. Pelliter was quiet. But the dog sniffed, went to the door,
whined softly, and nervously muzzled the sick man's thin hand. Then he
settled back on his haunches, turned his nose straight up, and from
his throat there came that wailing, mourning cry, long-drawn and
terrible, with which Indian dogs lament before the tepees of masters
who are newly dead. The sound aroused Pelliter. He sat up again, and
he found that once more the fire and the pain had gone from his head.

"Kazan, Kazan," he pleaded, weakly, "it isn't time-- yet!"

Kazan had gone to the window that looked to the west, and stood with
his forefeet on the sill. Pelliter shivered.

"Wolves again," he said, "or mebbe a fox."

He had grown into that habit of talking to himself, which is as common
as human life itself in the far north, where one's own voice is often
the one thing that breaks a killing monotony. He edged his way to the
window as he spoke and looked out with Kazan. Westward there stretched
the lifeless Barren illimitable and void, without rock or bush and
overhung by a sky that always made Pelliter think of a terrible
picture he had once seen of Doré's "Inferno." It was a low, thick sky,
like purple and blue granite, always threatening to pitch itself down
in terrific avalanches, and between the earth and this sky was the
thin, smothered worldrM which MacVeigh had once called God's insane
asylum.

Through the gloom Kazan's one eye and Pelliter's feverish vision could
not see far, but at last the man made out an object toiling slowly
toward the cabin. At first he thought it was a fox, and then a wolf,
and then, as it loomed larger, a straying caribou. Kazan whined. The
bristles along his spine rose stiff and menacing. Pelliter stared
harder and harder, with his face pressed close against the cold glass
of the window, and suddenly he gave a gasping cry of excitement. It
was a man who was toiling toward the cabin! He was bent almost double,
and he staggered in a zigzag fashion as he advanced. Pelliter made his
way feebly to the door, unbarred it, and pushed it partly open.
Overcome by weakness he fell back then on the edge of his bunk,

It seemed an age before he heard steps. They were slow and stumbling,
and an instant later a face appeared at the door. It was a terrible
face, overgrown with beard, with wild and staring eyes; but it was a
white man's face. Pelliter had expected an Eskimo, and he sprang to
his feet with sudden strength as the stranger came in.

"Something to eat, mate, for the love o' God give me something to
eat!"

The stranger fell in a heap on the floor and stared up at him with the
ravenous entreaty of an animal. Pelliter's first move was to get
whisky, and the other drank it in great gulps. Then he dragged himself
to his feet, and Pelliter sank in a chair beside the table.

"I'm sick," he said. "Sergeant MacVeigh has gone to Churchill, and I
guess I'm in a bad way. You'll have to help yourself. There's meat--
'n' bannock--"

Whisky had revived the new-comer. He stared at Pelliter, and as he
stared he grinned, ugly yellow teeth leering from between his matted
beard. The look cleared Pelliter's brain. For some reason which he
could not explain, his pistol hand fell to the place where he usually
carried his holster. Then he remembered that his service revolver was
under the pillow.

"Fever," said the sailor; for Pelliter knew that he was a sailor.

He took off his heavy coat and tossed it on the table. Then he
followed Pelliter's instructions in quest of food, and for ten minutes
ate ravenously. Not until he was through and seated opposite him at
the table did Pelliter speak.

"Who are you, and where in Heaven's name did you come from?" he asked.

"Blake-- Jim Blake's my name, an' I come from what I call Starvation
Igloo Inlet, thirty miles up the coast. Five months ago I was left a
hundred miles farther up to take care of a cache for the whaler John
B. Sidney, and the cache was swept away by an overflow of ice. Then we
struck south, hunting and starving, me 'n' the woman--"

"The woman!" cried Pelliter.

"Eskimo squaw," said Blake, producing a black pipe. "The cap'n bought
her to keep me company-- paid four sacks of flour an' a knife to her
husband up at Wagner Inlet. Got any tobacco?"

Pelliter rose to get the tobacco. He was surprised to find that he was
steadier on his feet and that Blake's words were clearing his brain.
That had been his and MacVeigh's great fight-- the fight to put an end
to the white man's immoral trade in Eskimo women and girls, and Blake
had already confessed himself a criminal. Promise of action, quick
action, momentarily overcame his sickness. He went back with the
tobacco, and sat down.

"Where's the woman?" be asked.

"Back in the igloo," said Blake, filling his pipe. "We killed a walrus
up there and built an icehouse. The meat's gone. She's probably gone
by this time." He laughed coarsely across at Pelliter as he lighted
his pipe. "It seems good to get into a white man's shack again."

"She's not dead?" insisted Pelliter.

"Will be-- shortly," replied Blake. "She was so weak she couldn't walk
when I left. But them Eskimo animals die hard, 'specially the women."

"Of course you're going back for her?"

The other stared for a moment into Pelliter's flushed face, and then
laughed as though he had just heard a good joke.

"Not on your life, my boy. I wouldn't hike that thirty miles again--
an' thirty back-- for all the Eskimo women up at Wagner."

The red in Pelliter's eyes grew redder as he leaned over the table.

"See here," he said, "you're going back-- now! Do you understand?
You're going back!"

Suddenly he stopped. He stared at Blake's coat, and with a swiftness
that took the other by surprise he reached across and picked something
from it. A startled cry broke from his lips. Between his fingers he
held a single filament of hair. It was nearly a foot long, and it was
not an Eskimo woman's hair. It shone a dull gold in the gray light
that came through the window. He raised his eyes, terrible in their
accusation of the man opposite him.

"You lie!" he said. "She's not an Eskimo!"

Blake had half risen, his great hands clutching the ends of the table,
his brutal face thrust forward, his whole body in an attitude that
sent Pelliter back out of his reach. He was not an instant too soon.
With an oath Blake sent the table crashing aside and sprang upon the
sick man.

"I'll kill you!" he cried. "I'll kill you, an' put you where I've put
her, 'n' when your pard comes back I'll--"

His hands caught Pelliter by the throat, but not before there had come
from between the sick man's lips a cry of "Kazan! Kazan!"

With a wolfish snarl the old one-eyed sledge-dog sprang upon Blake,
and the three fell with a crash upon Pelliter's bunk. For an instant
Kazan's attack drew one of Blake's powerful hands from Pelliter's
throat, and as he turned to strike off the dog Pelliter's hand groped
out under his flattened pillow. Blake's murderous face was still
turned when he drew out his heavy service revolver; and as Blake cut
at Kazan with a long sheath-knife which he had drawn from his belt
Pelliter fired. Blake's grip relaxed. Without a groan he slipped to
the floor, and Pelliter staggered back to his feet. Kazan's teeth were
buried in Blake's leg.

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