The Lady of North Star. Ottwell Binns
him an interview. He never came. Something happened and he had to leave England. Do you know what it was? I have never heard.”
“Yes,” answered the corporal slowly. “I know, and I think it is only right that you should know. You knew perhaps that Dick was in the Artillery?”
“Yes!” answered the girl.
“He was interested in his job. He was a good officer. It is the one thing to his credit that I know. There was a new gun, and he had access to the plans. He stole a copy, and sold them to the agent of a foreign government. The theft was discovered and traced, but a friend dropped Dick a telegram which was forwarded to Alcombe Manor – and he ran for it, and got clear away. I imagine that explains why he did not visit you at Cambridge. Of course, the affair was hushed up, as such affairs are, and it is nearly forgotten now, though England would not be a safe place for him. Did you ever hear from him afterwards?”
“Not until last night,” was the reply. “When his note came to me, it was a great shock.”
The corporal nodded. “I can readily imagine that it would be… Did your father ever know of your marriage?”
“No, thank God! I wrote to him, but before he received the letter the accident occurred by which he lost his life. I found the letter here unopened, when I came here to comply with the terms of his will. I was glad to get here. I was so overborne by the deceit and vileness of those I had thought were my friends in England!”
“They were not all deceitful, surely?” expostulated the young man.
“No! Some are my friends still. I am going to England very shortly, and I shall stay with one of them in Westmorland.”
“Will you ever return here?”
“Most certainly. North Star is my home – I love it, and I have always felt myself safe here – until last night.”
Bracknell understood that she meant that she had felt that in this lodge in the wilderness she was safe from his cousin, and nodded his head.
“I understand,” he said, but forbore to add what was in his mind; namely, that if Dick Bracknell had not died on the previous night, North Star would be no longer the sanctuary it had been.
They walked forward for a moment without speaking. A rise in the ground covered with snow-laden saskatoon bushes hid the river from them for a little time, and as they breasted it, and the river came into view again, they surprised a pedestrian climbing up the bank. It was Mr. Rayner.
He was obviously a little startled by the meeting, but a moment later recovered himself.
“Been out for a constitutional,” he explained, “as far as the bend of the river, and I’ve had quite sufficient. Are you ready to return?”
The girl nodded, but the corporal, whose eyes were surveying the empty landscape in front, shook his head.
“I shall walk on a little,” he said, “I may be going up stream tomorrow. The Elkhorn falls in somewhere about here, doesn’t it?”
“Just beyond the bluff there,” answered Joy.
“Then I’ll take a look at it, and see what the trail is like.”
He nodded and walked on leaving Joy Gargrave to return with Rayner. He waited until they were out of sight and then descended to the frozen surface of the river, where the going was easier, the trail having been packed by prospectors moving up and down. He reached the bluff in a short time, but did not go round it. His gaze was arrested by the trail of a sled which had come down the bank to the river at a point just below the bluff, and by recent footmarks. He remembered the figure he had seen whilst walking with Joy Gargrave, unquestionably that of Rayner, for there were his footmarks turning south from the bluff. A thought struck him, and examining the snow carefully, he found no tracks running northward. A little puzzled he looked at the sled trail again, and there made the discovery that the single footmarks that ran side by side with the sled-trail, had been made not by one pair of feet but by two, some one having quite recently adapted his stride to the tracks already made. Puzzled and interested he followed the sled trail up the bank and began to trace it through the wood at the top.
An hour later, still following the sled-trail he struck the river again, and found himself exactly opposite the landing which led to North Star Lodge. As he realized this he nodded thoughtfully. The sled trail he had been following, when he had encountered Joy Gargrave, led directly across the river. But whose sled was it? And why had Rayner traced it so carefully, at the same time endeavouring to cover his own trail? The first question was one for which he had no answer, and the second was an equal puzzle. Clearly Rayner had been interested in the sled-trail since he had followed it for two miles; and plainly he was anxious to conceal his interest, since he had walked so carefully in the footsteps of the unknown driver, and had made no reference to the matter whatever. Did he know something – something that he did not wish to make known?
The corporal thought that very likely he did, but could not even conjecture what the secret knowledge might be. There was a puzzled frown on his face, as he turned in the direction of the Lodge, and when he came in sight of the house he became aware of a considerable bustle. In the open space in front two sleds were drawn up, and a considerable number of dogs were lying about or nosing in the snow for lost fragments of food. Two Indians and a half-breed were standing near the sleds smoking and talking. Bracknell recognized the half-breed for a man who had been in the service of the police as a driver.
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