Lorimer of the Northwest. Harold Bindloss
were nothing loth, for twenty miles of deepening 88 snow lay between us and our homestead, where we had little to do, while to complete my satisfaction Grace and her train arrived in the Lone Hollow sleigh early the next morning, and on hearing the story her eyes glistened as she thanked me. “I am so glad I sent you,” she said, “and I feel I owe my father’s safety, perhaps his life, to you. It is a debt I can never repay.”
It was late that afternoon when another sleigh drew up before the Carrington gate, and three white-sheeted troopers lifted a heavy burden out of it. The thing, which seemed a shapeless heap of snow and wrappings, hung limply between them as they carried it into the hall, while it was Sergeant Angus Macfarlane who explained their errand.
“Lay him down there gently, boys,” he said. “No, stand back, Miss Carrington, these kind o’ sights are no for you. We found him in a coulée after yon Blackfoot peddler had told us Stevens had fooled us, and ye’ll mind it’s no that easy to fool the Northwest Police. He’s one o’ the gang, but the poor soul’s got several ribs broken, an’ after lying out through the blizzard I’m thinking he’s near his end. It’s a long ride to the outpost, forbye we have no comforts. Maybe ye’ll take him—ay, I ken he’s a robber, but ye cannot leave him to perish in the snow.”
He flung back the wrappings, and before I could stop her Grace bent down over the drawn white face with the red froth on the lips, while Ormond said quietly:
“Very bad, poor devil! I fancied Robin’s hoofs struck something that yielded when he made a landing. You will take him in if it’s only to oblige me, sir.”
Grace stood upright with tender compassion shining in her wet eyes as she fixed them on the old man.
“I am a woman now, father,” she said, “and I should like to help to cure him if it can be done. We shall do everything possible for him, anyway. Bring him 89 forward, Sergeant Angus. Geoffrey, you know something of surgery.”
“I don’t make war on dying men. You will do whatever pleases you, Grace,” the ruler of Carrington answered, indifferently.
They carried their burden into another room, and I waited beside the stove, with two faces stamped on my memory. The one was that of the wounded man with its contraction of pain and glassy stare, and the other the countenance of Grace Carrington transfigured for a moment by a great pity that added to its loveliness. Still, the coming of this unexpected guest cast a gloom upon us, and we seldom saw Grace, while Ormond, who seemed to know a little of everything, once said on passing: “I have fixed him up as well as I could, but I think a broken rib has pierced his lung, and he’s sinking rapidly. However, Miss Carrington is doing her best, and he could not have a more efficient nurse.”
It was late in the afternoon when, on tapping at the door in search of tidings, Ormond called me in. The daylight was fading, but I could see the limp, suffering shape on the bed, and Grace sitting near the window, leaning forward as though listening.
“Light-headed at times!” said Ormond; “but he was asking for you. Do you feel any easier now? Here’s another inquirer anxious to hear good news of you.”
The man turned his drawn face toward me, and tried to smile as he said: “I guess you’re very good. Hope you don’t bear malice. You oughtn’t to anyhow—nearly broke my neck when you fired me through the doorway. All in the way of business, and I’m corralled now.”
I bent my head with a friendly gesture, for even I could read death in his face, and the outlaw, glancing toward Grace, added: 90
“If I’d known you, Missy, we’d never have held up this homestead. White people all through, and you’re a prairie daisy. What made me do it? Well, I guess that’s a long story, and some of it might scare you. A big man froze me off my land, and some one rebranded my few head of stock. Law! we don’t count much on that; it’s often the biggest rascals corral the offices, and we just laid for them with the rifle. They were too many for us—and this is the end of it.”
Grace moved toward him whispering something I could not catch, but the man smiled feebly, and I heard the grim answer:
“No; I guess it’s rather too late for that. I lived my own way, and I can die that way too. Don’t back down on one’s partners; kind of mean, isn’t it? And if it’s true what you’re saying I’ll just accept my sentence. Going out before the morning; but I sent two of the men who robbed me to perdition first.”
Ormond raised his hand for silence, and again I could hear the shrilling of the bitter wind that was never still. Then he said softly: “You are only exciting him, and had better go,” and with a last glance at Grace’s slender figure stooping beside the bed I went out softly.
It was nearly midnight and a cold creepiness pervaded everything when he joined the rest of us round the stove.
“Gone!” he said simply. “Just clenched his hand and died. There was some fine material wasted in that man. Well, I think he was wronged somehow, and I’m sorry for him.”
We turned away in silence, for a shadow rested upon Carrington, while the outlaw lay in state in the homestead he had helped to rob, until the Northwest Police bore what was left of him away. But before that time we rode back to Fairmead.
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