Philip Steele of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police. James Oliver Curwood
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replied Steele.
“That's why I am bringing you over to the cabin. I am going to tell you just what happened when Mrs. Becker was taken ill, and when she turned a trifle pale, if you noticed sharply. Buck. It's a good joke, a mighty good joke, and I know you will thoroughly appreciate it.”
He drew a step back when they came near the cabin, and Nome entered first. Very coolly Philip turned and bolted the door. Then, throwing off his coat, he pointed to the white skull dangling under the lamp.
“Allow me to introduce an old friend of mine, Buck—M'sieur Janette, of Nelson House.”
With a sudden curse Nome leaped toward his companion, his face flaming, his hands clenched to strike—only to look into the shining muzzle of Steele's revolver, with Steele's cold gray eyes glittering dangerously behind it.
“Sit down, Nome—right there, under the man you killed!” he commanded. “Sit down, or by the gods I'll blow your head off where you stand! There—and I'll sit here, like this, so that the cur's heart within you is a bull's-eye for this gun. It's M'sieur Janette's turn tonight,” he went on, leaning over the little table, the red spots in his cheeks growing redder and brighter as Nome cringed before his revolver. “M'sieur Janette's—and the colonel's; but mostly Janette's. Remember that, Nome. It's for Janette. I'm not thinking much about Mrs. Becker—just now.”
Steele's breath came quickly and his lips were almost snarling in his hatred of the man before him.
“It's a lie!” gasped Nome chokingly, his face ashen white. “You lie when you say I killed—Janette.”
The fingers of Steele's pistol hand twitched.
“How I'd like to kill you!” he breathed. “You won his wife, Nome; you broke his heart—and after that he killed himself. You sent a report into headquarters that he killed himself by accident. You lied. It was you who killed him—by taking his wife. I got his skull because I thought I might need it against you to show that it was a pistol instead of a rifle that killed him. And this isn't the first man you've sent to hell, Nome, and is isn't the first woman. But your next won't be Mrs. Becker!”
He thrust his revolver almost into the other man's face as Nome opened his lips to speak.
“Shut up!” he cried. “If you open your dirty mouth again I'll be tempted to kill you where you sit! Don't you know what happened to-night? Don't you know that Mrs. Becker forgot herself, and remembered again, just in time, and that you've taken a little blood from the colonel's heart as you took all of it from—his?” He reached up and broke the string that held the skull, turning the empty face of the thing toward Nome. “Look at it, you scoundrel! That's the man you killed, as you would kill the colonel if you could. That's Janette!”
His voice fell to a hissing whisper as he shoved the skull slowly across the table, so close that a sudden movement would have sent it against the other's breast.
“We've been fixing this thing up between us, Bucky—M'sieur Janette and I,” he went on, “and we've come to the conclusion that we won't kill you, but that you don't belong to the service. Understand?”
“You mean—to drive me out—” One of Nome's hands had stolen to his side, and Steele's pistol arm grew tense.
“On the table with your hands, Bucky! There, that's better,” he laughed softly.
“Yes, we're going to drive you out. You're going to pack up a few things right away, Bucky, and you're going to run like the devil away from this place. I'd advise you to go straight back to headquarters and resign from the Northwest Mounted. MacGregor knows you pretty well, Bucky, and knows one or two things you've done, even though your whole record is not an open book to him. I don't believe he'll put any obstacles in the way of your discharge although your enlistment hasn't expired. Disability is an easy plea, you know. But if the inspector should think so much of you that he is loath to let you go, then M'sieur Janette and I will have to fix up the story for headquarters, and I don't mind telling you we'll add just a little for interest, and that the woman and the people at Nelson House will swear to it. You've the making of a good outlaw, Bucky,” he smiled tauntingly, “and if you follow your natural bent you'll have some of your old friends after you, good and hard. You'd better steer clear of that though, and try your hand at being honest for once. M'sieur Janette wants to give you this chance, and you'd better make good time. So get a move on, Bucky. You'll need a blanket and a little grub, that's all.”
“Steele, you don't mean this! Good God, man—” Nome had half risen to his feet. “You don't mean this!”
With his free hand Philip took out his watch.
“I mean that if you are not gone within fifteen minutes I'll march you over to Breed and the colonel, tell them the story of M'sieur Janette, here, and hold you until we hear from headquarters,” he said quickly. “Which will it be, Nome?”
Like one stunned by a blow Nome rose slowly to his feet. He spoke no word as he carefully filled his pack with the necessities of a long journey. At the door, as he opened it to go, he turned for just an instant upon Steele, who was still holding the revolver in his hand.
“Remember, Bucky,” admonished Philip in a quiet voice, “it's all for the good of yourself and the service.”
Fear had gone from Nome's face. It was filled now with a hatred so intense that his teeth shone like the fangs of a snarling animal.
“To hell with you,” he said, “and to hell with the service; but remember, Philip Steele, remember that some day we'll meet again.”
“Some day,” laughed Philip. “Good-by, Bucky Nome—deserter!”
The door closed and Nome was gone.
“Now, M'sieur Janette, it's our turn,” cried Steele, smiling companionably upon the skull and loading his pipe. “It's our turn.”
He laughed aloud, and for some time puffed out luxurious clouds of smoke in silence.
“It's the best day's work I've done in my life,” he continued, with his eyes still upon the skull. “The very best, and it would be complete, M'sieur, if I could send you down to the woman who helped to kill you.”
He stopped, and his eyes leaped with a sudden fire. “By George!” he exclaimed, under his breath. His pipe went out; for many minutes he stared with set face at the skull, as if it had spoken to him and its voice had transfixed him where he stood. Then he tossed his pipe upon the table, collected his service equipment and strapped it in his pack. After that he returned to the table with a pad of paper and a pencil and sat down. His face was strangely white as he took the skull in his hands.
“I'll do it, so help me all the gods, I'll do it!” he breathed excitedly. “M'sieur, a woman killed you—as much as Bucky Nome, a woman did it. You couldn't do her any good—but you might—another. I'm going to send you to her, M'sieur. You're a terrible lesson, and I may be a beast; but you're preaching a powerful sermon, and I guess—perhaps—you may do her good. I'll tell her your story, old man, and the story of the woman who made you so nice and white and clean. Perhaps she'll see the moral, M'sieur. Eh? Perhaps!”
For a long time he wrote, and when he had done he sealed the writing, put the envelope and the skull together in a box, and tied the whole with babiche string. On the outside he fastened another note to Breed, the factor, in which he explained that he and Bucky Nome had found it necessary to leave that very night for the West. And he heavily underscored the lines in which he directed the factor to see that the box was delivered to Mrs. Colonel Becker, and that, as he valued the honor and the friendship of the service, and especially of Philip Steele, all knowledge of it should be kept from the colonel himself.
It was eight o'clock when he went out into the night with his pack upon his back. He grunted approval when he found it was snowing, for the track of himself and Nome would be covered. Through the thickening gloom the two or three lights in the factor's home gleamed like distant stars. One of them was brighter than the others, and he knew that it came