Part 9

Jack looked up surprised. There was more in the answer than he had expected. "You will?" he cried, bright-eyed. "You've come to tell me that! By Gad! that would be a plucky thing to do after all these years. I didn't think you had it in you!"

"I--I'd like to," murmured Garrod, as before.

"Easy enough if you want to," said Jack. "You only have to speak the truth."

"That wouldn't do you any good," said Garrod.

"What do you mean?" Jack demanded.

"It's not what you think," said Garrod. "I didn't take the money."

"Who did then?"

"The bank was robbed," said Garrod. "The morning after you went away. Three men broke in during the night, and hid until morning. When Rokeby and I opened the safe, they overpowered us and got away with the money. We had no business to open up until the others came, and we were afraid to tell. I thought it wouldn't do you any harm as long as you were away. If you had come back I would have told."

There was a glib tone in all this that caused Jack's lip to curl. "Well, what's to prevent your telling now?" he asked.

"They wouldn't believe me," said Garrod. "They'd think I was just trying to shield you, my old friend."

"But there's Rokeby to back you up!"

"He's dead," muttered Garrod.

A harsh note of laughter broke from Jack.

"I suppose you don't believe me," said Garrod.

"Hardly," said Jack. "It fits in a bit too well."

Garrod's voice rose shaky and shrill: "It's true! I swear it! Three men; French, they were. I can see them now! One was young; he had a scar across his forehead----'

"Oh, cut out the fine touches," said Jack contemptuously. "Any fool could see you were lying." He went on whittling his brace.

Garrod's voice sunk to a whimper. "It's true! It's true!"

Jack began to perceive that it was scarcely a reasonable being he had to deal with. He took a different line. "I guess you've led a dog's life these last few years," he said quietly.

Garrod looked at him queerly. "Oh, my God," he said in a flat voice. "Nobody knows."

"I suppose you know what's the matter with you," said Jack. There was no answer.

"It's what the story-books call remorse," said Jack. "You can't go to work and ruin your best friend without having bad dreams afterward."

"I never took the money," Garrod murmured.

Jack ignored it. "Your friend," he repeated with a direct look. "Do you remember, as we stood waiting for my train to pull out, you put your arm around my shoulders, and said: 'Buck up, old fel'! We've got in many a hole together, and we always saw each other out! Count on me--until death!' Do you remember that?"

"Yes," murmured Garrod.

"And next morning you took the money to pay your debts, to get you out of your hole, knowing they would put it off on me. You pushed me into a hole as deep as hell, and left me to rot there."

Garrod put up a trembling hand as if to fend off a blow. "I didn't take it," he murmured still.

"Look me in the eyes, and swear it," demanded Jack.

He could not.

"Now, look here," said Jack. "You're in a bad way. You can't stand much more. There's going to be a grand show-down to-night. Do you think you can go through with that?"

"Eh?" asked Garrod, dully and anxiously.

"Listen to me, and try to understand," said Jack impatiently. "Sir Bryson has gone to look at my claims. He will read the name Malcolm Piers written on the post, and when he comes back he will know who I am, and there'll be the deuce to pay. Do you think you're in any state to face me down? Why, man, the very look of you is enough to give you away!"

Garrod merely looked at him with dull, frightened eyes. "Suppose you could face me down," Jack continued, "what then? You can't face yourself down. You were born a decent fellow at heart, Frank, and you can't get away with this sort of thing. It's got you. And every new lie you tell just adds to the nightmare that's breaking you now. You've reached the limit. Anything more, and you'll go clean off your head."

"You'll tell Sir Bryson everything," muttered Garrod.

"When I am accused I defend myself," said Jack.

"I couldn't go through with it. I couldn't," Garrod said like a frightened, stupefied schoolboy.

"Sure, you couldn't," urged Jack, pursuing his advantage. "Make a clean breast of it before Sir Bryson comes home, and you won't have to face him at all. By Gad! think what a load off your mind! You'd be cured then; you'd sleep; you'd be a man again!"

But Garrod murmured again: "I didn't take the money."

Jack fought hard for his good name. His need lent him an eloquence more than his own. In all this he never stooped by so much as a word to plead for himself. "Why shouldn't you tell the truth?" he persisted. "What good is this life you're leading to you? It'll kill you in a month. Chuck it all, and stay in this country, and win back your health, and your brains, and your self-respect."

Garrod wavered. He half turned to Jack with a more human look. "Would--would you be friends with me again?" he murmured.

"I'd stand by you," said Jack quickly. "I've got my start up here, and I could give you a good one. As long as I stood by you no one could rake up old scores. But it couldn't be just the same as it used to be," his honesty forced him to add.

Jack waited with his eyes fixed compellingly on the other man. Garrod's eyes struggled to escape them, and could not. Suddenly he broke down, and buried his head in his arms. "I'll do it!" he sobbed.

Jack sprang up. "Good!" he cried with blazing eyes. "The whole truth? You took the money, and spent it, and let them fasten the theft on me?"

"I took the money, and spent it, and let them fasten the theft on you," repeated Garrod.

Jack drew a long breath, and, sitting again, wiped his face. Not until he felt the sense of relief that surged through him did he realize how much this had meant to him. He could look almost kindly on the stricken figure in front of him now, and the sobs inspired him with none of the disgust he would have felt at any other time. He waited patiently for Garrod to recover himself. When the man at last became quiet he said, not unkindly:

"Are you ready now?"

"For what?" asked Garrod, lifting a terrified face.

"Let us go back to camp. Vassall is there. You can tell him."

Garrod desperately shook his head. "Linda--Miss Trangmar is there. I couldn't--I couldn't have her hear me!"

"But we could take Vassall away."

"No," he said. "Don't you understand? Vassall is after her. He'll be glad of this. I couldn't tell him."

"What if he knew about Linda and me," thought Jack with a sidelong look. "Gad! but life's a rum go!"

"I'd rather face Sir Bryson," stuttered Garrod. "Wait till Sir Bryson comes back. I swear I'll tell him the whole truth, and you shall be there."

"You're right, I'll be there," said Jack grimly. He considered, frowning. It might be better to confront Sir Bryson with Garrod direct, but Sir Bryson would not be back for five or six hours, and who could tell what contradictions of mood would pass over this half-insane man in the interval.

As if reading his mind, Garrod said: "I won't take anything back. You needn't be afraid--if you let me stay with you. You're my only hope. Let me stay with you. Give me something to do all day."

Jack rubbed his chin in perplexity. "Will you write out a confession?" he finally asked.

Garrod eagerly nodded his head.

"Wait here, then," commanded Jack.

Jack ran to his tent, where he got a pen and his note-book, and returned to the dugout. He was gone but two minutes, nevertheless as he sprang down the bank he saw that Garrod was no longer alone. Jean Paul had joined him.

It did not occur to Jack that the half-breed had any concern in this affair, but he was annoyed by his intrusion just at this minute. He looked at him sharply. Jean Paul stood idly chewing a grass-stalk, and looking out over the river with a face as expressionless as brown paper. Garrod was sitting as Jack had left him, looking at Jean Paul. A change had passed over his eyes.

Jack's temper got a little the better of him. "What do you want here?" he demanded.

Jean Paul turned with an air of mild surprise. "Not'ing," he said. "Wat's the matter? I saw you and Garrod here, and I came. I got not'ing to do."

"Go find something," said Jack. "Clear out! Make yourself scarce! Vamoose!"

Jean Paul, with a deprecatory shrug, walked slowly on up the beach.

"I have pen and paper," Jack said eagerly to Garrod.

Garrod's dazed eyes were following Jean Paul's retreating figure. He paid no attention. It was only too evident that his mood had changed.

Jack's face grew red. "Have you gone back on it already?" he said with an oath.

"I must go," muttered Garrod, struggling to rise.

Jack thrust him back. "You stay where you are!"

But as soon as Jack took his hands off him Garrod endeavoured to get up and follow Jean Paul, who by this time had climbed the bank. Garrod's wasted strength was no match for Jack's but Jack could hardly see himself sitting there holding the other man down until Sir Bryson returned. He looked around for inspiration. There was a length of rope fastened to the bow of the dugout. Cutting off a piece of it, he tied Garrod's wrists and ankles, and let him lie.

Jack sat down and filled his pipe, watching Garrod grimly meanwhile, and trying to puzzle out a solution. The man spoke no articulate word except to mutter once or twice that he must go. Occasionally he struggled feebly in his bonds like a fish at the last gasp. Still it did not occur to Jack to connect this new phase of his sickness with the appearance of the half-breed. Jack's heart was sore. "Of what use was the confession of a man in such a state?" he thought. In Jack's simple system of treatment there was but one remedy for all swoons or seizures, viz., cold water. Upon thinking of this he got up and, filling his hat in the river, dashed the contents in Garrod's face.

It had the desired effect. Garrod gasped and shivered, and looked at Jack as if he saw him for the first. He ceased to struggle, and Jack untied the ropes. Garrod sat up, a ghastly figure, with the water trickling from his dank hair over his livid face.

"I'm all wet," he said, putting up the back of his hand. Without expressing any curiosity as to what had happened, he dried his face and neck with his handkerchief.

"Do you remember what we were talking about?" asked Jack, concealing his anxiety.

"You wanted me to write something," Garrod said dully.

"Are you willing?"

Garrod nodded, and held out his hand for the pen and the little book.

Jack breathed freely again. The blade of a paddle served Garrod for a writing table. The man was entirely submissive.

"But do you know what you're doing?" demanded Jack frowning.

Garrod nodded again. "You want me to write out a confession," he said. "What shall I write."

Jack dictated: "I, Francis Garrod, desire to state of my own free will that on the morning of October ninth, nineteen hundred and six, I took the sum of five thousand dollars from the vault of the Bank of Canada, Montreal. I knew that Malcolm Piers had gone away, and I allowed the theft to be fixed on him."

He signed the page, and dated it. Taking the book, Jack slipped it in the breast pocket of his flannel shirt. Jack was genuinely moved. It was borne in on him dimly that though he was technically the injured party, it was the other man who showed the wound.

"You'll feel better now," he said gruffly.

Garrod lay back on the stones, and covered his face with his arm. "I suppose you loathe me, Malcolm," he muttered.

"You've gone a long way to make it up," Jack said, in the keenest discomfort. "Just give me a little time."

Garrod's thoughts strayed in another direction. "What will _she_ say?" he whispered.

Considering everything, this was a poser for Jack. "You've got no business to be thinking about girls in your state," he said frowning. "Put her out of your mind, man, and go to work to win back what you've lost."

Garrod reverted to the night five years before. "I didn't mean to take the money," he murmured. "I couldn't sleep after you went, that night, and all night I played with the idea as if it was a story. Supposing I _did_ take the money, you know, how I would cover my tracks, and so on. But I never meant to. And next morning when I went to the bank I was alone in the vault for a moment, and I slipped the package in my pocket just to carry out the idea, and Rokeby came in before I could put it back. Then the money was counted, and the shortage discovered. I had plenty of other chances to put it back, for the money was counted twenty times, but I was always afraid of being seen, and I kept putting it off, and at last the alarm was given and it was too late. They were old bills and they couldn't be traced.

"I don't know how I lived through the time that followed. I was afraid to put it back then, because the fellows talked about my changed looks, and I knew if the money turned up they would suspect me. As it was, they thought I was grieving on your account. I was, too, but not the way they thought. I set a store by you, Malcolm. I didn't mean to injure you. I just drifted into it, and I was caught before I knew. The thought of meeting you brought the sweat pouring out of me. I thought you would come back. I bought a revolver, and carried it always. If I had come face to face with you it would have nerved me to turn it on myself, which I couldn't do alone.

"You didn't come. The thing was quickly hushed up. I left the bank, and my life went on like anybody's. I didn't think about the money any more. But something had changed in me. I was nervous and cranky without knowing why. I couldn't sleep nights. I was full of silly terrors, always looking around corners, and over my shoulder. And it kept getting worse."

Garrod's voice never varied from the toneless half-whisper that was like a man talking in his sleep. "Then I came up here," he went on, "and ran into you without any warning. It was like a blow on the temple. It all came back to me. Then I knew what was the matter. I didn't kill myself on the spot, because I found you didn't know. I wish I had. I've died a thousand deaths since. It was like little knives in my brain thrusting and hacking. I could have screamed with it----"

Jack's increasing discomfort became more than he could bear. "For heaven's sake, don't tell all this," he burst out. "At least not to me. I'm the one you injured. Pull yourself together!"

"It is a relief to get it out," Garrod murmured with a sigh. "I can sleep now."

Jack got up. "Sleep, that's what you need," he said. "Come back to your tent, and lie low for the rest of the day."

"I--I don't want to be alone," stammered Garrod.

"Well, stretch out here in the grass," suggested Jack.

"You won't go away without waking me?" Garrod said anxiously.

"All right," said Jack.

Above the stones of the beach extended a narrow strip of grass, shaded from the sun by thickly springing willows. Behind and above the willows the trail skirted the escarpment of the bank. Garrod crawled into the shade and stretched himself out. Once or twice he started up to look rather wildly if Jack were still there; finally he slept.

Meanwhile Jack, returning to the dugout, took up his poplar braces again, with the instant concentration on the job in hand of which he was capable. Jack's highly practical temperament was at once the source of his strength and his weakness. On the one hand, he conserved his nervous energy by refusing to worry about things not immediately present; on the other hand, his refusal to track these same things down in his mind often left him unprepared for further eventualities. At this moment, while his attentive blue eyes directed his sure hands, he had not altogether ceased to think of the strange things that had happened, but it was only a subconscious current. There was evidence of it in the way his hand occasionally strayed to the pocket of his shirt to make sure the little book was still there.

Jack had pushed the dugout partly into the water. The stern floated in a backwater on the lower side of a little point of stones that jutted out. On this point impinged the descending current, which was deflected out, straight for the opening in the wall of rock, a thousand feet or so downstream. Little could be seen of this opening from above; the first fall hid the white welter below, and the bend in the walls of rock closed up the prospect. It was as if the river came to an end here in a round bay with a stony beach, and rich, green-clad shores. Only the deep, throaty roar from under the wall of rock gave warning that this was really "Hell's Opening."

Jack thought of no reason for watching Garrod now, and his back was turned to him as he worked. He therefore did not notice that the leaves of the willows above Garrod's head were occasionally twitched on their stems in a different way from the fluttering produced by a current of air. Only a sharp and attentive eye could have spotted it, for the movement was very slight, and there were long pauses between. After a while the leaves low down were parted, and for an instant a dark face showed, bright and eager with evil. It was Jean Paul. Marking Jack's position and Garrod's, he drew back. Garrod was immediately below him.

More minutes passed. The patience of a redskin is infinite.

Finally Garrod began to twitch and mutter in his sleep, and presently he rolled over on his back, wide awake. Jack threw him a careless glance, and went on working. As Garrod lay staring at the leaves over his head, a change passed subtly over his face; the lines of his flesh relaxed a little, a slight glaze seemed to be drawn over his eyes. In the end he slowly raised himself on one elbow, and looked at Jack with an exact reproduction of the cunning, hateful expression Jean Paul had shown. He quickly dropped back, and lay, waiting.

Presently, Jack having finished the shaping of his braces, picked up hammer and nails, and with another off-hand glance at the apparently sleeping Garrod, climbed into the dugout. He put in the stern thwart first, sitting on his heels in the bottom of the dugout, with his back toward the shore.

Garrod raised his head again, and seeing Jack's attitude, drew himself slowly up, and came crawling with infinite caution down over the stones. Back among the leaves a fiery pair of eyes was directing him. This was where Jack's faculty of concentration proved his undoing. Driving the nails as if his soul's fate rested on the accuracy of his strokes, he never looked around. Garrod covered the last five yards at a crouching run. Seizing the bow of the dugout, and exerting all his strength, he heaved the craft out into the stream.

The force and the suddenness of the shove threw Jack flat on his back. By the time he recovered himself, the dugout fairly caught in the current and, gradually gaining way, was headed straight for Hell's Opening.

If Jack allowed the moment to take him unawares, it must be said he wasted no time when it came. His faculties leaped in the presence of danger. His bright, wary, calculating eyes first sought for the paddle, but it lay back on the stones where Garrod had used it. He looked at Garrod. The man had picked up his gun, and was running toward him. He kept pace with the moving dugout along the edge of the stones. Not more than fifty feet separated the two men. Jack measured the distance to the backwater. Ten swimming strokes would have carried him to safety.

"If you jump overboard I'll shoot," Garrod murmured huskily. "I'll get you easy in the water!"

Jack saw that it was madness he had to deal with, and he wasted no words with him. Garrod, crouching, stumbling over the stones, with his strained, inhuman eyes fixed on Jack, was an ugly sight. He muttered as he went:

"I've got to kill you. I can't help it. I've got to!"

Jack stood up in the canoe. The blue eyes were steady, and the thin line of his lips was firm, but the rich colour slowly faded out of his sunburned face, leaving it like old ivory. All this had happened in a moment; the dugout was not yet fully under way, though it seemed to Jack as if it were flying down. The harbouring backwater still stretched between him and the shore. He had a minute or longer to make his choice. The roaring canyon that ground its great tree-trunks into shreds was vividly present before his eyes; on the other hand, he could jump overboard and make his bobbing head a mark like a bottle for a madman to shoot at. A minute to decide in, and there he was tinglingly alive, and life was very sweet.

A woman's frightened voice rang out: "Jack! what are you doing out there? Come ashore!"

He looked and saw Linda standing in the trail by the bank's edge. Garrod was hidden from her by the intervening bushes. She came flying down, regardless. Garrod heard the voice, and, turning toward it, stopped dead. His muscles relaxed, and the butt of the gun dropped on the stones.

Jack laughed, and jumped overboard. Half a dozen strokes carried him into the backwater; twenty landed him hands and knees on the stones. Rising face to face with Garrod, he snatched the gun from his nerveless hands and sent it spinning into the bushes. Without looking at the girl he ran and caught up the paddle, ran back along the stones, plunged in and, heading off the dugout, wriggled himself aboard. It became a question then of his strength against the sucking current. The dugout hung in the stream as if undecided. Finally it swung around inch by inch, swept inshore, and grounded with perhaps five yards to spare.

As he landed the second time Linda cast herself weeping and trembling on his dripping bosom. "What did you frighten me like that for?" she cried, beating him with her small fists.

Jack laughed, and held her off. "It's a good boat," he said; "besides, the hammer was in it, the only one we have."

"How did you get adrift?" she demanded.

Jack looked at Garrod with a hardening eye. Garrod still stood where he had stopped. His eyes were blank of sense or feeling. Linda flew toward him, her slight frame instinct and quivering with menace.

"You coward!" she hissed.

Jack held her off. "Let him alone," he said. "His wits are clean gone!"

He started to lead Garrod, unresisting, back to camp. Suddenly he remembered the note-book, and his hand flew to his pocket. It was gone.

XI

THE SHOWDOWN

Sidney Vassall, wondering what had become of Linda, wandered about camp covertly looking for her. The amiable young aide-de-camp had his dull heartache too, these days. An instinct warned him that the humble attitude he displayed toward her would never succeed in focussing the little beauty's attention on himself, but he was unable to change it. He was the victim of his own amiability.

Coming to the edge of the bank, he met the odd little procession coming up; Garrod with his wild, blank stare; Jack with his hand twisted in Garrod's collar, and Linda following at a little distance, pale, angry, and frightened.

Vassall's jaw dropped. "What's the matter?" he stammered.

Jack let go his hold on Garrod, and scowled at him, angry and perplexed. "He's mad," he said shortly. "Clean daft!"

Vassall fell back a step. "Easy, for God's sake," he murmured. "She'll hear you."

"Oh, she knows," Jack said carelessly. "The question is, what are we to do with him?"

The first command in Vassall's highly artificial code was: "Keep it from the women!" Turning to Linda with a shaky imitation of his polite smile, he said: "Mrs. Worsley has been wondering where you were. You'll find her in the big tent."

To which Linda's impatient rejoinder was: "Don't be silly."