CHAPTER XX.

The gun-room adjoined the library in Britton Hall. Ainsworth and Trascott sat in the former chamber, awaiting the advent of their host.

The red-eyed butler, who had been sleeping in a chair, appeared with a tray containing cognac and cigars to drive away the chill of the dismally wet night, but the lawyer was in such a state of anger and suspense that he wished neither brandy nor the weed.

"Put them down," he snapped. "Where's your master now?"

"Upstairs, sir, if you please," the butler stammered, confused by Ainsworth's penetrating eyes. "I presume, sir, he's changing his things-getting on dry, so to speak! He ordered me to bring you these."

Ainsworth stabbed a finger in the direction of a shell table strewn with paper cases and long brass cartridges.

"Leave them there," the irritated lawyer directed, "and get out!" The abashed butler obeyed.

"D-n him!" Ainsworth fumed, anathematizing the master when the servant was out of hearing. "The infernal nerve of him to refuse that candidature! And to refuse it in that way! Good Lord!" He gave vent to his feelings by stamping about the gun-room, while Trascott pondered in silence, filled with a vague mistrust that some drastic coercion was responsible for Britton's action.

The furnishings of the gun-room were the usual cabinets and appliances for the chase and kindred sports. One wall, however, was hung with objects not commonly seen in an English country-seat. These were two complete Klondike outfits, a woman's and a man's.

In making the round of the chamber, Ainsworth came to them. He stopped and scrutinized the peculiar accoutrements attentively.

There were guns, rifles, revolvers, and sheath-knives strung up, all showing the scar and stain of hard service. Woolen Arctic garments, oilskins, gauntlets, and parkas, with two buckskin skirts and sweaters, hung in rows from the pegs. A duffle of moccasins, leggings, pack-straps, tump-lines, dunnage-bags and dog-whips filled a large, deep shelf, while two pairs of snowshoes, taller than a man, stood in the corner.

The lawyer examined each article in turn and suddenly faced round to Trascott.

"Can the Klondike have cracked his brain?" he asked seriously. "They say it drives scores of strong men mad!"

The curate shook his head as his glance also travelled to the equipments of the trails.

"Britton's as sane as yourself," was his answer, "but I know he is in dire anxiety. His face showed that when we came in."

Steps sounded in the library, seeming like unnecessarily loud ones calculated to give warning or to hide some other noise. The curtains, screening the doorway of the two rooms, parted very slightly, and Britton entered, throwing the hangings in place behind him.

"Ah!" grunted Ainsworth, "here you are with your insolence-"

"Don't!" interrupted Britton, putting out a hand. "Don't talk in that strain. Let me tell you a story which will explain this attitude of mine and a good many other things besides." He sat down at the cartridge table and placed his elbows on it. An expression of bitterness and renunciation rested on his face.

"Go on," said the lawyer, backing against the wall, "and speak loudly. This thunder is deafening."

A long, fierce detonation rolled and crashed in justification of his words before he had finished speaking them.

"Though I made the famous strike at Five Mountain Gulch, a strike that is now history," Britton began in the queer silence which ensued, "I had months of a hard-luck siege in the Yukon before making my pile. In fact, when I went out of Dawson on the Samson Creek stampede, I was at the limit of my means. My last dollar was invested in my dog-team, outfit, and supplies.

"Well, the south branch of the creek, according to rumor, showed the richest, and I made a break for it. Ill luck seemed determined on dogging me, for I found South Samson staked from one end to the other. You have no idea of the complete disheartenment such a thing gives!" He paused a second, reflecting on that by-gone disappointment.

"Yes, yes," assented the lawyer, somewhat impatiently; "stream all staked and not a cent with which to buy anyone out! Go on."

"I had received a hint at Tagish Post from Franco Lessari, a Corsican and a former Government courier, whom I had pulled out of Lake Bennett, that there was gold on North Samson, so I crossed to the other branch. The overflow of the stampede filed in on it, too, but lots of ground could be had. On North Samson I burned holes in the gravel and prospected in the freezing weather for some days without result. It happened that Lessari came along with the rest to this fork of the creek one night. He wanted to show me a place where a trapper had told him he had found good gold-signs, so I took him into my camp, and we moved to the locality in the morning. His outfit was very meagre; he had no tent and a minimum of poor food; my offer was a blessing to him, but I wanted to give him something in exchange for the information, even if it proved valueless."

Britton paused a second time, as if seeking to condense the massed details ahead of him. Ainsworth turned his face towards the curtained doorway.

"I feel a draft," he complained, "and that tapestry is swaying. Is there a window open?" He made a movement to investigate, but Britton stopped him with a gesture, observing:

"It's probably Gubbins, the butler, seeing if the outer buildings are safe. He's very nervous about lightning. Be patient, Ainsworth! I am coming to the end. The North Samson project didn't pan out, but we hung on there till a drunken Thron-Diuck Indian came into the camp one night. He was one of a tribe who had discovered the Five Mountain deposit, and he sold us the information, together with an eight-ounce alluvial sample which proved the truth of his assertions, for my solitary flask of whiskey.

"That bottle of firewater brought me two million dollars! It was, you say, a good bargain. But you are wrong. It was the worst barter I ever made. I wish to God I had never seen that Indian!" Britton's voice sounded with a passionate, piteous vehemence.

"Why?" cried Trascott, in wonder and sympathy. "Why?"

"Lessari and I went up the Klondike River," continued Britton, without answering the curate, "toward the region of the five hills as I had mapped out the way. Never mind the details or the hardships, but listen to some points which are essential parts of what I am trying to tell. When we passed through the Klondike Canon, we heard a dog-train coming after us, but it never appeared to our sight. Lessari fainted from fatigue and exposure within six miles of our destination. I made camp and nursed him that night. In the morning our dogs were poisoned."

"Poisoned?" echoed Ainsworth. "Great heaven!-how?"

"It was a mystery which has since been explained to me," Rex said. "Let it stand a moment!"

"But if a human hand did that it was murder," interposed the shocked Trascott. "It was deliberate, diabolical murder-the easiest method of killing you by cutting off your means of egress from that frozen wilderness!"

Rex nodded, fingering a sheathed hunting-knife that lay with the cartridges upon the table.

"Exactly so," he observed. "You have hit the truth. Lessari and I tramped on next day in the hope of finding game or discovering an Indian encampment. We kept to the river as a guide, dragging our precious food and outfit on the sled, and entered the cup of the five hills.

"There a three hundred foot chasm blocked our way. We searched for a path round it, leaving our sleigh at the top, after having first placed a slab of granite before the runners so that there was no chance of it slipping into the abyss.

"The means of circumventing the precipice we found by following along the edge till we descended into a cavern which ran through the bed-rock of the river-"

"The cavern where you made the strike?" Trascott asked, in interruption.

"Yes," Britton said. "In the midst of that excitement I heard a sound like the commencement of an avalanche. It startled me, but the noise ceased, and my assurance returned.

"I sent Lessari up for a spade, and his cry of consternation made me join him in haste. Our sled was down the crevasse!"

Ainsworth swore. The curate half started from his seat.

"I saw the mark of a dog-pad on a bit of snow," Rex said. "The granite had been removed from the front of the runners and the sled pushed into the three hundred foot abyss. The rushing noise of its descent had reached us in the cavern. It was a second, surer attempt at my murder. The destruction of food meant death. You see there was a hand in the dark all the way!"

Britton broke off, breathing heavily. It was apparent that he lived again through the things he recounted.

"Whose was that hand in the dark?" cried Ainsworth, savagely. "I believe you have found it out."

"The hand of Morris," said Rex. "I captured him stealing from caches, and he was flogged. I heard afterwards he had sworn to kill me. He thought he ran no risk in operating that way, but the hardship of that revengeful journey was fatal. He died in the spring, as I told you, Ainsworth, two days before you came to Dawson."

"But you and Lessari!" exclaimed Trascott, excitedly, "How did you manage to survive?"

"Only one of us survived," Britton answered steadily. "Lessari had been acting queerly for two days. I think cold, vicissitude, and fear was gradually driving him mad. The loss of our food completed his upsetting, and he started to jump down the three hundred feet after the provisions, which were dust by that time.

"I pulled him back, and he turned on me with a savage wildness. I say without conceit that very few men can handle me, but I was only a child in that delirious, demoniacal strength." An extraordinarily loud crash of thunder made Britton pause. The lightning zigzagged across the room as he continued:

"In three seconds he had me on the edge of the cliff, forcing me over. It was then by chance that my hand touched the revolver in my belt. I drew it and shot!"

Trascott looked at his friend with fearful apprehension. "You shot?" he whispered, quaveringly.

Something rustled like wind or rain. Ainsworth glanced again at the sombre tapestry.

"What's that?" he asked, a slight superstitious inflection in his smooth tone. "The storm?" No one offered a different opinion, and he looked back to the rude cartridge table with the light on it and the tense faces of Trascott and Britton at either end.

"For God's sake, Britton," Trascott was tremulously saying, "let us understand this thing aright. You fired?"

"I shot Lessari dead, in self-defence," Britton replied, his countenance drawn and haggard.