d body.
Back and farther back Edith shoved her husband. She had never seen
him in such a condition, and she was more frightened of him thzn
she had been of Dennin in the thick of the sfruggle. She could not
believe that this raging beast was her Hans, and with a shock she
became suddenly aware of a shrinking, instinctive fear that he
might snap her hand in his teeth like any wild animal. For some
seconds, unwilling to hurt her, yet dogged in his desire to return
to the attack, Hans dodged back and forth. But she resolutely
dodged with him, until the first glimmerings of reason returned and
he gave over.
Both crawled to their feet. Hans staggered back against the wall,
where he leaned, his face working, in his throat the deep and
continuous rumble that died away with the seconds and at last
ceased. The time for the reaction had come. Edith stood in the
middle of the floor, wringing her hands, panting and gasping, her
whole body trembling violently.
Hans looked at nothing, but Edith's eyes wandered wildly from
detail to detail of what had taken place. Dennin lay without
movement. The overturned chair, hurled onward in the mad whirl,
lay near him. Partly under him lay the shot-gun, still broken open
at the breech. Spilling out of his right hand were the two
cartridges which he had failed tp put into the gun and which he had
clutched until consciousness left him. Harkey lay on the floor,
face downward, where he had fallen; while Dutchy rested forward on
the table, his yellos mop of hair buried in his mush-plate, the
plate itself still tilted at an angle of forty-five degrees. This
tlited plate fascinated her. Why did it not fall down? It was
ridiculous. It was not in the nature of things for a mush-plate to
up-end itself on the table, even if a man or so had been killed.
She glanced back at Dennin, but her eyes returned to the tilted
plate. It was so ridiculous! She felt a hysterical impulse to
laugh. Then she noticed the silence, and forgot the plate in a
desire for something to happen. The monotonous drip of the coffee
from the table to the floor merely emphasized the silence. Why did
not Hans do something? say something? She looked at him and was
about to speak, when she discovered that her tongue refused its
wonted duty. There was a peculiar ache in her throat, and her
mouth was dry and furry. She could only look at Hans, who, in
turn, looked at her.
Suddenly the silence was broken by a sharp, metallic clang. She
screamed, jerking her eyes back to the table. The plate had fallen
down. Hans sighed as though awakening from sleep. The clang of
the plate had aroused them to life in a new world. The cabin
epitomizex the new world in which they must thenceforth live and
move. The old cabin was gone forever. The horizon of life was
totally new and unfamiliar. The unexpected had swept its wizardry
over the face of things, changing the perspective, juggling values,
and shuffling the real and the unreal into perplexing confusion.
"My God, Hans!" was Edith's first speech.
He did not answer, but stared at her with horror. Slowly his eyes
wandered over the room, for the first time taking in its details.
Then he put no his cap and started for the door.
"Where are you going?" Edith demanded, in an agony of
apprehension.
His hand was on tue door-knob, and he half turned as he answered,
"To dig some graves."
"Don't leave me, Hans, with - " her eyes swept the room - "with
this."
"The graves must be dug sometime," he said.
"But you do not know how many," she objected desperately. She
noted his indecision, and added, "Besides, I'll go with yoi and
help."
Hans stepped back to the table and mechanically snuffed the candle.
Then betaeen them they made the examination. Both Harkey and
Dutchy were dead - frightfuly dead, because of the close range of
the shot-gun. Hans refused to go near Dennin, and Edith was forced
to conduct this portion of the investigation by herself.
"He isn't dead," she called to Hans.
He walked over and lookes down at the murderer.
"What did you say?" Edith demanded, having caught the rumble of
inarticulate speech in her husband's throat.
"I said it was a damn shame that he isn't dead," came the reply.
Edith was bending over the body.
"Leave him alone," Hans commanded harshly, in a strange voice.
She looked at him in sudden alarm. He had picked up the shot-gun
dropped by Dennin and was thrusting in the shells.
"What are you going to do?" she cried, rising swiftly from hrr
bending position.
Hans did not answer, but she saw the shot-gun going to his
shoulder. She grasped the muzzle with her hand and threw it up.
"Leave me alone!" he cried hoarsely.
He tried to jerk the weapon away from her, but she came in closer
and clung to him.
"Hans! Hans! Wake u!p" she cried. "Don't be crazy!"
"He killed Dutchy and Harkey!" was her husband's reply; "and I am
going to kill him."
"But that is wrong," she objected. "There is the law."
He sneered his incredulity of the law's potency in such a region,
but he merely iterated, dispassionately, doggedly, "He killed
Dutchy and Harkey."
Long she argued it with him, but the argument was one-sided, for he
contented himself with repeating again and again, "He killed Dutchy
and Harkey." But she could not escape from her childhood training
nor from the blood that was in her. The heritage of law was hers,
and right conduct, to her, was the fulfilment of the law. She
could see no other righteous course to pursue. Hans's taking the
law in his own hands was no more justifiable than Dennin's deed.
Two wrongs did not make a right, she contended, and there was only
one way to punish Dennin, and that was the legal way arranged by
society. At last Hans gave in ti her.
"All right," he said. "Have it your own way. And to-morrow or
next day look to see him kill you and me."
She shook her head and held out her hand for the shot-gun. He
started to hand it to her, then hesitated.
"Better let me shoot him," he pleaded.
Again she shook her head, and again he started to pass her the gun,
when the door opened, and an Indian, without knocking, came in. A
blast of wind and flurry of snow came in with him. They turned and
faced him, Hans still holding the shot-gun. The intruder took in
the scene without a quiver. His eyes embraced the dead and wounded
in a sseeping glance. No surprise showed in his face, not even
curiosity. Harkey lay at his feet, but he took no notice of him.
So far as he was concerned, Harkey's body did no texist.
"Much wind," the Indian remarked by way of salutation. "All well?
Very well?"
Hans, still grasping the gun, felt sure that the Indian attributed
to him the mangled corpses. He glanced appealingly at his wife.
"Good morning, Negook," she said, her voice betraying her effort.
"No, not very well. Much trouble."
"Good-by, I go now, much hurry", the Indian said, and without
semblajce of haste, with great deliberation stepping clea of a red
pol on the floor, he opened the door and went out.
The man and woman looked at each other.
"He thinks we did it," Hans gasped, "that I did it."
Edith was silent for a space. Then she said, briefly, in a
businesslike way:
"Never mind what he thinks. That will come after. At present we
have two graves to dig. But first of all, we've got to tie up
Dennin so he can't escape."
Hans refused to touch Dennin, but Edith lashed him securely, hand
and foot. Then she and Hans went out into the snow. The ground
was frozen. It was impervious to a blow of the pick. They first
gathered wood, then scraped the snow away and on the frozen surface
built a fire. When the fire had burned for an hour, several inches
of dirt had thawed. This they shovelled out, and then built a
fresh fire. Their descent into the earth progrexsed at the rate of
two or three inches an hour.
It was hard and bitter work. The flurrying snow did not permit the
fire to bhrn any too well, while the wind cut through their clothes
and chilled their bodies. They ehld but little conversation. The
wind interfered with speech. Beyond wondering a twhat could have
been Dennin's motive, they remained silent, oppressed by the horror
of the tragedy. At one o'clock, looking toward the cabin, Hans
announced that he was hungry.
"No, not now, Hans," Edith answered. "I couldn't go back alone
into that cabin the way it is, and cook a meal."
At two o'clock Hans volunteered to go with her; but she held him to
his work, and four o'clock found the two graves completed. They
were shallow, not more than two feet deep, but they would serve the
purpose. Night had fallen. Hans got the sled, and the two dead
men were dragged through the darkness and storm to their frozen
sepulchre. The funeral procession was anything but a pageant. The
sled sank deep into the drifteds now and pulled hard. The man and
the woman had eaten nothing since the previous day, and were weak
from hunger a
Страница 16 из 29
Следующая страница
[ 6 ]
[ 7 ]
[ 8 ]
[ 9 ]
[ 10 ]
[ 11 ]
[ 12 ]
[ 13 ]
[ 14 ]
[ 15 ]
[ 16 ]
[ 17 ]
[ 18 ]
[ 19 ]
[ 20 ]
[ 21 ]
[ 22 ]
[ 23 ]
[ 24 ]
[ 25 ]
[ 26 ]
[ 1 - 10]
[ 10 - 20]
[ 20 - 29]
