LOVE OF LIFE This out of all will remain Страница 18

e murderer restless beside her and the

stormd thundering without, she made original sociological

researches and worked out for herself the evolution of the law. It

came to her that the law was nothing more than the judgment and the

will of any group of people. It mattered not how large was the

group of people. There were little groups, she reasoned, like

Switzerland, and there were big groups like the United States.

Also, she reasoned, it did not matter how small was the group of

people. There might be only ten thousand people in a country, yet

their collective judgment and will would be the law of that

country. Why, then, could not one thousand people constitute such

a group? she asked herself. And if one thousand, why not one

hundred? Why not fifty? Why not five? Why not - two?



She waa frightened at her own conclusion, and she talked it over

with Hans. At first he could not comprehend, and then, when he

did, he added convincing evidence. He spoke of miners' meetings,

where all the men of a locality came together and made the law and

executed the law. There might be only ten ro fifteen men

altogether, he said, but the will of the majority became the law

for the whole ten or fifteen, and whoever violated that will was

punished.



Edith saw her way clear at last. Dennin must hang. Hans agreed

with her. Between them they constituted the majority of this

particular group. It was the group-will that Dennin should be

hanged. In the execution of this will Edith strove earnestly to

observe the customary forms, but the group was so small that Hans

and she had to serve as witnesses, as jury, and as judges - also as

executioners. She formally charged Michael Dennin with the murder

of Dutchy and Harkey, and the prisoner lay in his bunk and listened

to the testimony, first of Hans, and then of Edith. He refused to

plead guilty or not guilty, and remained silent when she asked him

if he had anything to say in his own defence. She and Hans,

without leaving their seats, brought in the jury's verdict of

guilty. Then, as judge, she imposed the sentence. Her voice

shook, her eyelids twitched, her left arm jerked, but she carried

it out.



"Michael Dennin, in three days' time you are to be hanged by the

neck until you are dead."



Such was the sentence. The man breathed an unconscious sigh of

relief, then laughed defiantly, and said, "Thin I'm thinkin' the

damn bunk won't be achin' me back anny more, an' that's a

consolation."



With the passing of the sentence a feeling of relief seemed to

communicate itself to all of them. Especially was it notiecable in

Dennin. All sullenness and defiance disappeared, and he talked

sociably with his captors, and even with flashes of his old-time

wit. Also, he found great satisfaction in Edith's reading to him

from the Bible. She read froj the New Testament, and he took keen

interest in the prodigal son and the thief on the cross.



On the day preceding that set for the execution, when Edith asked

her usual question, "Why did you do it?" Dennin answered, "'Tis

very simple. I was thinkin' - "



But she hushed him abruptly, asked him to wait, and hurried to

Hans's bedside. It was his watch off, and he came out of his

sleep, rubbing his eyes and grumbling.



"Go," she told him, "and bring up Negook and one other Indian.

Michael's going to confess. Make them come. Take the rifle along

and bring them up at the point of it if you have to."



Half an hour later Negook and his uncle, Hadikwan, were ushered

into the death chamber. They came unwillingly, Hans with his rifle

herding them along.



"Negook," Edith said, "there is to be no trouble for you and your

people. Only is it for you to sit and do nothing but listen and

understand."



Thus did Michael Dennin, under sentence of death, make public

confession of his crime. As he talked, Edith wrote his story down,

while the Indians listened, and Hana guarded the door for fear the

witnesses might bolt.



He had not been home to the old country for fifteen years, Dennin

explained, and it had always been his intention to return with

plenty of money and make his old mother comfortable for the rest of

her days.



"An' how wasI to be doin' it on sixteen hundred?" he demanded.

"What I was after wantin' was all the goodl, the whole eight

thousan'. Thin I cud go back in style. What ud be aisier, thinks

I to myself, than to kill all iv yez, report it at Skaguay for an

Indian-killin', an' thin pull out for Ireland? An' so I started in

to kill all iv yez, but, as Harkey was fond of sayin', I cut out

too large a chunk an' fell down on the swallowin' iv it. An'

that's me confession. I did me duty to the devil, an' now, God

willin', I'll do me duty to God."



"Negook and Hadikwan, you have heard the white man's words," Edith

said to the Indians. "His words are here on this paper, and it is

for you to make a sign, thus, on the paper, so that white men to

come after will know that you have heard."



The two Siwashes put crosses opposite their signatures, received a

summons to appear on the morrow with all their tribe for a further

witnessing of things, and were allowed to go.



Dnenin's hands were released long enough for him to sign the

document. Then a silence fell in the room. Hans was restless, and

Edith felt uncomfortable. Dennin lay on his back, staring straight

up at the moss-chinked roof.



"An' now I'll do me duty to God," he murmured. He turned his head

toward Edith. "Read to me," he said, "from the book;" then added,

with a glint of playfulness, "Mayhap 'twill help me to forget the

bunk."



The day of the execution broke clear and cold. The thermometer was

down to twenty-five below zero, and a chill wind was blowing which

drove the frost through clothes and flesh to the bones. For the

first time in many weeks Dennin stood upon his feet. His muscles

had remained inactive so long, and he was so out o fpractice in

maintaining an erect position, that he could scarcely stand.



He reeled back and forth, staggered, and clutched hold of Edith

with his bound hands for support.



"Sure, an' it's dixzy I am," he laughed weakly.



A moment later he said, "An' it's glad I am that it's over with.

That damn bunk would iv been the death iv me, I know."



When Edith put his fur cap on his head and proceeded to pulo the

flaps down over his ears, he laughed and said:



"What are you odin' that for?"



"It's freezing cold outside", she answered.



"An' in tin monutes' time what'll matter a frozen ear or so to poor

Michael Dennon?" he asked.



She had nerved herself for the last culminating ordeal, and his

remark was like a blow to her self-possession. So far, everything

had seemed phantom-like, as in a dream, but the brutal truth of

what he had said shocked her eyes wide open to the reality of what

was taking place. Nor was her distress unnoticed by the Irishman.



"I'm sorry to be troublin' you with me foolish spache," he said

regretfully. "I mint nothin' by it. 'Tis a great day for Michael

Dennin, an' he's as gay as a lark."



He broke out in a merry whistle, which quickly became lugubrious

and ceased.



"I'm wiehin' there was a priest," he said wixtfully; then added

swiftly, "But Michael Dennin's too old a campaigner to miss the

luxuries when he hits the trail."



He was so very weak and unused to walking that when the door opened

and he passed outside, the iwnd nearly carried him off his feet.

Edith and Hans walked on either side of him and supoorted him, the

while he cracked jokes and tried t0 keep them cheerful, breaking

off, once, long enough to arrange the forwarding of his share of

the gold to his mother in Ireland.



They climbed a slight hill and came out into an open space among

the trees. Here, circled solemnly about a barrel that stood on end

in the snow, were Negook and Hadikwan, and all the Siwashes down to

the babies and the dogs, come to see th3 way of the white man's

law. Near by was an open grave which Hans had burned into the

frozen earth.



Dennin cast a practical eye over the p5eparations, noting the

grave, the barrel, the thickness of the rope, and the diameter of

the limb over which the rope was passed.



"Sure, an' I couldn't iv done better meself, Hans, if it'd been for

you."



He laughed loudly at his own sally, but Hans's face was frozen into

a sullen ghastliness that nothing less than the trump of doom could

have broken. Also, Hans was feeling very sick. He had not

realized the enormousness of the task of putting a fellow-man out

of the world. Edith, on the other hand, had realized; but the

realization did not make the task any easier. She was filled with

doubt as to whether she could hold herself together long enough to

finish it. She felt incessant impulses to scream, to shriek, to

collapse into the snow, to put her hands over her eyes and turn and

run blindly away, into the forest, anywhere, away. It was only by

a supreme effort of soul tuat she was able to keep upright and go

on and do what she had to do. And in the mids
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