Argosy All-Story Weekly, October 25, 1924 — page 156: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

146 gret his bargain. Had Wageesh tricked him as she had me? CHAPTER XXV. THE TRAIL AHEAD. CANNOT remember having slept at all that night. I was at the window with the first light of day. The camp was just a blur against the whiteness of the snow, Sheila raised a wan face and gazed at me questioningly. “They'll not come for another hour,” I said. “I'll get you a cup of coffee.” To my ears it seemed that everything I touched clattered and scraped noisily. The stillness of the cabin made me feel as though this was a household waiting for the judgment of God to be passed on it. I fell to thinking about Ledoux. I knew he would lose no opportunity of speaking to Muir. I could imagine his tale—a word of truth here and there to give the whole structure a touch of sincerity, and then the venomous lies. I stayed at the door as Sheila forced her- | self to sip the hot coffee. Out of the gray shadows, which still lingered over the bar- rens, a moving speck finally detached it- self. “ Wageesh is coming,” I muttered. “ Pll go outside while you dress.” As the sled drew nearer I could see that Muir was not sitting up in it. Why he should be bound now was beyond me. Sheila asked this very question when she joined me. “He may have met with an accident,” she suggested. ‘We'll know very soon,” I answered. Wageesh was ahead of her team. She seemed to move sullenly. The oily smirk of yesterday was gone from her face. Sheila could see that a blanket covered Muir. “Why do you suppose she did that?” she asked. “ He must be a sick man,” I argued pa- tiently. “We know he must have been without food for days.” “Ask her to hurry, won’t you?” ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. I called to Wageesh, but she did not change her pace. It was two or three min- utes before she pulled her team to a stand- still in front of us. Sheila ran toward her and pulled the blanket back. ‘““ My God! he is white. He must be ter- ribly sick.” Instinctively both of us looked to Wa- geesh for our answer. She shook her head slowly. “No, my lady,” she said slowly and with awful emphasis, “he is not sick. He is dead!” As one we repeated that word: ** Dead?” Trancelike we stood there, unable to move, our tongues thick in our throats. I looked up as Sheila groaned. She had her hands spread out to keep herself from fall- ing. ‘“ Dead!” she breathed. IT got down on my knees and touched Muir’s face. It was as cold as ice. I was willing to wager that he had been dead for days. Wageesh had known this yesterday. She had come to us to barter a dead man’s body for Ledoux. In a blinding rage I jumped up and grabbed her. “You knew!” I cried. “ You knew this yesterday!” IT sank my hands into her throat until her eyes began to roll. When I thought of how she had made Sheila suffer, in order to further her own devilish scheme, it was all I could do to keep from choking th life out of her right there. 3 “You'll kill her,”’ she protested. “T ought to! This is the way she re- wards me for saving her life. Why didn’t I let you die just as Ledoux had planned you should?”’ I flung her from me and she sank down in the snow, rubbing her neck where my nails had bit into it. “Tell me what happened!” I exclaimed, my voice shaking. ‘“ And lie now if you dare.” “ His team run away,” Wageesh grum- bled. ‘‘ My people find him dead in the snow "bout halfway to the Sound.” ““ Knowing this, you were able to come here as you did yesterday?” Sheila whis- pered. =) a (C@ DOOLKS (E@)