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Page 32
"Hardened!" Yorke laughed grimly. "You should have seen him up in the
Yukon! The man's been handling these rotten morgue cases 'till he'd
qualify for the Seine River Police. He's got so he ascribes well-nigh
everything now to 'dhrink an' th' divil.'" His face softened, "but I
know the real heart of old Burke under it all."
About two miles down the trail Redmond halted.
"Here it is!" he said. And he indicated an irregular, blood-soaked,
clawed-up patch in the snow where the sanguinary swath ended. They
dismounted. Slavin drawing up alongside the coroner's cutter handed over
his lines to the teamster.
"Now!" said he, "let's shtart in! . . . Ye must have 'shpotted this on
yeh way up, Docthor?" He pointed to the patch.
The latter nodded. "Yes! we thought it must have happened here."
For some few seconds, with one accord the party stared about them at
their surroundings. The frozen landscape at this point presented a
singularly lonely, desolate aspect. Flat, and for the greater part
absolutely bare of brush; save where from a small coulee some half mile
to the left of the trail the tops of a cotton-wood clump were visible.
Far to the right-hand, more than a mile away, stretched the first of the
shelving benches, where the high ground sloped away in irregular jumps,
as it were, to the river.
"Best ye shtay fwhere ye all are," cautioned the sergeant, "'till I size
up th' lay av things a bit. I du not want th' thracks fouled up. H-mm!
let's see now!" He remained in deep, thoughtful silence a space.
"Thravellin' towards us," he muttered--"th' back av th' head!"
Hands clasped behind bent back, and with head thrust loweringly forward
from between his huge shoulders he paced slowly down the trail for some
hundred yards. That grim, intent face and the swaying gait reminded
Redmond of some huge bloodhound casting about for a scent.
Halting irresolutely a moment, Slavin presently faced about and returned.
"Wan harse on'y!" he vouchsafed to their silent looks of enquiry. "He
had not company. Must have been shot from lift or right av th' thrail."
He stared around him at the bare sweep of ground. "Now fwhere cud any
livin' man find cover here in th' full av th' moon, tu get th' range wid
a small arm? He wud show up agin' th' snow like th' ace av shpades an'
he thried."
Suddenly his jaw dropped and he stiffened. "Ah-hh!" His eyes rivetted
themselves on some object and his huge arm shot out. "Fwhat's yon?"
They all stared in the direction he indicated. Plastered with frosted
snow, until it was all but undiscernible against its white background,
lay an enormous boulder--a relic, perchance, of some vast pre-historic
upheaval. It was situated at an oblique angle to the trail, about a
hundred yards distant.
With stealthy, quickened steps Slavin made his way towards it. Tensely
they watched him. In each man's mind now was a vague feeling of
certainty of something, they knew not what. They saw him reach the
boulder, walk round it and stoop, peering at its base for a few moments.
Then suddenly he straightened up and beckoned to them.
"Thread in file," he called out warningly. Yorke led, and, treading
heedfully in each other's foot-marks, they reached the spot. Slavin
silently pointed downwards. There, plainly discernible on the surface of
the wind-packed, hard-crusted snow, were the corrugated imprints of
overshoed feet--coming and going apparently in the direction of the
previously mentioned coulee.
Redmond indicated two rounded impressions at the foot of the boulder,
with two smaller ones behind. "Must have hunched himself on his knees
behind, eh?" he queried in a low voice.
Slavin nodded. The rays of the westering sun coming from back of a cloud
glinted on something in the snow, a few feet away from the tracks. It
caught Yorke's eyes and with an exclamation he picked it up.
"_--gold, raw gold, the spent shell rolled--_"
he quoted. "Here you are, Burke!"
Slavin uttered a delighted oath as he examined the small, bottle-necked
shell of the automatic variety. ".38 Luger!" he said. "A high-pressure
'gat' like that is oncommon hereabouts!" Passing it on to the coroner he
whistled softly. "My God! Fwhativer sort av a gun-artist is ut
that--even allowin' for th' moonlight--can pick a man off thru' th' head
wid a revolver at this distance? . . . an' wan shell on'y? . . . 'Soapy
Smith' himself cu'dn't have beat this!"
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