CHAPTER XIX.
Sprague closed the door, flung his hat into a corner, and crossed to the window, where he stood restlessly drumming his fingers on the frozen pane. Then he drew a crumpled note from his pocket and read it for the second time:
- We are leaving soon for Sydney. I send you this because I have tried hard to live it all down, and I can't. It is impossible. He struck me to-day. I have reached the end and must somehow, see you somewhere, if you will come. We are at the hotel until Monday
“And yet I didn't kill him!” Sprague muttered.
He sank down on a packing case, and stared stonily into the fire, his thin, strong fingers mechanically tearing the sheet of paper into narrower and narrower ribbons: then he raised a log with his boot, and thrust them far back among the coals.
By ten o'clock that night the storm had cleared. The wind dropped, and a pale moon, struggling intermittently through the dispersing cloud rack, shed a sickly brilliance over the interminable snow.
Sprague stood at the open door, heedless of the cold. For the hundredth time he told himself that he had followed the only path of a strong man, but, then, he knew that he was not a strong man. What further proof was needed? Two days ago he had thrust the disjointed appeal of a disillusioned girl from his mind with splendid finality, and now—he was voluntarily recalling every sentence, every word, dwelling on them, weighing them.
A dingo howled somewhere out in the white night, and others answered. To Sprague's overwrought brain there was something prophetic in the desolation about him. He slammed to the door with an oath—and half an hour later was riding hard for the hotel.
The faint whinny of a horse floated over the snow, followed by another, and yet another, before Sprague found his own beast answering, and brushed the rime from his eyes to look about him.
Nothing was visible but the same endless expanse of moon-bathed snow, and, not far distant, a stunted gum.
He sat for some time, straining his eyes out over the snow; then suddenly turned his horse's head and cantered toward it.
In a wide circle round the tree a hard path had been tramped in the snow. Inside it was a horse tethered by the bridle reins to a broken limb, the remains of a pitiable attempt at a fire, and a heap of snow-covered cloth. Sprague knew what lay beneath this last.
The man was alive, but unconscious. The cold had penetrated to the brain; another two hours, and it would have finished its work. Sprague shook him violently, buffeted him with his clenched fists, hurled him from side to side in the snow till the perspiration streamed from his forehead. Then he took a box of matches from his pocket, struck one, and applied it to the arm just below the elbow. A faint moan passed the man's lips; the eyelids fluttered and closed, and Sprague fell on him afresh, rubbing, rubbing until his arms were numb from shoulder to wrist.
“Wake up!” he yelled. “D'you hear? Wake up!”
A dazed comprehension came into the man's eyes, and a twinge of pain distorted his face.
“Ah, it's you, Sprague! Quit, man, quit! You're hurting—like hell!”
Sprague sank back, exhausted.
“Worse than this in Montana,” the other rambled on. “Thought we had a corner on bluff—wonder what he meant? I thought this blamed tree was the hotel—think of it! Then I walked around it. God! How many times did I walk round it?”
Suddenly he sat up and looked about him. Sprague was sitting in the snow, still gasping.
“You're played out,” said Mr. Walker. “What've you been doing? When did you come?”
“Can you stand?” said Sprague. “No? Then don't get excited; they'll put you right at the hotel. Let me give you a leg up.”
He lifted him with difficulty, and thrust him into the stock saddle.
“Sit there,” he commanded; “and, for God's sake, don't talk!”
The hotel was asleep when they came to a steaming halt, but the night porter came out to them, and others were soon astir. The land agent sat huddled in a deep leather chair as far from the fire as it had been possible to wheel him: but the warmth of the hall had taken effect, and when a doctor came he was sleeping soundly.
The manager, in a dressing gown, ran his finger down the register.
“Call room fifteen,” he ordered tersely. “Tell the lady her husband is back; that there's been an accident—nothing serious.”
Sprague, who was warming his gloves at the fire, turned quickly toward the door. The manager followed and touched him on the shoulder.
“Where are you off to?” he demanded bluntly.
“Back to camp,” said Sprague.
“What—at this hour? You must be crazy!”
“No,” said Sprague, “I'm unusually sane, that's all; good night.” And he passed out through the revolving doors just before a blue kimono appeared at the head of the stairs.