The Rivers End | Page 3

the table. Conniston saw his
blue eyes darken for an instant with a savage fire. In that moment there
came a strange silence over the cabin, and in that silence the incessant
and maddening yapping of the little white foxes rose shrilly over the
distant booming and rumbling of the ice.

II
"Why did I kill Judge Kirkstone?" Keith repeated the words slowly.
His clenched hands relaxed, but his eyes held the steady glow of fire.
"What do the Departmental 'facts' tell you, Conniston?"
"That you murdered him in cold blood, and that the honor of the
Service is at stake until you are hung."
"There's a lot in the view-point, isn't there? What if I said I didn't kill
Judge Kirkstone?"
Conniston leaned forward a little too eagerly. The deadly paroxysm
shook his frame again, and when it was over his breath came pantingly,
as if hissing through a sieve. "My God, not Sunday--or Saturday," he
breathed. "Keith, it's coming TOMORROW!"
"No, no, not then," said Keith, choking back something that rose in his
throat. "You'd better lie down again."
Conniston gathered new strength. "And die like a rabbit? No, thank you,

old chap! I'm after facts, and you can't lie to a dying man. Did you kill
Judge Kirkstone?"
"I--don't--know," replied Keith slowly, looking steadily into the other's
eyes. "I think so, and yet I am not positive. I went to his home that
night with the determination to wring justice from him or kill him. I
wish you could look at it all with my eyes, Conniston. You could if you
had known my father. You see, my mother died when I was a little
chap, and my father and I grew up together, chums. I don't believe I
ever thought of him as just simply a father. Fathers are common. He
was more than that. From the time I was ten years old we were
inseparable. I guess I was twenty before he told me of the deadly feud
that existed between him and Kirkstone, and it never troubled me
much--because I didn't think anything would ever come of it--until
Kirkstone got him. Then I realized that all through the years the old
rattlesnake had been watching for his chance. It was a frame-up from
beginning to end, and my father stepped into the trap. Even then he
thought that his political enemies, and not Kirkstone, were at the
bottom of it. We soon discovered the truth. My father got ten years. He
was innocent. And the only man on earth who could prove his
innocence was Kirkstone, the man who was gloating like a Shylock
over his pound of flesh. Conniston, if you had known these things and
had been in my shoes, what would you have done?"
Conniston, lighting another taper over the oil flame, hesitated and
answered: "I don't know yet, old chap. What did you do?"
"I fairly got down on my knees to the scoundrel," resumed Keith. "If
ever a man begged for another man's life, I begged for my father's--for
the few words from Kirkstone that would set him free. I offered
everything I had in the world, even my body and soul. God, I'll never
forget that night! He sat there, fat and oily, two big rings on his stubby
fingers--a monstrous toad in human form--and he chuckled and laughed
at me in his joy, as though I were a mountebank playing amusing tricks
for him--and there my soul was bleeding itself out before his eyes! And
his son came in, fat and oily and accursed like his father, and HE
laughed at me. I didn't know that such hatred could exist in the world,

or that vengeance could bring such hellish joy. I could still hear their
gloating laughter when I stumbled out into the night. It haunted me. I
heard it in the trees. It came in the wind. My brain was filled with
it--and suddenly I turned back, and I went into that house again without
knocking, and I faced the two of them alone once more in that room.
And this time, Conniston, I went back to get justice--or to kill. Thus far
it was premeditated, but I went with my naked hands. There was a key
in the door, and I locked it. Then I made my demand. I wasted no
words--"
Keith rose from the table and began to pace back and forth. The wind
had died again. They could hear the yapping of the foxes and the low
thunder of the ice.
"The son began it," said Keith. "He sprang at me. I struck him. We
grappled, and then the beast himself leaped at me with some sort of
weapon in his hand. I couldn't see what it was, but it was heavy.