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Updated: May 23, 2025
Ever since the visitation of Hervey Garstaing, Marcel had rarely been out of his thoughts. He removed his pipe and passed a hand across his broad brow. It was a gesture of weariness. There were no eyes to witness the action, so he attempted no disguise. It mattered little enough to him that the whole world about him was awakening.
Her gaze encountered his, and she turned abruptly from the lurid reflection of the lamplight she beheld in his eyes, to the refuge of the child's cot, which never failed her. Garstaing laughed. It was a coarse, hard laugh that meant nothing. He threw his hat aside. "Let's eat," he cried. "Then we'll start right in to pack up our outfit. We're taking no chances.
It had been there more markedly earlier in the evening when the white man had helped his girl wife into the rig in which Hervey Garstaing, the Indian Agent, was driving Dr. and Mrs. Ross, and their two daughters, to the dance which was being given down at the township by the bachelors of Deadwater.
"I can't say. But it'll be for the boy and An-ina, and, anyway, it'll likely be the last time you'll see me on this earth. I don't need to tell you more on this thing. Maybe a time'll come when you'll feel glad you didn't know any more." "I think I understand." Ross breathed heavily through his pipe. He was thinking of the man, Garstaing. He was thinking of himself in Steve's place.
The Corporal flung out of the saddle. "Sorry I didn't rec'nize you, sir," he said saluting quickly. "It's pretty dark. It's a letter from the Superintendent urgent." He drew a long, blue envelope from his saddle wallets and passed it to his superior. "Maybe you can direct me to the Indian Agent, Major Garstaing, sir. I got a letter for him."
Now you'll understand what's in my mind when I say that I'm coming along back when I've settled with Garstaing, or failed to locate him. If I've settled with him I'll be in a hurry. And I'm going up north north where no one can ever hope to follow me, with An-ina, and Marcel, and maybe Julyman and Oolak again, and I'm going to work this thing for the rest of my life for Marcel.
But he knew Hervey Garstaing better than most people at Deadwater. He saw far more of him than he desired. And Hervey was a good-looking man. Nita was young and full of a youthful desire for a good time. And then Hervey was also an unscrupulous hound whom it would have given the doctor the greatest pleasure in life to shoot.
The other waited for no more. He was on his feet and across the room at the window in a twinkling. And the smiling eyes of the Englishman gazed after him. In the other's absence he picked up the paper which had fallen upon the floor, and looked again at the portrait of the man, and re-read the letterpress underneath it. "Hervey Garstaing," he murmured, as though impressing the name upon his mind.
Hervey Garstaing waited for that. The Indians never saw it. He pouched it, and beat the trail, as I said, with Nita and the kiddie. Say, I needn't tell you more than that. I don't know any more except the police have been chasing his trail since." He fumbled in a pocket, and drew out a sealed envelope addressed in a woman's handwriting, and another that was opened.
Millie never liked Garstaing, and he wasn't ever encouraged to get around our shanty. And we had him there less after Nita came. There's times I'm guessing it didn't begin after you went. There's times I think there was a beginning earlier. Millie feels that way, too. I know it don't make things better talking this way. But it's what I feel, and think, and it's best to say it right out.
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