West

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ARTHUR B. REEVE

CRAIG KENNEDY AND THE COMPASS
NORTH—SOUTH—EAST—WEST

WEST

RGL e-Book Cover^©

First published in Flynn's, 3 Jan 1925

Reprinted in Los Angeles Times Sunday Magazine, 30 Aug 1925

Collected in "The Fourteen Points,"
Grosset & Dunlap, New York, 1925

This e-book edition: Roy Glashan's Library, 2022
Version Date: 2022-02-11

Produced by Art Lortie, Matthias Kaether and Roy Glashan

All content added by RGL is proprietary and protected by copyright.

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Flynn's, 3 Jan 1925, with "West"

"The Fourteen Points," Grosset & Dunlap, New York, 1925

Illustration from "Los Angeles Times Sunday Magazine."

"Oui—if I have been Leroy I would keel him long time—

"I'LL find out who murdered Jimmy Gurney. I'm working on it quietly. I got some clues I'm running down. It's going on two years, but I ain't give it up yet. No, sir!"

Eben Hawn, constable of South Elliott, brought his fist down on the arm of the old pew with emphasis.

Kennedy and I were on a little hunting and tramping trip in the mountains of New Hampshire, for relaxation rather than game. Sometimes we would take along some local nimrod as a guide; more often we would go alone. But at night we never failed to drop around and talk and smoke at Phil Smith's garage. The country garage has taken the place once held by the post office and country store as the center of gossip.

For example, above the watering trough at the South Elliott House, where we were staying, still hung the sign: "Water your horses—and don't forget yourself." Other times, other manners, had changed that. The cryptic point of the latter part of the advice had been amended. Now, too, there was no need to stop and water your horse at the hotel. You did not, likely, have a horse. Sooner or later everybody had to go to Phil Smith's garage. Gas and oil were indispensable.

In front of the garage, to one side of the big doors, back of the gas pump on the edge of the road, stood an old pew taken from a dismantled church. At night, one by one, villagers dropped around in their flivvers. It was their club. Just now there were three or four, including the constable and Phil Smith, on the "mourners' bench."

KENNEDY and I had started out early that day, alone, aver the hills, tramping for hours in solitude broken only occasionally by some jocular remark as to whether we would find anything to take back to the cook in the quaint little hotel.

We had gone several miles from the village and had reached an elevation known as Cobble Hill. Even the valley at its foot was not used much for farming. The soil was poor, and I recalled seeing only one farm as we came along. Cobble Hill was quite deserted this late fall afternoon.

About halfway up on the old trail we had come across a cabin, old from neglect rather than from time. It was unoccupied and there seemed to be an enveloping air of mystery about it, something sinister that provoked foreboding thoughts.

"Do you get it the way I get it Craig?" I muttered. "I don't know a thing about this place. But I wouldn't stay in it overnight if you gave me the whole hill."

Kennedy looked at me and laughed. "It does seem a bit forbidding, Walter—even spooky. I wonder why no one lives in it? It would make a comfortable home for some recluse."

We found the lock rusted and hanging, went through the cabin. But there was nothing that seemed to give any information concerning the former owner, except that, instead of sleeping in the one decent room on the first floor, he had seemed to prefer the attic, where a weather-beaten, sagging rope bed still stood.

"Recluse," I repeated. "Well, he couldn't have been very sociable, that's true, living 'way up here, away from everybody."

"It's getting late," suggested Kennedy. "Let's go back to the village and find out who owned the place, what is its story."

"All right," I agreed. Curiosity was not the mainspring of my desire to be on our way. Shadows were lengthening and I acquiesced in a manner quite agreeable.

"Not so much to-day," avoided Kennedy. "But we ran across something else that was interesting. It looks like a mystery."

"Mystery?" One of the men on the pew spoke up. "Where's there any mystery around here?"

"Oh," I answered, casually, "we were just wondering what was the matter with that old cabin up on the side of Cobble."

"Ever been here before?" Our interrogator from the far end of the bench quizzed with a shrewd glance.

"No; never been up in just this vicinity before," Craig answered. "Why?" He surveyed the group with interest. The heads of the villagers were wagging in a way that suggested untold intelligence.

"Funny you fellows should fall on the only mystery hereabouts." The garage man departed from his usual taciturnity. "You'd oughter ask Eben Hawn about that cabin. He knows more'n all the rest on us put together." Phil Smith jerked his thumb in the direction of our interlocutor on the far end of the bench.

It was thus that we formally met the village constable, and it explained his eager desire to find out whether we had ever been there before. His was the village mind suspicious of strangers. The others were suddenly quiet and Eben Hawn looked at us as if he still must be convinced. Hawn didn't answer immediately. I think he felt it was a put-up job on the part of Phil Smith to get him to talk. At least so it seemed to me.

"Well," Kennedy persisted, "bring on the mystery. Who was murdered? Did they catch the murderer?"

Hawn spat thoughtfully into the road. This was the one point that involved his honor. He must talk. "No, they haven't caught the murderer of Jim Gurney," he replied, a bit sullenly.

"But have the authorities given it up as one of those unsolvable mysteries?" I asked.

That was the question that seemed to touch to the quick his honor as a constable, that made Hawn so vehement in his remark that he would still find the murderer of Jim Gurney.

UP there in South Elliott they didn't know then who Craig really was, and they don't know it yet. In fact, I am telling this story because it deals with the last of the cardinal points of the compass, but, more, because the two principals in it, the murdered man and the murderer, are dead, and I feel at liberty to tell it for what it is worth.

Eben Hawn was a type, an individual who stood out most distinctly in that little group of the "Amen Corner" in front of the garage. Possessed of a rural pompousness, an aplomb derived from the confidence inspired by his connection with the law, he looked with a hurt dignity at any who challenged his sagacity.

Hawn was tall, thin, stoop-shouldered, the kind of man who always has deep wrinkles across the front of his vest. Time and weather had taken the color from his clothes and about his rounded shoulders this discoloration was most noticeable. He always sat hunched forward, hands flat on his spare knees, suggesting constantly that he was on the point of leaving.

At once Craig was interested in this unsolved mystery. He was anxious to hear the details. "Tell us about it, Hawn. What was the cause—robbery?"

"Not a thing taken, sir. When I drove over there about noon that day I found everything just as it should be, as far as that was concerned. None of his money had been taken. His watch was in the pocket of his vest on a chair. Nothing had been ransacked in the house. All was in order just as Gurney left it. No, I wouldn't say it was a case of robbery. If anything of value was taken it must have been something we didn't know anything about, like a valuable jewel or a paper." The tall constable stood up, stretched, and then sat down again.

"Just about this time of the year," nodded Hawn. "How I knows, I was planning to go gunning, myself, when this murder happened and I had to stay home."

It was Phil Smith who answered. "Not much of a man as men go, I guess. He was almost what you'd call a hermit. He didn't want to have anything to do with anyone. Just left us all alone— and, then, he was a tightwad. He wouldn't buy a dog biscuit."

Smith shook his head. "Years ago he might have had. But any girl who'd look at Jim Gurney in his later years would 've run away if there was any lovin' to be did. Women might a worked for him—but I can swear none of 'em'd love him."

"Dead in bed, sir. He was up on the second floor, in the attic bedroom. It had only one window, too. If you remember, that little cabin has its back to Cobble. There wasn't one window or door lock that had been tampered with in the least—even the locks on the first and only decent floor was all in good working order, and working, too. It sure is a mystery."

Hawn smiled a superior, official smile. "That is one of the first questions I am asked, 'How did he die?'" He paused.

Hawn cleared his throat. "He was killed by a shotgun. Both barrels had been emptied into him, literally tearing his heart out. It was awful to go up there and find such a gruesome sight. I felt sorry for the poor devil—no matter what he was nor what he done."

With a careful use of diplomacy Craig had managed in the last few minutes to ingratiate himself in the good graces of the constable. Old Eben Hawn was answering almost everything, but if you rushed him he would shut up tight.

"I got my own theory of explaining that," volunteered Hawn. "To my way of thinking, it must have been done from the bit of woods that runs down to the cabin clearing, from an elevation. It would 'a' been easy to get Gurney that way."

"I admire your persistence, Hawn, your doggedness in holding to a case. Still enthusiastic after two years have gone and no one caught I It's very unusual. Most constables I have seen would have forgotten it all by this time."

"I never give up!" Hawn smiled. "I got some clues still, and I think when I finish a-running them down, I will land the murderer yet!"

So many of the villagers had criticized Hawn for his inability to fasten the murder on anyone, even ridiculed him, that he was really pleased at the sympathetic attitude of this stranger.

"I haven't forgotten a single thing," he confided to Kennedy. "I still have all the old evidence. Something may come of it some day. I'll land that murderer, yet. You needn't laugh, Phil Smith, either. The arm of the law is long. You all laughed when that fellow Springstein skipped with the traffic violation for speeding on the turnpike against him. Well, I traced him out to California, I did. You know what happened."

Phil Smith sobered. "You bet, Eben. He sent a money order to cover the fine; he did." There was s touch of local pride in the tone. Hawn knew the way to appeal, knew it every time be came up in the village election.

"When do you think the shot was fired?" Kennedy was back on the subject. "What time of night?"

"Say!" exclaimed Hawn, his eyes bright and beady. "You sure do like to hear about murders. Well, murder and hate stirs us all, even when we only hear about 'em. You want to know why I reasoned it out that that murder must have been done in the dark of the morning, eh?"

"All right. I'll tell you. It ain't no secret. You see, I went down to see that there Doctor Foote who lives in Boston. Ever hear tell of him? He's a police doctor that's made a study of medicine and crime. I seen him. I asks Doctor Koote that and he asks me can he examine the contents of the stomach. So I gets Doctor Morrill, here, our county physician, to perform an autopsy, and he does. Doctor Foote says in his report to me that the condition of the food in the stomach showed the time was early morning. By jingo! he even tells us what old Jim had to eat the night before, and we finds it was true by what's in the cabin. Can you beat that? How'd he know if it wa'n't all on the level?"

Hawn looked at the others. I found out later that the thrifty taxpayers had criticized him for incurring this bill, that one election had been fought out on it and Hawn had won.

I was looking at Hawn with astonishment and a new respect. I could see that he was making a favorable impression on Kennedy, too. No one could call Hawn a hayseed. He was just a shrewd New Englander with a lot of hard-headed sense.

Hawn looked at me fixedly. He was not one to be pumped. Yet at the same time he was human. And we had treated him like a man, in contrast to many, of the small-minded critics about him.

"I'll tell you. I go on the theory that as far as I'm concerned they're all guilty until they can prove 'emselves innocent. If I had a good case, I'd make an arrest—and let the fellow fight his way our of jail, see? Suspects? Yes, sir; several." He paused as if enumerating them on mental fingers. "Some thinks his own brother done it. Others that Warren, his nearest neighbor, the farmer in the valley, had enough of a grievance to kill him. Then there's Mathieu, a French Canadian, lives just beyond the village line. Him and Jim Gurney couldn't get along, always scrapping whenever they met. It all started over Jim trying to keep Mathieu from trapping and shooting over that side of Cobble in the season."

"I see," considered Craig, taking things one at a time. "His own brother. Was it a case of fighting over money in the family?"

Hawn shook his head. "No. It's a rather sad story—the story of a beautiful girl who died of a broken heart—and everybody in the village blamed Jim Gurney for it, too."

Now I was interested. A murder with the glamour of love about it is twice as interesting from my angle as any plain murder. All one has to do is to watch the newspapers and see that.

"Zilpha Norton. Just as purty as a picter, too. Them was the days before these here bob-haired tomboys in short pants. Just a purty little old-fashioned girl, with lots of spunk and fun about her, too."

"No, not exactly. I don't think so, leastaways." Hawn was gazing back in the darkness twenty years. "It all happened years ago when Jim and Leroy Gurney was quite young. Jim was the older brother and liked to be boss. And Jim was always a rather cantankerous cuss as a boy. He never made friends easily with either boys or girls. And when the engagement of Zilpha and Leroy became known, Jim was furious. He opposed the marriage in every way. I expect it was mainly because he didn't want no new boss to get his kid brother, maybe. People couldn't understand the opposition, anyhow, and they asked him to explain. But he was obstinate about that, too. In the meantime this Zilpha Norton was wearing herself out with worry. Her bright, happy little ways all seemed to be changed."

Hawn took off his hat, smoothed back his hair reminiscently. "Well, you know, that girl come from a fine family, people above the average in this village and around here. They were college-bred folks, had traveled some, were much higher than Jim Gurney socially and every other way."

He paused again and went on. "I can remember little Zilpha Norton as though it was yesterday in one of them rubber-tired runabouts that was so fashionable 'bout twenty years ago. She had a purty horse and useter go driving every fair day. She knew everybody and had a smile for everyone. The village loved that there girl, and Zilpha loved Leroy. When they went walking together she'd look at him kinder shylike, and he was so crazy 'bout her, folks passing uster nudge each other, especially any older married couple. It brought back their own courtin' days to 'em."

The constable was romantic, too. He stopped and seemed to be in deep thought. I wondered if memories of Zilpha had stirred his heart, too.

"No—he didn't. Jim kept right on opposing that match. He was questioned so much 'at finally he blurted out and told why. He said there was gossip about Zilpha, that she was being spoke lightly of, that when she went away to school one time she really went to a hospital instead and had a child.... Consarn it! You know how such gossip travels. It's bad enough in a big city. But in a small town it's terrible. There ain't no stoppin' it. All the women and most o' the men was discussing it before nightfall. Finally it reached back to Zilpha. It was too much for that little girl's proud nature, the way they was looking at her and hanging the scarlet letter on her. She committed suicide one night. Then Jim Gurney's brother, Leroy, he disappeared, went out to the Coast. After the tragedy, after them two lives was blasted by that there gossip, it was all found to be a mess o' lies, just plain lies, to break up the match."

"Do? Her father thrashed Jim Gurney down in front of the post office to within an inch of his life, he did. But Zilpha was dead and Leroy was gone. He might have felt like shooting Jim Gurney, but old man Norton was the kind not to take the law into his own hands—much. Soon after that he died, and Mrs. Norton didn't survive him long. Zilpha was the only child.

"The only Norton living now is her cousin—a great naturalist. He keeps his home here, but he travels most of the time. Mighty fine man, too. Only he knows too much book knowledge for me. When I talks to him I always gets warm about the ears for fear of making mistakes. He lives in the big Norton house down in the other end of the village. You must 'a' seen it. You'd oughter go there sometime. They say the house is filled with strange birds, bugs, and beasts from all over the world. He ain't got a lot of money, but he's a regular globe-trotter, never could be contented, as long as I've knowed him, to stay in one place. Maybe you seen some of his articles in the magazines? Willis Norton? They won't keep you awake nights, but they're good."

"Oh, Jim Gurney went away, got jobs in various places. He come back about three years ago; hadn't been back long afore this here thing happened. When he came back he took up living in that lonely cabin up on Cobble, over the farm of this Warren that'd once been the Gurney place and Warren bought."

"Oh, no one liked him no more'n they ever did. He left 'em alone, and that arrangement suited us to a T. If he had ever had a real enemy in the world, they'd outgrown the enmity, we allowed. An' I think as he got along in years time softened the despicable thing he done, somewhat. You know it has that effect on most things. He had been peculiar. We knew it. And when he come back none of us cared to investigate to see if he'd changed. We let him alone."

"Well, how does the brother become a suspect?" I asked. "Has he come back, too?"

Hawn thought a long time. "Not that I ever heard of," he said, slowly and deliberately, as if holding back, "but many people suspected at the time that he come back quietly from the Coast, after years of brooding over Jim's lying interference, and killed him."

Hawn said it with a caution that even Kennedy seemed disposed not to question. One must not quiz official caution if one seeks to get anywhere in an interview.

"It's a mighty interesting murder," remarked Craig, thoughtfully. "Did they ever get enough on anybody to hold him?"

"No; not after the coroner's inquest. But people have done a lot of suspecting, and it ain't been pleasant around here for Warren, nor Mathieu, neither. I think they'd both leave, only it looks too much like a confession. They're still here, glowering at each other, as if each of 'em thinks the other is responsible for the suspicion resting on him." Hawn laughed quietly.

"I told my wife the other day, if Gurney's murderer wa'n't caught soon there'd be another murder committed." Phil Smith's deep throaty chuckle revealed his twist of humor.

"Oh, Warren bought some of the Gurney property. It seemed that part of the acreage had been left to Leroy, but Jim settled it up with him when Leroy left. He sold the farm land to Warren, kept the upland. When he come back he said Warren had overstepped, that his boundary fences was over on the upland. One morning Warren finds his fences all down and set back on what Jim Gurney says was the dividing line. Then there was a dispute and a law suit and everything. That scrap was going on in the courts when Jim Gurney was killed. Warren is a stubborn customer. He don't seem to care if he is in contempt I noticed the other day his fences was all back on the line that Jim Gurney broke up. The case is still in the courts."

Craig seemed preoccupied. "What is there against this Mathieu?" I asked. "Did he ever have any trouble with Gurney?"

"Did he?" This was from the usually silent Phil Smith. "I'll say he did. That's what I had to tell at the inquest. I was gunning one day on Warren's place. Warren asked me up any time I wanted to have a little sport on his place in the fall. Some parts of his woodland that Jim Gurney didn't claim runs up into them parts that Gurney did claim, and along by what wa'n't in dispute at all, too. I heard voices and enough to know that it was Jim Gumey and Mathieu in some argyment over traps that Mathieu'd set on the side of Cobble. I was afraid my dog'd get caught in one of 'em, or shot, or something. So I called him and put him on leash. By the time I come out in the open I see there was Jim Gurney and Mathieu having it hot and heavy over them traps. O' course Gurney had the better of it. He was right. It was his land. He maintained any fur-bearing animals onto it was his. I dunno what Mathieu's argyment was, but just as they heard me I caught Mathieu a-reaching for his knife. Of course when I came on the fight was over right there. Mathieu slunk off in the woods, and Jim was mad yet, cussing about 'that damn Canuck trespasser'."

"That's a long speech for you, Phil," put in one of the chaps on the bench. "I guess you must 'a' learned it for the coroner's jury, to speak it."

"Oh, that wasn't the first fight," observed Hawn, changing the subject before Smith could retort. "Mathieu knew he could get Gurney's goat, and the devil in him made him trespass lots o' times. They loved each other like a couple o' wild cats." Suddenly Eben Hawn's arms were raised high over his head. His loose vest stretched up, showing the white shirt between vest and trousers. "I'm dog tired. I was up late last night. Rum runners. I'm going to bed. If we talks much more about murders, you strangers'll be askin' me for an escort back to the hotel."

This labored sally was a general signal to break up for the night. We left with the rest.

"Walter," observed Craig, as we walked back alone, "I rather like these people up here. There's a lot of hard-headed common sense in most of them. Now, about this Gurney case. It rather interests me. We might stay on a day or two, eh?"

SO it was that bright and early the next morning we left the hotel for another long jaunt without a guide. It was beautiful. The hotel was on the side of a hill itself, but around us and across the valley the greater hills and near-by mountains towered even higher. It seemed so peaceful, so quiet, that crime in such an atmosphere was an anomaly.

The country was inspiring. In the distance the little river wound its way through the valley serenely placid. What jumpy city people call "pep" and admire so inordinately sinks into proper insignificance compared with that detached, intelligent calmness bred of the hills and high places.

Over the hills the trees were getting bare and the ground under them seemed like a molten mass of color, a riot of yellow, orange, and red. Only the sky above us, slightly leaden in spite of the morning sun, preserved the quiet, gentle colors. Even the masses of evergreens luxuriantly covering the sides of the higher hills and mountains looming in the distance like sentinels were softened by a haze.

In the foothills rested the villages and small settlements tucked in one might think for shelter and quiet. Here and there we could see the early morning stirring-about of the inhabitants.

"I've been turning that Gurney case over in my mind. Craig," I ventured, as we plodded along. "What do you think about that brother? Do you suppose he came back quietly—and slipped away again in the same manner?"

Kennedy did not answer, and I knew from that that he was not ready to talk. But I felt a desire to talk that morning. "You know," I tried again, "Eben Hawn said they found no trace of Leroy since the murder. He must have got away quietly, got back again to the Coast, if he ever came here."

Kennedy was smoking, taking long puffs at his pipe as we slogged along. In that smoke he seemed to be seeking the solution of the lonely murder on Cobble Hill. It was no use. I left him to himself and followed the road behind him, quietly, too.

We passed people occasionally and received a pleasant greeting usually. Most of the men we had met at one time or another at Phil Smith's garage. This was an opportunity for us, too. We could stop and talk to them, and through the gossip obtain little scraps of information that might help.

We were now following the trail to Cobble Hill. Not that we intended to go to the deserted cabin again. The Warren farm was Craig's objective, and the ostensible reason for our visit was Warren's well-known interest in sports that demanded a gun and a quick eye. He was one of the best trap-shooters about South Elliott and had shot all kinds of game for years in those north woods.

Warren was out on his place when we arrived. Evidently our presence in the village was known to him, although he was not acquainted with our real names. Still, he knew that we hunted, and that bond was strong enough. He invited us in and offered us some of his apple cider that he had made himself. There was a tang to it that even the government seems unable to stop nature from bestowing.

"On the Cobble trail, eh? I kinda thought you would turn in here. Most people do since the tragedy up the hill. That place seems to drive people away."

"I didn't feel exactly comfortable on the place when I was there, either," agreed Kennedy, casually. "I was glad when we left."

"I'd like to buy the place, only the estate is asking too much for it. Old Gurney and I didn't just seem to hit it off—always in hot water over our boundaries. I let him have his own way most of the time." Suddenly he stopped and looked at us sharply. "You folks ain't thinking of getting it, are you?"

Kennedy shook his head reassuringly. "Not investing in real estate right now. Just out for our health and a little game. But it might make a nice little hunting lodge, at that."

Warren nodded. "Why don't you stay here and shoot to-day? No one else coming that I know of. There's only one man that has the nerve to come without asking, and that's Mathieu, the Canuck—and he can't come. He had a little accident the other day—hurt his hand—and I ain't seen him since."

"Yes. You know, he was mentioned in that Gurney case." The mountain farmer jerked his thumb over his shoulder toward the cabin. "People don't like him too much. Him and me agrees on one thing. We let the others talk about it, but we don't. Our attorneys told us that was the best plan. But, still and all, I can't help thinking a powerful lot that if I had a brother like that there Jim Gurney was, I guess I'd know something about it, or know them that did!" he concluded, triumphantly, with this cryptically veiled reference to Leroy.

"No. Quite a piece down the valley road, toward town." Prom the hill, looking down, he pointed to what looked like little more than a one-room shanty by the bend in the river. Kennedy gazed at it some time as if fixing it in his mind, while Warren gazed at him, noting it. "If you are going to see him," he said at length, "are you sure how he will greet you? Mathieu is a surly cuss—refuses to see even some of them that calls on business. He chased the letter carrier off last month, called him a damn spy."

The farmer laughed a cracked laugh at Mathieu's idea of visitors, and I could not help thinking there was malice behind the remarks he was making concerning the other men suspected. I wondered what that meant. Had he really anything to conceal and was that his method of diverting suspicion from himself? I thought it almost childish. Almost anyone could have seen through that.

We stopped and chatted for fully half an hour. In all the conversation, in spite of Jim Gurney's horrible end, there seemed in what Warren said to be an implacable hatred even of the dead man's memory. Surely, I thought, if hatred were the tutor of murder, Warren must have been a proficient pupil.

OUT on the highway, down a little overgrown path, and then cutting our way through the brush and woodland, we came out at last on the little road that led to Mathieu's shanty. I was wondering how badly he had been injured. There was at first no evidence of him about the place except a little smoke climbing in a spiral ribbon from the chimney.

We went up toward the cabin. The ferocious barking of a dog greeted us from within.

"Shut up, Wolf!" came a voice, harsh, threatening, matching the dog's own growl in quality and temper. It silenced the animal. "What do you want?" continued the voice. "There's nothing no one has to see me about." The ungracious voice trailed off suddenly into an oath and an exclamation of pain.

Kennedy was not abashed or deterred. "Mathieu," he called back through the still locked door. "You don't know me, but I'm a hunter, too. I heard you were hurt. I've come to see what I can do for you. Call that dog of yours off, open the door and let me in."

Evidently the man was suffering intensely. His groans were pitiful, at least would have been in a man who did not repel one so. The poor dog, evidently scenting trouble of some kind, was now whining in sympathy. Kennedy listened intently.

"I'm a doctor. You never saw me before—and after this vacation you'll probably never see me again. Let me help you if I can."

There was a gruff response in a voice that was scarcely audible now from suppressed pain. "All right! Get under the table, Wolf! Keep quiet, damn you! Ah, my arm!" Followed a string of oaths half in English, half in Canadian French, that would have been a lexicon for any blasphemer whether backwoodsman or hijacker.

The door was suddenly flung open, revealing a man, his arm in a sling made out of an old flannel shirt, his other hand clutching at it in a frenzy of pain. His face was white and drawn and covered with a heavy beard. His hair had not been combed in several days and stood in disarray in thick mats about his head. On his forehead, in spite of the coolness of the weather, stood great beads of sweat—the sweat of pain, not from the small fire in the cabin. His brow was furrowed by deep lines and these lines were accentuated by the dirt that long ago had settled in the wrinkles. If that roan had been well, I should not have cared to meet him if his mood were other than peaceable.

Kennedy was the kindly Samaritan seeking tactfully to help this man in distress. "Let me take a look, old man." This was said in a matter-of-fact manner as if a refusal were the last thing in the world to be expected.

Mathieu acquiesced. With deft fingers Kennedy undid the bandages while I made some boiling water. Always Craig carried on our trips of this sort a little emergency kit for immediate aid in case of gunshot wounds or other injuries.

"I always take this along," he explained as he opened the kit, and, with a smile to Mathieu, finished: "I never know how many greenhorns I'm going to meet in the woods. Lots of game around here—if you can find it. But I've had a lot of fun."

Mathieu's sore hand was caused by an infected gunshot wound. It needed attention desperately. "It's going to hurt some. I'll be as gentle as I can."

"He can't hurt no more than he docs—so!" Mathieu answered, as he looked at the red marks of infection creeping up the veins of his arm. "Go ahead. Somehow I believe in you."

The least said about that dressing the best. It was painful, but after it was done and the wound had been opened and cleansed, there was a temporary relief. A salve and fresh bandage with a clean sling made life look brighter for Mathieu. "We made him a little soup before we left, and by the time these things were done Mathieu had said many things and had not realized it.

"Mon dieu!" he exclaimed once, at a twinge. "If a little shot like this can hurt so much, what must it be that Zheem Gurnee feel when he have that hole in his breast, eh?"

The remark had followed our confidence that we had been shooting over Cobble. "Oh," returned Craig, "that was so sudden he probably never knew what struck him, from all accounts." Kennedy continued in a tone of perfunctory curiosity. "Who did it? Did they ever find out definitely?"

There was a quick glance and a frown, but evidently what Mathieu saw in our faces disarmed his suspicions.

"I think," he went on a moment later, "that hees brother, Leroy, he know more about that murder than anyone else know. You know, maybe, that that Zheem Gurnee keel his brother's sweetheart? No? Well what he do come to that, just the same. Oui, if I have been Leroy I would keel him long time."

Kennedy was silently listening. Mathieu, to me, seemed nervous and to show it. But then one had to consider the weakness and nervousness brought on by the dressing and the sleeplessness before that. It might not all have been caused by emotion produced by our talking about the crime.

"I no like Zheem Gurnee. Mean man. Nevair want no one shoot in hees woods. I have many trouble weez heem over zat. You hear, eh? Maybe. Many people think I might know more about eet than I say." He shrugged, tried to smile. "But, no."

Mathieu was grateful and showed it. "E-yah!" he ejaculated, still thinking of Gurney, as well as his own pain. "He maka trouble for all—especiallee the neighbor. I do no see how Warren stand eet. He quiet man, no say much, but"—he raised the finger on his well hand—"but—deep!"

Kennedy without a word finished packing up his little first-aid kit, rolled it up, dropped it back into the capacious pocket of his hunting jacket.

"Eef you stay here long time for me get better, I take you where game IS. I have tramp about so much there no be many place I no find out myself. Some do no like. Pouf! This world she was made for ever'body—not just a few. Eh?"

I took it that this was both his philosophy to explain himself as well as his manner of showing gratitude. Kennedy wound up by advising him to keep quiet for a few days and we prepared to leave.

"Mathieu," he said as we parted, "I'm coming up to dress that wound again to-morrow—about the same time."

With a wave of our hands we left him, much more comfortable, standing in the doorway, and passed on down the rough road toward the village.

"Wasn't that last visit enough?" Kennedy turned, looking over the country about us. "If I do any shooting about here, it will be poaching. These woods belong to people here in South Elliott. If we come to a new trail we can take that, see where it brings us out."

We threaded our way through the woodland. Birches growing in the little sociable groups so common to that kind of tree seemed to be leaning forward gracefully, inviting us to explore further in the depths of the forest. My spirit seemed to be in accord with the mood suggested by the trees in my fancy.

Imagine my dismay when I came to a huge sign nailed to a tree, "No Trespassing."

The beauty and appeal of the place were irresistible. I wanted to go on. So did Craig. But we were not lawbreakers.

WE were debating what to do next, when a man's voice hailed us. I suppose we looked bewildered, rather lost. "May I help you? Are you looking for some one's place?"

The man was tall and slender, high-browed, with a wealth of heavy dark hair. He wore no hat. About his face he affected a close-cropped beard coming to a point at the chin, a Vandyke. His eyes were deep-set and kindly. I liked the stranger immediately. Mentally, I gathered, he was much above the inhabitants of the village I had met.

Kennedy smiled. "We're strangers—just a little mixed on the trails. We were exploring, and finally came up to this sign. We have just about decided to turn and go back to our hotel, perhaps start all over again. Whose place is this?"

"The Norton place. I am the owner. I see you are strangers around here. But if you care to walk through with me I will show you about, be delighted to do so. I'm very fond of it up here."

I murmured, thanking him for his kindness, but it was Craig who spoke up quickly. "Norton? Norton? I have heard them mention that name down at the hotel and the garage, in the village. Aren't you the traveler and naturalist?"

"I have traveled a bit—and possibly to a degree I might qualify as a naturalist," he smiled. "I have done much museum work, have been on various expeditions to South America, Africa, and Central America for the study of bird life and animal life in general. We must have our hobbies. That is mine."

"It sounds mighty interesting." I spoke up earnestly and meant it. "I have often felt a desire to go on such trips, but my calling doesn't permit it."

Somehow we naturally fell in step with the man as he led the way about the beautiful place from which he was away so much, listening, as we tramped, to his stories of hunting big game in warmer and wilder climes.

"This must seem tame to you up here after your varied adventures," volunteered Craig.

"It seems quiet. But it is good. It's home. My travels have led me into all sorts of dangers, yes. I have had wasting fevers that have helped to undermine my health. I'll never be so strong again, I doubt."

"But you have lived!" I admired, spontaneously. I had been quite won by this cultured adventurer. He was so gentle and simple and knew so much.

"Yes, I have lived—and I have had my losses. I am practically alone as to family, except for a sister in North Elliott, who is married. Alone. That isn't good.... It is hard to see all one loves taken from one." He was speaking sadly, absently. "There have been several distressing things that have happened in our family—and that is one of them."

We had strolled down a path to what looked like a little old-fashioned family graveyard such as one so often sees on the very old estates far from cities. He had touched a stone reverently, the nearest one.

"There they put my little cousin Zilpha when she died." He waved to two others alongside. "There lie my uncle and aunt. They were father and mother to me after my own died in a wreck."

He turned away quickly and we followed him at a brisker pace to the house. "Would you care to see my collection of curios?" he suggested.

We were eager to accept, and felt rather flattered over the invitation. Somehow I felt that an invitation was not given to everybody.

"You see," he continued, as if getting his mind off the gravestones, "I have a collection of photographs of beasts, birds, flowers, plants, trees from all over the world. They were snapped by a wonderful little vest-pocket camera made specially for me, with a German lens, a little Icarette. I always take it along on every trip. Then I can make enlargements from the snaps, better than you get from most of our large cameras."

The house, too, was old-fashioned. One could see at a glance it had been the home of those who in the past combined domesticity with culture. The grounds, the trees, the outbuildings were all in good condition, in spite of Willis Norton's frequent and long trips away. We spoke of it to him.

"Well, an old family like the Nortons up here generally manages to keep one or two faithful retainers, to say nothing of the splendid old Chinese servant I brought from Manchuria right after that war. I always leave some one behind to look after the Norton place when I go on a trip—some one who cares."

In the rear of the old house was a spiral staircase, quaint and beautiful. It went to the top floor of the house, where Norton kept his collection. In cases, arranged in groups significant as to habitat, were strange animals brought from the many lands out of the beaten track that he had visited.

Folios filled with photographs, his own and others, gave rare and intimate chance to study wild-animal life taken when the animals thought they were unobserved, a silent testimonial to the patience and endurance of Norton in obtaining and collecting them. Everything carefully catalogued by his own hand denoted painstaking systematizing of records, dates, places, whether taken alone or with other witnesses, the time of the day, any data for lighting or other photographic information of any possible interest. All had been saved and recorded. Then all was filed so that future reference would be easy.

It was fascinating, sitting before the huge fireplace that cool afternoon in the fall, listening to this much-traveled man tell thrilling anecdotes of his varied experiences. Kennedy was enjoying it, too. Here was a man, brilliant, capable, refined, the last sort of person I had expected to meet when we started out that morning.

"Norton," observed Kennedy, "I can't say I blame you, either, for being away so much or for having this wonderful place to come back to, after I hear your stories. You have lived, as my friend so aptly put it a while ago. I suppose you get the most fun out of life and studies in little-known areas, rather than out of what is so well known to us all here at home in the States."

The man was leaning back indolently in his chair, fingering the keys he had been using opening various chests and cabinets and compartments as he showed us his treasures.

"No; I would hardly say that. Of course, you know, what I have is commonplace in those, to us, strange countries. What to us is well known is just as strange and remarkable there." He paused. "No; I am intensely interested in what is about us here, too. I have showed you these exhibits only because I thought the strange things would be more appealing to you because not so well known. If you were an Eskimo or a Kaffir, I have things about us here just as strange to show you, comparatively. It is all a matter of comparison. Personally, I take a great deal of interest in native wild life, just that about South Elliott, for instance, or even domesticated life."

He paused again, thinking back. "You see, when I was younger I was photographing whenever I had the chance. I suppose that is what started me, beginning around here. But—times have changed. It doesn't seem so much like home. And I feel better in other parts of the world. I am now planning a trip with one of the expeditions sent out by a famous museum in New York. They want me along for my technical knowledge of photography and my knowledge of the birds we are going after."

The mention of the expedition by Norton drew my attention to his physical condition. He did not look strong, looked hardly robust enough to endure the hardships and rigors, to say nothing of the dangers of another lengthy exploration.

He saw me. "I know what you are thinking—that I don't seem very rugged. That is the reason I am going out this time with others, not alone."

He bowed his head as he spoke, then suddenly looked up. "Perhaps you would like to see some photographs taken about South Elliott. You know it all depends on how, with what eyes, we look on the very life about us, so familiar. I think I have taken a new angle; that is, new to most people. I'll show them to you. Since my folks have died I don't take the same interest here, though. Once in a while when I get over to North Elliott I feel a bit of the old enthusiasm. But it goes away. Not the same interest. I think I have mentioned that several times—but the repetition tells what a family man I am by nature—and that I'm getting old, too," he smiled.

Kennedy nodded sympathetically. "You know, Norton, I have heard about the sad case of your little cousin Zilpha. Her death seemed to stir the whole village. They haven't got over it yet. It's terrible, the disastrous lengths gossip can go.... Have you ever thought much about Mathieu and his relation to the murder of Jim Gurney, for instance? We just left his cabin. I heard he was suffering. He seems to be regarded with such general dislike about South Elliott that we ventured up to see what we could do for him. He surely is bitter against even the memory of Jim Gurney."

Norton raised his brows. "I know Mathieu when I see him. And I know Warren, the other man under suspicion in that Gurney murder. But I have taken very little interest in the case. All I could see in it was fate, retribution. The measure of hate a man bestows on another person in this world is meted out to him in some way before he is through living. Sort of a law of balance." He turned from us as if the subject were distasteful, as if it brought too many painful memories of the little cousin he had loved so dearly.

"Now here is a folio of domestic animals about South Elliott." He said it with a smile. "You wouldn't think of taking as much care with horses and chickens as, say, with the hartebeest in Africa? I'll show you these first. Some of them you may at first think funny. We don't usually think of our pigs, horses, and cows as having romances."

He paused again, and instantly I was fascinated. The man had something romantic about him, a, to me, new romance. "But in these pictures I am showing you how they woo, the capitulation of the female, the beautiful mother instinct of preserving her young. To me, with my love of animals, it offers many a lesson to us humans. There is nothing flippant about it. It is a serious study, and mighty interesting."

The pictures proved the truth of what he had been saying. As he showed them to us in the order they should go, a new phase of animal existence right about us dawned on me. Those animals may not possess the convolutions of brain, the cells of gray matter. But they know the Law of Life. They are interpreting it faithfully and beautifully. Are not many of us humans out of tune with the Law?

All of these pictures were dated, too. Some had been taken years ago, marked the beginning of his career as a naturalist. Others were more recent, on down the years. Probably a few had been taken each time Norton returned to South Elliott from wandering over the face of the earth.

In many of the photographs the locations were familiar to me. Our tramping over the hills had taken us past many places we could identify in the pictures. Our own recent acquaintance with the background enhanced our interest in what Norton had caught in the foreground.

"H'm! This is rather interesting." Norton passed us a snapshot. It was only a picture of five cows in a field, grazing, over at what I took to be North Elliott, ten miles the other side of Cobble. They were grazing earnestly and all looking the same way. I could not see anything very wonderful about that. Many of the other snapshots had appealed to me. This was just five cows eating as if their lives depended on it. My thoughts must have been expressed in my face, showing I was eager to have him go on and show others of his romantic animal studies. Norton spoke quickly. "Just about two years ago. Look at the date. That is the date of that murder you mentioned. The hour is that very morning, near dawn, taken soon after sunrise."

Now I was interested, even if it was taken miles away, hours of hiking over the hills. I looked at it over Kennedy's shoulder, five cows grazing, all facing the same way. It was easy to identify the location—Cobble in the distance, South Elliott beyond that, ten miles away, with the cabin of Jim Gurney on the South Elliott side of Cobble, far away from that lens.

"I had just come back from a little vacation in Labrador, was staying at the time with my sister. My brother-in-law developed those films for me that very morning."

Kennedy had been holding the print, studying it intently. Now he laid it down quietly, but still with his hand on it. Slowly he was shaking his head.

"When I was a young fellow in college, I spent much of my time every summer in Wyoming on a ranch," he remarked, slowly. "In the morning, the cows are lying down lazily, still chewing their cuds. Even when they get up they graze all over the field, in every direction, some east, some south, some north, some west. There is plenty of light for them to see by that time."

He paused, snapping the corner of the crisp print in thoughtful emphasis. "But at night they graze all with heads toward the westing sun. Any other way they are in their own light. And they graze frantically, for the very last bite before darkness lowers—just as these cows are grazing. They have all night to digest it. If you saw five hundred head of cattle, they would all be facing the same way at this time, and at no other time—just as these five.... This was taken the night before you started out, Norton—and you dated it the morning afterward, for your alibi, which you carefully prepared!"

I could actually see Norton, not physically strong, anyhow, weaken, crumple almost literally, his hand on his heart. His lips moved several times, framing words, but no sound came from them. Kennedy did not speak. He wanted it to sink in, wanted Norton to speak.

Finally Norton had found his voice. Now the words were flooding out with a rush of pent-up emotion. "But you, sir, you are a man of the world. You will understand.... Yes. It was hate. That man blackened my family, my favorite, my only cousin. He murdered Zilpha with his damned lying tongue. You might as well call it that, call it what it was, in a community like this. It wasn't true. It, was a lie. And it killed. I followed him. I searched for him. That was back of my globetrotting, really. Always I was too late. He had moved on!"

Norton was now standing, his hand on his breast, as if to witness the truth of each word.

"He did not know it. In twenty years he thought all had been forgotten. He came back, tired of wandering, took the cabin on the hill. I heard it, found him, back here. I knew the cabin, the window near where he slept in the attic room. I rested the old blunderbuss in a crotch of a tree. I was taking no chances. I let it blaze, both barrels! Shot him, like the dog he was! I meant it, to blast out of him that evil, lying filthy heart!"

"Yes, and this picture was to be your alibi, taken in the morning, that morning, you said, dated, developed by your brother-in-law, ten miles away. It got past Hawn, here.... But it was taken really in the evening, the evening before, not in the morning, near dawn. The cows are all facing west—the setting sun—and you, Norton, with your hand clutching that old heart of yours, the sun is setting on you, too, soon!"

THE END

ARTHUR B. REEVE

CRAIG KENNEDY AND THE COMPASS NORTH—SOUTH—EAST—WEST

WEST

THE END

CRAIG KENNEDY AND THE COMPASS
NORTH—SOUTH—EAST—WEST