He said that all the days
of his life he would follow us, until we paid a thousand times for what
we had done. And then my father dragged him as he would have dragged a
rat to the edge of a piece of bush, and there he tore his clothes from
him until the brute was naked; and in that nakedness he scourged him
with whips until his arms were weak, and John Graham was unconscious and
like a great hulk of raw beef. When it was over, we went into the
mountains."
During the terrible recital Mary Standish had not looked away from him,
and now her hands were clenched like his own, and her eyes and face were
aflame, as if she wanted to leap up and strike at something unseen
between them.
"And after that, Alan; after that--"
She did not know that she had spoken his name, and he, hearing it,
scarcely understood.
"John Graham kept his promise," he answered grimly. "The influence and
money behind him haunted us wherever we went. My father had been
successful, but one after another the properties in which he was
interested were made worthless. A successful mine in which he was most
heavily interested was allowed to become abandoned. A hotel which he
partly owned in Dawson was bankrupted. One after another things
happened, and after each happening my father would receive a polite note
of regret from Graham, written as if the word actually came from a
friend.
Pages:
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225