He dragged the sledge into the cabin while Pelliter unleashed the huskies from the lean-to. When he came in with the dogs Pelliter locked and bolted the door.
Billy slipped a clipful of cartridges into his big-game Remington. His carbine was already on the table, and as Pelliter stood staring at him in indecision he pulled out two Savage automatics from under his bunk and gave one of them to his companion. His face was white and set.
“Better get ready, Pelly,” he said, quietly. “I’ve been in this country a long time, and I tell you they’re dogs and men. Did you hear the drum? It’s made of seal belly, and there’s a bell on each side of it. They’re Eskimos, and there isn’t an Eskimo village within two hundred miles of us this winter. They’re Eskimos, and they’re not on a hunt, unless it’s for us!”
In an instant Pelliter was buckling on his revolver and cartridge-belt. He grinned as he looked at the wicked little blue-steeled Savage.
“I hope you ain’t mistaken, Billy,” he said, “for it ’ll be the first excitement we’ve had in a year.”
None of his enthusiasm revealed itself in MacVeigh’s face.
“The Eskimo never fights until he’s gone mad, Pelly,” he said, “and you know what madmen are. I can’t guess what they’ve got to fight over, unless they want our grub. But if they do—” He moved toward the door, his swift-firing Remington in his hand. “Be ready to cover me, Pelly. I’m going out. Don’t fire until you hear me shoot.”
He opened the door and stepped out. The howling had ceased now, but there came in its place strange barking voices and a cracking which Billy knew was made by the long Eskimo whips. He advanced to meet many dim forms which he saw breaking out of the wall of gloom, raising his voice in a loud holloa. From the Doorway Pelliter saw him suddenly lost in a mass of dogs and men, and half flung his carbine to his shoulder. But there was no shooting from MacVeigh. A score of sledges had drawn up about him, and the whips of dozens of little black men cracked viciously as their dogs sank upon their bellies in the snow. Both men and dogs were tired, and Billy saw that they had been running long and hard. Still as quick as animals the little men gathered about him, their white-and-black eyes staring at him out of round, thick, dumb-looking faces. He noted that they were half a hundred strong, and that all were armed, many with their little javelin-like narwhal harpoons, some with spears, and others with rifles. From the circle of strangely dressed and hideously visaged beings that had gathered about him one advanced and began talking to him in a language that was like the rapid clack of knuckle bones.
“Kogmollocks!” Billy groaned, and he lifted both hands to show that he did not understand. Then he raised his voice. “Nuna-talmute,” he cried. “Nuna-talmute— Nuna-talmute! Ain’t there one of that lingo among you?”
He spoke directly to the chief man, who stared at him in silence for a moment and then pointed both short arms toward the lighted cabin.
“Come on!” said Billy. He caught the little Eskimo by one of his thick arms and led him boldly through the breach that was made for them in the circle. The chief man’s voice broke out in a few words of command, like a dozen quick, sharp yelps of a dog, and six other Eskimos dropped in behind them.
“Kogmollocks— the blackest-hearted little devils alive when it comes to trading wives and fighting,” said MacVeigh to Pelliter, as he came up at the head of the seven little black men. “ Watch the door, Pelly. They’re coming in.”
He stepped into the cabin, and the Eskimos followed. From Pelliter’s bunk Little Mystery looked at the strange visitors with eyes which suddenly widened with surprise and joy, and in another moment she had given the strange story that Pelliter or Billy had ever heard her utter. Scarcely had that cry fallen from her lips when one of the Eskimos sprang toward her. His black hands were already upon her, dragging the child from the bunk, when with a warning yell of rage Pelliter leaped from the door and sent him crashing back among his companions. In another instant both men were facing the seven Eskimos with leveled automatics.
“If you fire don’t shoot to kill!” commanded MacVeigh.
The chief man was pointing to Little Mystery, his weird voice rising until it was almost a scream. Suddenly he doubled himself back and raised his javelin. Simultaneously two streams of fire leaped from the automatics. The javelin dropped to the floor, and with a shrill cry which was half pain and half command the leader staggered back to the door, a stream of blood running from his wounded hand. The others sprang out ahead of him, and Pelliter closed and bolted the door. When he turned MacVeigh was closing and slipping the bolts to the heavy barricades of the two windows. From Pelliter’s bunk Little Mystery looked at them and laughed.
“So it’s you?” said Billy, coming to her, and breathing hard. “It’s you they want, eh? Now, I wonder why?”
Pelliter’s face was flushed with excitement. He was reloading his automatic. There was almost a triumph in his eyes as he met MacVeigh’s questioning gaze.
They stood and listened, heard only the rumbling monotone of the drifting ice— not the breath of a sound from the scores of men and dogs.
“We’ve given them a lesson,” said Pelliter, at last, smiling with the confidence of a man who was half a tenderfoot among the little brown men.
Billy pointed to the door.
“That door is about the only place vulnerable to their bullets,” he said, as though he had not heard Pelliter. “Keep out of its range. I don’t believe what guns they’ve got are heavy enough to penetrate the logs. Your bunk is out of line and safe.”
He went to Little Mystery, and his stern face relaxed into a smile as she put up her arms to greet him.
“So it’s you, is it?” he asked again, taking her warm little face and soft curls between his two hands. “They want you, an’ they want you bad. Well, they can have grub, an’ they can have me, but”— he looked up to meet Pelliter’s eyes— “I’m damned if they can have you,” he finished.
Suddenly the night was broken by another sound, the sharp, explosive crack of rifles. They could hear the beat of bullets against the log wall of the cabin. One crashed through the door, tearing away a splinter as wide as a man’s arm, and as MacVeigh nodded to the path of the bullet he laughed. Pelliter had heard that laugh before. He knew what it meant. He knew what the death-whiteness of MacVeigh’s face meant. It was not fear, but something more terrible than fear. His own face was flushed. That is the difference in men.
MacVeigh suddenly darted across the danger zone to the opposite half of the cabin.
“If that’s your game, here goes,” he cried. “Now, damn y’, you’re so anxious to fight— get at it ’n’ fight!”
He spoke the last words to Pelliter. Billy always swore when he went into action.
XI
THE NIGHT OF PERIL
On his own side of the cabin Pelliter began tugging at a small, thin block laid between two of the logs. The shooting outside had ceased when the two men opened up the loopholes that commanded a range seaward. Almost immediately it began again, the dull red flashes showing the location of the Eskimos, who had drawn back to the ridge that sloped down to the Bay. As the last of five shots left his Remington Billy pulled in his gun and faced across to Pelliter, who was already reloading.
“Pelly, I don’t want to croak,” he said, “but this is the last of Law at Fullerton Point— for you and me. Look at that!”
He raised the muzzle of his rifle to one of the logs over his head. Pelliter could see the fresh splinters sticking out.
“They’ve got some heavy calibers,” continued Billy, “and they’ve hidden behind the slope, where they’re safe from us for a thousand years. As soon as it grows light enough to see they’ll fill this shack as full of holes as an old cheese.”
As if to verify his words a single shot rang out and a bullet plowed through a log so close to Pelliter that the splinters flew into his face.
“I know these little devils, Pelly,” went on MacVeigh. “If they were Nuna-talmutes you could scare ’em with a sky-rocket. But they’re Kogmollocks. They’ve murdered the crews of half a dozen whalers, and I shouldn’t wonder if they’d got the kid in some such way. They wouldn’t let us off now, even if we gave her up. It wouldn’t do. They know better than to let the Law get any evidence against them. If we’re killed and the cabin burned, who’s going to say what happened to us? There’s just two things for us to do—”
Another fusillade of shots came from the snow ridge, and a third bullet crashed into the cabin.
“Just two things,” Billy went on, as he completely shaded the dimly burning lamp. “We can stay here ’n’ die— or run.”
“Run!”
This was an unknown word in the Service, and in Pelliter’s voice there were both amazement and contempt.
“Yes, run,” said Billy, quietly. “Run— for the kid’s sake.”
It was almost dark in the cabin, and Pelliter came close to his companion.
“You mean—”
“That it’s the only way to save the kid. We might give her up, then fight it out, but that means she’d go back to the Eskimos, ’n’ mebbe never be found again. The men and dogs out there are bushed. We are fresh. If we can get away from the cabin we can beat ’em out.”
“We’ll run, then,” said Pelliter. He went to Little Mystery, who sat stunned into silence by the strange things that were happening, and hugged her up in his arms, his back turned to the possible bullet that might come through the wall. “We’re going to run, little sweetheart,” he mumbled, half laughingly, in her curls.
Billy began to pack, and Pelliter put Little Mystery down on the bunk and started to harness the six dogs, ranging them close along the wall, with old one-eyed Kazan, the hero who had saved him from Blake, in the lead. Outside the firing had ceased. It was evident that the Eskimos had made up their minds to save their ammunition until dawn.
Fifteen minutes sufficed to load the sledge; and while Pelliter was fastening the sledge traces MacVeigh bundled Little Mystery into her thick fur coat. The sleeves caught, and he turned it back, exposing the white edge of the lining. On that lining was something which drew him down close, and when the strange cry that fell from his lips drew Pelliter’s eyes toward him he was staring down into Little Mystery’s upturned face with the look of one who saw a vision.
“Mother of Heaven!” he gasped, “she’s—” He caught himself, and smothered Little Mystery up close to him for a moment before he brought her to the sledge. “She’s the bravest little kid in the world,” he finished; and Pelliter wondered at the strangeness of his voice. He tucked her into a nest made of blankets and then tied her in securely with babiche rope. Pelliter stood up first and saw the hungry, staring look in MacVeigh’s face as he kept his eyes steadily upon Little Mystery.
“What’s the matter, Mac?” he asked. “Are you very much afraid— for her?”
“No,” said MacVeigh, without lifting his head. “If you’re ready, Pelly, open the door.” He rose to his feet and picked up his rifle. He did not seem like the old MacVeigh; but the dogs were nipping and whining, and there was no time for Pelliter’s questions.
“I’m going out first, Billy,” he said. “You can make up your mind they’re watching the cabin pretty close, and as soon as the dogs nose the open air they’ll begin yapping ’n’ let ’em on to us. We can’t risk her under fire. So I’m going to back along the edge of the ridge and give it to ’em as fast as I can work the gun. They’ll all turn to me, and that’s the time for you to open the door and make your getaway. I’ll be with you inside of five minutes.”
He turned out the lights as he spoke. Then he opened the door and slipped out into the darkness without a protesting word from MacVeigh. Hardly had he gone when the latter fell upon his knees beside Little Mystery and in the deep gloom crushed his rough face down against her soft, warm little body.
“So it’s you, is it?” he cried, softly; and then he mumbled things which the little girl could not possibly have understood.
Suddenly he sprang to his feet and ran to the door with a word to faithful old Kazan, the leader.
From far down the snow-ridge there came the rapid firing of Pelliter’s rifle.
For a moment Billy waited, his hand on the door, to give the watching Eskimos time to turn their attention toward Pelliter. He could perhaps have counted fifty before he gave Kazan the leash and the six dogs dragged the sledge out into the night. With his humanlike intelligence old Kazan swung quickly after his master, and the team darted like a streak into the south and west, giving tongue to that first sharp, yapping voice which it is impossible to beat or train out of a band of huskies. As he ran Billy looked back over his shoulder. In the hundred-yard stretch of gray bloom between the cabin and the snow-ridge he saw three figures speeding like wolves. In a flash the meaning of this unexpected move of the Eskimos dawned upon him. They were cutting Pelliter off from the cabin and his course of flight.
“Go it, Kazan!” he cried, fiercely, bending low over the leader. “Moo-hoosh— moo-hoosh— moo-hoosh, old man!” And Kazan leaped into a swift run, nipping and whining at the empty air.
Billy stopped and whirled about. Two other figures had joined the first three, and he opened fire. One of the running Eskimos pitched forward with a cry that rose shrill and scarcely human above the moaning and roar of the ice-fields, and the other four fell flat upon the snow to escape the hail of lead that sang close over their heads. From the snow-ridge there came a fusillade of shots, and a single figure darted like a streak in MacVeigh’s direction. He knew that it was Pelliter; and, running slowly after Kazan and the sledge, he rammed a fresh clipful of cartridges into the chamber of his rifle. The figures in the open had risen again, and Pelliter’s automatic Savage trailed out a stream of fire as he ran. He was breathing heavily when he reached Billy.
“Kazan has got the kid well in the lead,” shouted the latter. “God bless that old scoundrel! I believe he’s human.”
They set off swiftly, and the thick night soon engulfed all signs of the Eskimos. Ahead of them the sledge loomed up slowly, and when they reached it both men thrust their rifles under the blanket straps. Thus relieved of their weight, they forged ahead of Kazan.
“Moo-hoosh— moo-hoosh!” encouraged Billy.
He glanced at Pelliter on the opposite side. His comrade was running with one arm raised at the proper angle to reserve breath and endurance; the other hung straight and limp at his side. A sudden fear shot through him, and he darted ahead of the lead dog to Pelliter’s side. He did not speak, but touched the other’s arm.
“One of the little devil’s winged me,” gasped Pelliter. “It’s not bad.”
He was breathing as though the short run was already winding him, and without a word Billy ran up to Kazan’s head and stopped the team within twenty paces. The open blade of his knife was ripping up Pelliter’s sleeve before his comrade could find words to object. Pelliter was bleeding, and bleeding hard. His face was shot with pain. The bullet had passed through the fleshy part of his forearm, but had fortunately missed the main artery. With the quick deftness of the wilderness-trained surgeon Billy drew the wound close and bound it tightly with his own and Pelliter’s handkerchiefs. Then he thrust Pelliter toward the sledge.
“You’ve got to ride, Pelly,” he said. “If you don’t you’ll go under, and that means all of us.”
Far behind them there rose the yapping and howling of dogs.
“They’re after us with the dogs!” groaned Pelliter. “I can’t ride. I’ve got to run— and fight!”
“You get on the sledge, or I’ll stave your head in!” commanded MacVeigh. “Face the enemy, Pelly, and give ’em hell. You’ve got three rifles there. You can do the shooting while I hustle on the dogs. And keep yourself in front of her,” he added, pointing to the almost completely buried Little Mystery.
XII
LITTLE MYSTERY FINDS HER OWN
After convincing Pelliter that he must ride on the sledge Billy ran on ahead, and the dogs started with their heavier load.
“Now for the timber-line,” he called down to Kazan. “It’s fifty miles, old boy, and you’ve got to make it by dawn. If we don’t—”
He left the words unfinished, but Kazan tugged harder, as if he had heard and understood. The sledge had reached the unbroken sweep of the Barren now, and MacVeigh felt the wind in his face. It was blowing from the north and west, and with it came sudden gusts filled with fine particles of snow. After a few moments he fell back to see that Little Mystery’s face was completely covered. Pelliter was crouching low on the sledge, his feet braced in the blanket straps. His wound and the uncomfortable sensation of riding backward on a swaying sledge were making him dizzy, and he wondered if what he saw creeping up out of the night was a result of this dizziness or a reality. There was no sound from behind. But a darker spot had grown within his vision, at times becoming larger, then almost disappearing. Twice he raised his rifle. Twice he lowered it again, convinced that the thing behind was only a shadowy fabric of his imagination. It was possible that their pursuers would lose trace of them in the darkness, and so he held his fire.
He was staring at the shadow when from out of it there leaped a little spurt of flame, and a bullet sang past the sledge, a yard to the right. It was a splendid shot. There was a marksman with the shadow, and Pelliter replied so quickly that the first shot had not died away before there followed the second. Five times his automatic sent its leaden messengers back into the night, and at the fifth shot there came a wild outburst of pain from one of the Eskimo dogs.
“Hurrah!” shouted Billy. “That’s one team out of business, Pelly. We can beat ’em in a running fight!”
He heard the quick metallic snap of fresh cartridges as Pelliter slipped them into the chamber of his rifle, but beyond that sound, the wind, and the straining of the huskies there was no other. A grim silence fell behind. The roar of the distant ice grew less. The earth no longer seemed to shudder under their feet at the terrific explosions of the crumbling bergs. But in place of these the wind was rising and the fine snow was thickening. Billy no longer turned to look behind. He stared ahead and as far as he could see on each side of them. At the end of half an hour the panting dogs dropped into a walk, and he walked close beside his comrade.
“They’ve given it up,” groaned Pelliter, weakly. “I’m glad of it, Mac, for I’m— I’m— dizzy.” He was lying on the sledge now, with his head bolstered up on a pile of blankets.
“You know how the wolves hunt, Pelly,” said MacVeigh— “in a moon-shape half circle, you know, that closes in on the running game from in front? Well, that’s how the Eskimos hunt, and I’m wondering if they’re trying to get ahead of us— off there, and off there.” He motioned to the north and the south.
“They can’t,” replied Pelliter, raising himself to his elbow with an effort. “Their dogs are bushed. Let me walk, Mac. I can—” He fell back with a sudden low cry. “Gawd, but I’m dizzy—”
MacVeigh halted the dogs, and while they dropped upon their bellies, panting and licking up the snow, he kneeled beside Pelliter. Darkness concealed the fear in his eyes and face. His voice was strong and cheerful.
“You’ve got to lie still, Pelly,” he warned, arranging the blankets so that the wounded man could rest comfortably. “You’ve got a pretty bad nip, and it’s best for all of us that you don’t make a move. You’re right about the Eskimos and their dogs. They’re bushed, and they’ve given the chase up as a bad job, so what’s the use of making a fool of yourself? Ride it out, Pelly. Go to sleep with Little Mystery if you can. She thinks she’s in a cradle.”
He got up and started the dogs. For a long time he was alone. Little Mystery was sleeping and Pelliter was quiet. Now and then he dropped his mittened hand on Kazan’s head, and the faithful old leader whined softly at his touch. With the others it was different. They snapped viciously, and he kept his distance. He went on for hours, halting the team now and then for a few minutes’ rest. He struck a match each time and looked at Pelliter. His comrade breathed heavily, with his eyes closed. Once, long after midnight, he opened them and stared at the flare of the match and into MacVeigh’s white face.
“I’m all right, Billy,” he said. “Let me walk—”
MacVeigh forced him back gently, and went on. He was alone until the first cold, gray break of dawn. Then he stopped, gave each of the dogs a frozen fish, and with the fuel on the sledge built a small fire. He scraped up snow for tea, and hung the pail over the fire. He was frying bacon and toasting hard bannock biscuits when Pelliter aroused himself and sat up. Billy did not see him until he faced about.
“Good morning, Pelly,” he grinned. “Have a good nap?”
Pelliter groped about on the sledge.
“Wish I could find a club,” he growled. “I’d— I’d brain you! You let me sleep!”
He thrust out his uninjured arm, and the two shook hands. Once or twice before they had done this after hours of great peril. It was not an ordinary handshake.
Billy rose to his feet. Half a mile away the edge of the big forest for which they had been fighting rose out of the dawn gloom.
“If I’d known that,” he said, pointing, “we’d have camped in shelter. Fifty miles, Pelly. Not so bad, was it?”
Behind them the gray Barren was lifting itself into the light of day. The two men ate and drank tea. During those few minutes neither gave attention to the forest or the Barren. Billy was ravenously hungry. Pelliter could not get enough of the tea. And then their attention went to Little Mystery, who awoke with a wailing protest at the smothering cover of blankets over her face. Billy dug her out and held her up to view the strange change since yesterday. It was then that Kazan stopped licking his ashy chops to send up a wailing howl.
Both men turned their eyes toward the forest. Halfway between a figure was toiling slowly toward them. It was a man, and Billy gave a low cry of astonishment.
But Kazan was facing the gray Barren, and he howled again, long and menacingly. The other dogs took up the cry, and when Pelliter and MacVeigh followed the direction of their warning they stood for a full quarter of a minute as if turned into stone.
A mile away the Barren was dotted with a dozen swiftly moving sledges and a score of running men!
After all, their last stand was to be made at the edge of the timber-line!
In such situations men like MacVeigh and Pelliter do not waste precious moments in prearranging actions in words. Their mental processes are instantaneous and correlative— and they act. Without a word Billy replaced Little Mystery in her nest without even giving her a sip of the warm tea, and by the time the dogs were straightened in their traces Pelliter was handing him his Remington.
“I’ve ranged it for three hundred and fifty yards,” he said. “We won’t want to waste our fire until they come that near.”
They set out at a trot, Pelliter running with his wounded arm down at his side. Suddenly the lone figure between them and the forest disappeared. It had fallen flat in the snow, where it lay only a black speck. In a moment it rose again and advanced. Both Pelliter and Billy were looking when it fell for a second time.
An unpleasant laugh came from MacVeigh’s lips.
The figure was climbing to its feet for the fifth time, and was only on its hands and knees when the sledge drew up. It was a white man. His head was bare, his face deathlike. His neck was open to the cold wind, and, to the others’ astonishment, he wore no heavier garment over his dark flannel shirt. His eyes burned wildly from out of a shaggy growth of beard and hair, and he was panting like one who had traveled miles instead of a few hundred yards.
All this Billy saw at a glance, and then he gave a sudden unbelieving cry. The man’s red eyes rested on his, and every fiber in his body seemed for a moment to have lost the power of action. He gasped and stared, and Pelliter started as if stung at the words which came first from his lips.
“Deane— Scottie Deane!”
An amazed cry broke from Pelliter. He looked at MacVeigh, his chief. He made an involuntary movement forward, but Billy was ahead of him. He had flung down his rifle, and in an instant was on his knees at Deane’s side, supporting his emaciated figure in his arms.
“Good God! what does this mean, old man?” he cried, forgetting Pelliter. “What has happened? Why are you away up here? And where— where— is she?”
He had gripped Deane’s hand. He was holding him tight; and Deane, looking up into his eyes, saw that he was no longer looking into the face of the Law, but that of a brother. He smiled feebly.
“Cabin— back there— in edge— woods,” he gasped. “Saw you— coming. Thought mebbe you’d pass— so— came out. I’m done for— dying.”
He drew a deep breath and tried to assist himself as Billy raised him to his feet. A little wailing cry came from the sledge. Startled, Deane turned his eyes toward that cry.
“My God!” he screamed.
He tore himself away from Billy and flung himself upon his knees beside Little Mystery, sobbing and talking like a madman as he clasped the frightened child in his arms. With her he leaped to his feet with new strength.
“She’s mine— mine!” he cried, fiercely. “She’s what brought me back! I was going for her! Where did you get her? How—”
There came to them now in sudden chorus the wild voice of the Eskimo dogs out on the plain. Deane heard the cry and faced with the others in their direction. They were not more than half a mile away, bearing down upon them swiftly. Billy knew that there was not a moment to lose. In a flash it had leaped upon him that in some way Deane and Isobel and Little Mystery were associated with that avenging horde, and as quickly as he could he told Deane what had happened. Sanity had come back into Deane’s eyes, and no sooner had he heard than he ran out in the face of the army of little brown men with Little Mystery in his arms. MacVeigh and Pelliter could hear him calling to them from a distance. They were in the edge of the forest when Deane met the Eskimos. There was a long wait, and then Deane and Little Mystery came back— on a sledge drawn by Eskimo dogs. Beside the sledge walked the chief who had been wounded in the cabin at Fullerton Point. Deane was swaying, his head was bowed half upon his breast, and the chief and another Eskimo were supporting him. He nodded to the right, and a hundred yards away they found a cabin. The powerful little northerners carried him in, still clutching Little Mystery in his arms, and he made a motion for Billy to follow him— alone. Inside the cabin they placed him on a low bunk, and with a weak cough he beckoned Billy to his side. MacVeigh knew what that cough meant. The sick man had suffered terrible exposure, and the tissue of his lungs was sloughing away. It was death, the most terrible death of the north.
For a few moments Deane lay panting, clasping one of Billy’s hands. Little Mystery slipped to the floor and began to investigate the cabin. Deane smiled into Billy’s eyes.
“You’ve come again— just in time,” he said, quite steadily. “Seems queer, don’t it, Billy?”
For the first time he spoke the other’s name as if he had known him a lifetime. Billy covered him over gently with one of the blankets, and in spite of himself his eyes sought about him questioningly. Deane saw the look.
“She didn’t come,” he whispered. “I left her—”
He broke off with a racking cough that brought a crimson stain to his lips. Billy felt a choking grief.
“You must be quiet,” he said. “Don’t try to talk now. You have no fire, and I will build one. Then I’ll make you something hot.”
He went to move away, but one of Deane’s hands detained him.
“Not until I’ve said something to you, Billy,” he insisted. “You know— you understand. I’m dying. It’s liable to come any minute now, and I’ve got to tell you— things. You must understand— before I go. I won’t be long. I killed a man, but I’m— not sorry. He tried to insult her— my wife— an’ you— you’d have killed him, too. You people began to hunt me, and for safety we went far north— among the Eskimos— an’ lived there— long time. The Eskimos— they loved the little girl an’ wife, specially little Isobel. Thought them angels— some sort. Then we heard you were goin’ to hunt for me— up there— among the Eskimos. So we set out with the box. Box was for her— to keep her from fearful cold. We didn’t dare take the baby— so we left her up there. We were going back— soon— after you’d made your hunt. When we saw your fire on the edge of the Barren she made me get in the box— an’ so— so you found us. You know— after that. You thought it was— coffin— an’ she told you I was dead. You were good— good to her— an’ you must go down there where she is, and take little Isobel. We were goin’ to do as you said— an’ go to South America. But we had to have the baby, an’ I came back. Should have told you. We knew that— afterward. But we were afraid— to tell the secret— even to you—”
He stopped, panting and coughing. Billy was crushing both his thin, cold hands in his own. He found no word to say. He waited, fighting to stifle the sobbing grief in his breath.
“You were good— good— good— to her,” repeated Deane, weakly, “You loved her— an’ it was right— because you thought I was dead an’ she was alone an’ needed help. I’m glad— you love her. You’ve been good— ’n’ honest— an I want some one like you to love her an’ care for her. She ain’t got nobody but me— an’ little Isobel. I’m glad— glad— I’ve found a man— like you!”
He suddenly wrenched his hands free and took Billy’s tense face between them, staring straight into his eyes.
“An’— an’— I give her to you,” he said. “She’s an angel, and she’s alone— needs some one— an’ you— you’ll be good to her. You must go down to her— Pierre Couchée’s cabin— on the Little Beaver. An’ you’ll be good to her— good to her—”
“I will go to her,” said Billy, softly. “And I swear here on my knees before the great and good God that I will do what an honorable man should do!”
Deane’s rigid body relaxed, and he sank back on his blankets with a sigh of relief.
“I worried— for her,” he said. “I’ve always believed in a God— though I killed a man— an’ He sent you here in time!” A sudden questioning light came into his eyes. “The man who stole little Isobel,” he breathed— “who was he?”
“Pelliter— the man out there— killed him when he came to the cabin,” said Billy. “He said his name was Blake— Jim Blake.”
“Blake! Blake! Blake!” Again Deane’s voice rose from the edge of death to a shriek. “Blake, you say? A great coarse sailorman, with red hair— red beard— yellow teeth like a walrus! Blake— Blake—” He sank back again, with a thrilling, half-mad laugh. “Then— then it’s all been a mistake— a funny mistake,” he said; and his eyes closed, and his voice spoke the words as though he were uttering them from out of a dream.
Billy saw that the end was near. He bent down to catch the dying man’s last words. Deane’s hands were as cold as ice. His lips were white. And then Deane whispered:
“We fought— I thought I killed him— an’ threw him into the sea. His right name was Samuelson. You knew him— by that name— but he went often— by Blake— Jim Blake. So— so— I’m not a murderer— after all. An’ he— he came back for revenge— and— stole— little— Isobel. I’m— I’m— not— a— murderer. You— you— will— tell— her. You’ll tell her— I didn’t kill him— after all. You’ll tell her— an’— be— good— good—”
He smiled. Billy bent lower.
“Again I swear before the good God that I will do what an honorable man should do,” he replied.
Deane made no answer. He did not hear. The smile did not fade entirely from his lips. But Billy knew that in this moment death had come in through the cabin door. With a groan of anguish he dropped Deane’s stiffening hand. Little Isobel pattered across the floor to his side. She laughed; and suddenly Billy turned and caught her in his arms, and, crumpled down there on the floor beside the one brother he had known in life, he sobbed like a woman.
XIII
THE TWO GODS
It was little Isobel who pulled MacVeigh together, and after a little he rose with her in his arms and turned her from the wall while he covered Deane’s face with the end of a blanket. Then he went to the door. The Eskimos were building fires. Pelliter was seated on the sledge a short distance from the cabin, and at Billy’s call he came toward him.
“If you don’t mind, you can take her over to one of the fires for a little while,” said Billy. “Scottie is dead. Try and make the chief understand,”
He did not wait for Pelliter to question him, but closed the door quietly and went back to Deane. He drew off the blanket and gazed for a moment into the still, bearded face.
“My Gawd, an’ she’s waitin’ for you, ’n’ looking for you, an’ thinks you’re coming back soon,” he whispered. “You ’n’ the kid!”
Reverently he began the task ahead of him. One after another he went into Deane’s pockets and drew forth what he found. In one pocket there was a small knife, some cartridges, and a match box. He knew that Isobel would prize these and keep them because her husband had carried them, and he placed them in a handkerchief along with other things he found. Last of all he found in Deane’s breast pocket a worn and faded envelope. He peered into the open end before he placed it on the little pile, and his heart gave a sudden throb when he saw the blue flower petals Isobel had given him. When he was done he crossed Deane’s hands upon his breast. He was tying the ends of the handkerchief when the door opened softly behind him.
The little dark chief entered. He was followed by four other Eskimos. They had left their weapons outside. They seemed scarcely to breathe as they ranged themselves in a line and looked down upon Scottie Deane. Not a sign of emotion came into their expressionless faces, not the flicker of an eyelash did the immobility of their faces change. In a low, clacking monotone they began to speak, and there was no expression of grief in their voices. Yet Billy understood now that in the hearts of these little brown men Scottie Deane stood enshrined like a god. Before he was cold in death they had come to chant his deeds and his virtues to the unseen spirits who would wait and watch at his side until the beginning of the new day. For ten minutes the monotone continued. Then the five men turned and without a word, without looking at him, went out of the cabin. Billy followed them, wondering if Deane had convinced them that he and Pelliter were his friends. If he had not done that he feared that there would still be trouble over little Isobel. He was delighted when he found Pelliter talking with one of the men.
“I’ve found a flunkey here whose lingo I can get along with,” cried Pelliter. “I’ve been telling ’em what bully friends we are, and have made ’em understand all about Blake. I’ve shaken hands with them all three or four times, and we feel pretty good. Better mix a little. They don’t like the idea of giving us the kid, now that Scottie’s dead. They’re asking for the woman.”
Half an hour later MacVeigh and Pelliter returned to the cabin. At the end of that time he was confident that the Eskimos would give them no further trouble and that they expected to leave Isobel in their possession. The chief, however, had given Billy to understand that they reserved the right to bury Deane.
Billy felt that he was now in a position where he would have to tell Pelliter some of the things that had happened to him on his return to Churchill. He had reported Deane’s death as having occurred weeks before as the result of a fall, and when he returned to Fort Churchill he knew that he would have to stick to that story. Unless Pelliter knew of Isobel, his love for her, and his own defiance of the Law in giving them their freedom, his comrade might let out the truth and ruin him.
In the cabin they sat down at the table. Pelliter’s arm was in a sling. His face was drawn and haggard and blackened by powder. He drew his revolver, emptied it of cartridges, and gave it to little Isobel to play with. He kept up his spirits among the Eskimos, but he made no effort to conceal his dejection now.
“I’ve lost her,” he said, looking at Billy. “You’re going to take her to her mother?”
“Yes.”
“It hurts. You don’t know how it’s goin’ to hurt to lose her,” he said.
MacVeigh leaned across the table and spoke earnestly.
“Yes, I know what it means, Pelly,” he replied. “I know what it means to love some one— and lose. I know. Listen.”
Quickly he told Pelliter the story of the Barren, of the coming of Isobel, the mother, of the kiss she had given him, and of the flight, the pursuit, the recapture, and of that final moment when he had taken the steel cuffs from Deane’s wrists. Once he had begun the story he left nothing untold, even to the division of the blue-flower petals and the tress of Isobel’s hair. He drew both from his pocket and showed them to Pelliter, and at the tremble in his voice there came a mistiness in his comrade’s eyes. When he had finished Pelliter reached across with his one good arm and gripped the other’s hand.
“An’ what she said about the blue flower is comin’ true, Billy,” he whispered. “It’s bringing happiness to you, just as she said, for you’re going down to her—”
MacVeigh interrupted him.
“No, it’s not,” he said, softly. “She loved him— as much as the girl down there will ever love you, Pelly, and when I tell her what has happened— her heart will break. That can’t bring happiness— for me!”
The hours of that day bore leaden weights for Billy. The two men made their plans. A number of the Eskimos agreed to accompany Pelliter as far as Eskimo Point, whence he would make his way alone to Churchill. Billy would strike south to the Little Beaver in search of Couchée’s cabin and Isobel. He was glad when night came. It was late when he went to the door, opened it, and looked out.
In the edge of the timber-line it was black, black not only with the gloom of night, but with the concentrated darkness of spruce and balsam and a sky so low and thick that one could almost hear the wailing swish of it overhead like the steady sobbing of surf on a seashore. It was black, save for the small circles of light made by the Eskimo fires, about which half a hundred of the little brown men sat or crouched. The masters of the camp were all awake, but twice as many dogs, exhausted and footsore, lay curled in heaps, as inanimate as if dead. There was present a strange silence and a strange and unnatural gloom that was not of the night alone, a silence broken only by the low moaning of the wind out on the Barren, the restlessness in the air above the tree-tops, and the crackling of the fires. The Eskimos were as motionless as so many dead men. Their round, expressionless eyes were wide open. They sat or crouched with their backs to the Barren, their faces turned into the still deeper blackness of the forest. Some distance away, like a star, there gleamed the small and steady light in the cabin window. For two hours the eyes of those about the fires had been fixed on that light. And at intervals there had risen from among the stony-faced watchers the little chief, whose clacking voice joined for a few moments each time the wailing of the wind, the swish of the low-hanging sky, and the crackling of the fires. But there was sound of no other voice or movement. He alone moved and spoke, for to the others the clacking sounds he made was speech, words spoken each time for the man who lay dead in the cabin.
A dozen times Pelliter and MacVeigh had looked out to the fires, and looked each time at the hour. This time Billy said:
“They’re moving, Pelly! They’re jumping to their feet and coming this way!” He looked at his watch again. “They’re mighty good guessers. It’s a quarter after twelve. When a chief or a big man dies they bury him in the first hour of the new day. They’re coming after Deane.”
He opened the door and stepped out into the night. Pelliter joined him. The Eskimos advanced without a sound and stopped in a shadowy group twenty paces from the cabin. Five of these little fur-clad men detached themselves from the others and filed into the cabin, with the chief man at their head. As they bent over Deane they began to chant a low monotone which awakened little Isobel, who sat up and stared sleepily at the strange scene. Billy went to her and gathered her close in his arms. She was sleeping again when he put her down among the blankets. The Eskimos were gone with their burden. He could hear the low chanting of the tribe.
“I found her, and I thought she was mine,” said Pelliter’s low voice at his side. “But she ain’t, Billy. She’s yours.”
MacVeigh broke in on him as though he had not heard.
“You better get to bed, Pelly,” he warned. “That arm needs rest. I’m going out to see where they bury him.”
He put on his cap and heavy coat and went as far as the door, then turned back. From his kit he took a belt-ax and nails.
The wind was blowing more strongly over the Barren, and MacVeigh could no longer hear the low lament of the Eskimos. He moved toward their fires, and found them deserted of men, only the dogs remained in their deathlike sleep. And then, far down the edge of the timber, he saw a flare of light. Five minutes later he stood hidden in a deep shadow, a few paces from the Eskimos. They had dug the grave early in the evening, out on the great snow-plain, free of the trees; and as the fire they had built lighted up their dark, round faces MacVeigh saw the five little black men who had borne forth Scottie Deane leaning over the shallow hole in the frozen earth. Scottie was already gone. The earth and ice and frozen moss were falling in upon him, and not a sound fell now from the thick lips of his savage mourners. In a few minutes the crude work was done, and like a thin black shadow the natives filed back to their camp. Only one remained, sitting cross-legged at the head of the grave, his long narwhal spear at his back. It was O-gluck-gluck, the Eskimo chief, guarding the dead man from the devils who come to steal body and soul during the first few hours of burial.
Billy went deeper into the forest until he found a thin, straight sapling, which he cut down with half a dozen strokes of his belt-ax. From the sapling he stripped the bark, and then he chopped off a third of its length and nailed it crosswise to what remained. After that he sharpened the bottom end and returned to the grave, carrying the cross over his shoulder. Stripped to whiteness, it gleamed in the firelight. The Eskimo watcher stared at it for a moment, his dull eyes burning darker in the night, for he knew that after this two gods, and not one, were to guard the grave. Billy drove the cross deep, and as the blows of his ax fell upon it the Eskimo slunk back until he was swallowed in the gloom. When MacVeigh was done he pulled off his cap. But it was not to pray.
“I’m sorry, old man,” he said to what was under the cross. “God knows I’m sorry. I wish you was alive. I wish you was going back to her— with the kid— instid o’ me. But I’ll keep that promise. I swear it. I’ll do— what’s right— by her.”
From the forest he looked back. The Eskimo chief had returned to his somber watch. The cross gleamed a ghostly white against the thick blackness of the Barren. He turned his face away for the last time, and there filled him the oppression of a leaden hand, a thing that was both dread and fear. Scottie Deane was dead— dead and in his grave, and yet he walked with him now at his side. He could feel the presence, and that presence was like a warning, stirring strange thoughts within him. He turned back to the cabin and entered softly. Pelliter was asleep. Little Isobel was breathing the sweet forgetfulness of childhood. He stooped and kissed her silken curls, and for a long time he stood with one of those soft curls between his fingers. In a few years more, he thought, it would be the darker gold and brown of the woman’s hair— of the woman he loved. Slowly a great peace entered into him. After all, there was more than hope ahead for him. She— the older Isobel— knew that he loved her as no other man in the world could love her. He had given proof of that. And now he was going to her.
XIV
THE SNOW-MAN
After his return from the scene of burial Billy undressed, put out the light, and went to bed. He fell asleep quickly, and his slumber was filled with many dreams. They were sweet and joyous at first, and he lived again his first meeting with the woman; he was once more in the presence of her beauty, her purity, her faith and confidence in him. And then more trouble visions came to him. He awoke twice, and each time he sat up, filled with the shuddering dread that had come to him at the graveside.
A third time he awakened, and he struck a match to look at his watch. It was four o’clock. He was still exhausted. His limbs ached from the tremendous strain of the fifty-mile race across the Barren, but he could no longer sleep. Something— he did not attempt to ask himself what it was— was urging him to action. He got up and dressed.
When Pelliter awoke two hours later MacVeigh’s pack and sledge were ready for the trip south. While they ate their breakfast the two men finished their plans. When the hour of parting came Billy left his comrade alone with little Isobel and went out to hitch up the dogs. When he returned there was a fresh redness in Pelliter’s eyes, and he puffed out thick clouds of smoke from his pipe to hide his face. MacVeigh thought of that parting often in the days that followed. Pelliter stood last in the door, and in his face was a look which MacVeigh wished that he had not seen. In his own heart was the dread and the fear, the thing which he could not name.
For hours he could not shake off the gloom that oppressed him. He strode at the head of old Kazan, the leader, striking a course due south by compass. When he fell back for the third time to look at little Isobel he found the child buried deep in her blankets sound asleep. She did not awake until he stopped to make tea at noon. It was four o’clock when he halted again to make camp in the shelter of a clump of tall spruce. Isobel had slept most of the day. She was wide awake now, laughing at him as he dug her out of her nest.
“Give me a kiss,” he demanded.
Isobel complied, putting her two little hands to his face.
“You’re a— a little peach,” he cried. “There ain’t been a whimper out of you all day. And now we’re going to have a fire— a big fire.”
He set about his work, whistling for the first time since morning. He set up his silk Service tent, cut spruce and balsam boughs until he had them a foot deep inside, and then dragged in wood for half an hour. By that time it was dark and the big fire was softening the snow for thirty feet around. He had taken off Isobel’s thick, swaddling coat, and the child’s pretty face shone pink in the fireglow. The light danced red and gold in her tangled curls, and as they ate supper, both on the same blanket, Billy saw opposite him more and more of what he knew he would find in the woman. When they had finished he produced a small pocket comb and drew Isobel close up to him. One by one he smoothed the tangles out of her curls, his heart beating joyously as the silken touch of them ran through his fingers. Once he had felt that same soft touch of the woman’s hair against his face. It had been an accidental caress, but he had treasured it in his memory. It seemed real again now, and the thrill of it made him place little Isobel alone again on the blanket, while he rose to his feet. He threw fresh fuel on the fire, and then he found that the warmth had softened the snow until it clung to his feet. The discovery gave him an inspiration. A warmth that was not of the fire leaped into his face, and he gathered up the softened snow, raking it into piles with a snow-shoe; and before Isobel’s astonished and delighted eyes there grew into shape a snow-man almost as big as himself. He gave it arms and a head, and eyes of charred wood, and when it was done he placed his own cap on the crown of it and his pipe in its mouth. Little Isobel screamed with delight, and together, hand in hand, they danced around and around it, just as he and the other girls and boys had danced years and years ago. And when they stopped there were tears of laughter and joy in the child’s eyes and a filmy mist of another sort in Billy’s.
It was the snow-man that brought back to him years and years of lost hopes. They flooded in upon him until it seemed as though the old life was the life of yesterday and waiting for him now just beyond the edge of the black forest. Long after Isobel was asleep in the tent he sat and looked at the snow-man; and more and more his heart sang with a new joy, until it seemed as though he must rise and cry out in the eagerness and hope that filled him. In the snow-man, slowly melting before the fire, there was a heart and a soul and voice. It was calling to him, urging him as nothing in the world had ever urged him before. He would go back to the old home down in God’s country, to the old playmates who were men and women now. They would welcome him— and they would welcome the woman. For he would take her. For the first time he made himself believe that she would go. And there, hand in hand, they would follow his boyhood footprints over the meadows and through the hills, and he would gather flowers for her in place of the mother that was gone, and he would tell her all the old stories of the days that were passed.
It was the snow-man!
XV
LE MORT ROUGE— AND ISOBEL
Until late that night Billy sat beside his campfire with the snow-man. Strange and new thoughts had come to him, and among these was the wondering one asking himself why he had never built a snow-man before. When he went to bed he dreamed of the snow-man and of little Isobel; and the little girl’s laughter and happiness when she saw the curious form the dissolving snow-man had taken in the heat of the fire when she awoke the following morning filled him again with those boyish visions of happiness that he had seen just ahead of him. At other times he would have told himself that he was no longer reasonable. After they had breakfasted and started on the day’s journey he laughed and talked with baby Isobel, and a dozen times in the forenoon he picked her up in his arms and carried her behind the dogs.
“We’re going home,” he kept telling her over and over again. “We’re going home— down to mama— mama— mama!” He emphasized that; and each time Isobel’s pretty mouth formed the word mama after him his heart leaped exultantly. By the end of that day it had become the sweetest word in the world to him. He tried mother, but his little comrade looked at him blankly, and he did not like it himself. “Mama, mama, mama,” he said a hundred times that night beside their campfire, and before he tucked her away in her warm blankets he said something to her about “Now I lay me down to sleep.” Isobel was too tired and sleepy to comprehend much of that. Even after she was deep in slumber and Billy sat alone smoking his pipe he whispered that sweetest word in the world to himself, and took out the tress of shining hair and gazed at it joyously in the glow of the fire. By the end of the next day little Isobel could say almost the whole of the prayer his own mother had taught him years and years and years ago, so far back that his vision of her was not that of a woman, but of an elusive and wonderful angel; and the fourth day at noon she lisped the whole of it without a word of assistance from him.
On the morning of the fifth day Billy struck the Gray Beaver, and little Isobel grew serious at the change in him. He no longer amused her, but urged the dogs along, never for an instant relaxing his vigilant quest for a sign of smoke, a trail, a blazed tree. At his heart there began to burn a suspense that was almost suffocating. In these last hours before he was to see Isobel there came the inevitable reaction within him. Gloom oppressed him where a little while before joyous anticipation had given him hope. The one terrible thought drove out all others now— he was bringing her news of death, her husband’s death. And to Isobel he knew that Deane had meant all that the world held of joy or hope— Deane and the baby.
It was like a shock when he came suddenly upon the cabin, in the edge of a small clearing. For a moment he hesitated. Then he took Isobel in his arms and went to the door. It was slightly ajar, and after knocking upon it with his fist he thrust it open and entered.
There was no one in the room in which he found himself, but there was a stove and a fire. At the end of the room was a second door, and it opened slowly. In another moment Isobel stood there. He had never seen her as he saw her now, with the light from a window falling upon her. She was dressed in a loose gown, and her long hair fell in disheveled profusion over her shoulders and bosom. MacVeigh would have cried out her name— he had told himself a hundred times what he would first say to her— but what he saw in her face startled him and held him silent while their eyes met. Her cheeks were flushed. Her lips burned an unnatural red. Her eyes were glowing with strange fires. She looked at him first, and her hands clutched at her bosom, crumpling the masses of her lustrous hair. Not until she had looked into his eyes did she recognize what he carried in his arms. When he held the child out to her she sprang forward with the strangest cry he had ever heard.
“My baby!” she almost shrieked. “My baby— my baby—”
She staggered back and sank into a chair near a table, with little Isobel clasped to her breast. For a time Billy heard only those words in her dry, sobbing voice as she crushed her burning face down against her child’s. He knew that she was sick, that it was fever which had sent the hot flush into her cheeks. He gulped hard, and went near to her. Trembling, he put out a hand and touched her. She looked up. A bit of that old, glorious light leaped into her eyes, the light which he had seen when in gratitude she had given him her lips to kiss.
“You?” she whispered. “You— brought her—”
She caught his hand, and the soft smother of her loose hair fell over it. He could feel the quick rise and fall of her bosom.
“Yes,” he said.
There was a demand in her face, her eyes, her parted lips. He went on, her hand clasping his tighter, until he could feel the swift beating of her heart. He had never thought that he could tell the story in as few words as he told it now, with more and more of the glorious light creeping into Isobel’s eyes. She stopped breathing when he told her of the fight in the cabin and the death of the man who had stolen little Isobel. A hundred words more brought him to the edge of the forest. He stopped there. But she still questioned him in silence. She drew him down nearer, until he could feel her breath. There was something terrible in the demand of her eyes. He tried to find words to say, but something rose up in his throat and choked him. She saw his effort.
“Go on,” she said, softly.
“And then— I brought her to you,” he said.
“You met him?”
Her question was so sudden that it startled him, and in an instant he had betrayed himself.
Little Isobel slipped to the floor, and Isobel stood up. She came near to him, as she came that marvelous night out on the Barren, and in her eyes there was the same prayer as she put her two hands up to him and looked straight into his face.
He thought it would be easier. But it was terrible. She did not move. No sound came from her tight-drawn lips as he told her of the meeting with Deane, and of her husband’s illness. She guessed what was coming before he had spoken it. At his words, telling of death, she drew away from him slowly. She did not cry out. Her only evidence that she had heard and understood was the low moan that fell from her lips. She covered her face with her hands and stood for a moment an arm’s length away, and in that moment all the force of his great love for her swept upon MacVeigh in an overwhelming flood. He opened his arms, longing to gather her into them and comfort her as he would have comforted a little child. In that love he would willingly have dropped dead at her feet if he could have given back to her the man she had lost. She raised her head in time to see his outstretched arms, she saw the love and the pleading in his face, and into her own eyes there leaped the fire of a tigress.
“You— you—” she cried. “It was you who killed him! He had done no wrong— save to protect me and avenge me from the insult of a brute! He had done no wrong. But the Law— your Law— set you after him, and you hunted him like a beast; you drove him from our home, from me and the baby. You hunted him until he died up there— alone. You— you killed him.”
With a sudden cry she turned and caught up little Isobel and ran toward the other door. And as she disappeared into the room from which she had first appeared Billy heard her moaning those terrible words.
“You— you— you—”
Like a man who had been struck a blow he swayed back to the outer door. Near his dogs and sledge he met Pierre Couchée and his half-French wife coming in from their trap line. He scarcely knew what explanation he gave to the half-breed, who helped him to put up his tent. But when the latter left to follow his wife into the cabin he said:
“She ess seek, ver’ seek. An’ she grow more seek each day until— mon Dieu!— my wife, she ess scare!”
He cut a few balsam boughs and spread out his blankets, but did not trouble to build a fire. When the half-breed returned to say that supper was waiting he told him that he was not hungry, and that he was going to sleep. He doubled himself up under his blankets, silent and staring, even neglecting to feed the dogs. He was awake when the stars appeared. He was awake when the moon rose. He was still awake when the light went out in Pierre Couchée’s cabin. The snow-man was gone from his vision— home and hope. He had never been hurt as he was hurt now. He was yet awake when the moon passed far over his head, sank behind the wilderness to the west, and blackness came. Toward dawn he fell into an uneasy slumber, and from that sleep he was awakened by Pierre Couchée’s voice.
When he opened his eyes it was day, and the half-breed stood at the opening of the tent. His face was filled with horror. His voice was almost a scream when he saw that MacVeigh was awake and sitting up.
“The great God in heaven!” he cried. “It is the plague, m’sieur— le mort rouge— the small pox! She is dying—”
MacVeigh was on his feet, gripping him by the arms.
He turned and ran toward the cabin, and Billy saw that the half-breed’s team was harnessed, and that Pierre’s wife was bringing forth blankets and bundles. He did not wait to question them, but hurried into the plague-stricken cabin. From the woman’s room came a low moaning, and he rushed in and fell upon his knees at her side. Her face was flushed with the fever, half hidden in the disheveled masses of her hair. She recognized him, and her dark eyes burned madly.
“Take— the baby!” she panted. “My God— go— go with her!”
Tenderly he put out a hand and stroked back her hair from her face.
“You are sick— sick with the bad fever,” he said, gently.
“Yes— yes, it is that. I did not think— until last night— what it might be. You— you love me! Then take her— take the baby and go— go— go!”
All his old strength came back to him now. He felt no fear. He smiled down into her face, and the silken touch of her hair set his heart leaping and the love into his eyes.
“I will take her out there,” he said. “But she is all right— Isobel.” He spoke her name almost pleadingly. “She is all right. She will not take the fever.”
He picked up the child and carried her out into the larger room. Pierre and his wife were at the door. They were dressed for travel, as he had seen them come in off the trap line the evening before. He dropped Isobel and sprang in front of them.
“What do you mean?” he demanded. “You are not going away! You cannot go!” He turned almost fiercely upon the woman. “She will die— if you do not stay and care for her. You shall not run away!”
“It is the plague,” said Pierre. “It is death to remain!”
“You shall stay!” said MacVeigh, still speaking to Pierre’s wife. “You are the one woman— the only woman— within a hundred miles. She will die without you. You shall stay if I have to tie you!”
With the quickness of a cat Pierre raised the butt of the heavy dog-whip which he held in his hand and it came down with a sickening thud on Billy’s head. As he staggered into the middle of the cabin floor, groping blindly for a moment before he fell, he heard a strange, terrified cry, and in the open inner door he saw the white-robed figure of Isobel Deane. Then he sank down into a pit of blackness.
It was Isobel’s face that he first saw when he came from out of that black pit. He knew that it was her voice calling to him before he had opened his eyes. He felt the touch of her hands, and when he looked up her loose, soft hair swept his breast. His head was bolstered up, and so he could look straight into her face. It frightened him. He knew now what she had been saying to him as he lay there upon the floor.
“You must get up! You must go!” he heard her mooning. “You must take my baby away. And you— you— must go!”
He pulled himself half erect, then rose to his feet, swaying a little. He came to her then, with the look in his face she had first seen out on the Barren when he had told her that he was going with her through the forest.
“No, I am not going away,” he said, firmly, and yet with that same old gentleness in his voice. “If I go you will die. So I am going to stay.”
She stared at him, speechless.
“You— you can’t,” she gasped, at last. “Don’t you see— don’t you understand? I’m a woman— and you can’t. You must take her— my baby— and go for help.”
“There is no help,” said MacVeigh, quietly. “Within a few hours you will be helpless. I am going to stay and— and— I swear to God I will care for you— as he— would have done. He made me promise that— to care for you— to stick by you—”
She looked straight into his eyes. He saw the twitching of her throat, the quiver of her lips. In another moment she would have fallen if he had not put a supporting arm about her.
“If— anything— happens,” she gasped, brokenly, “you will take care— of her— my baby—”
“Yes— always.”
“And if I— get well—”
Her head swayed dizzily and dropped to his breast.
“If I get— well—”
“Yes,” he urged. “Yes—”
“If I—”
He saw her struggle and fail.
“Yes, I know— I understand,” he cried, quickly, as she grew heavier in his arms. “If you get well I will go. I swear to do that. I will go away. No one will ever know— no one— in the whole world. And I will be good to you— and care for you—”
He stopped, brushed back her hair, and looked into her face. Then he carried her into the inner room; and when he came out little Isobel was crying.
“You poor little kid,” he cried, and caught her up in his arms. “You poor little—”
The child smiled at him through her tears, and Billy suddenly sat down on the edge of the table.
“You’ve been a little brick from the beginning, and you’re going to keep it up, little one,” he said, taking her pretty face between his two big hands. “You’ve got to be good, for we’re going to have a— a—” He turned away, and finished under his breath. “We’re going to have a devil of a time!”
XVI
THE LAW— MURDERER OF MEN
Seated on the table, little Isobel looked up into Billy’s face and laughed, and when the laugh ended in a half wail Billy found that his fingers had tightened on her little shoulder until they hurt. He tousled her hair to bring back her good-humor, and put her on the floor. Then he went back to the partly open door. It was quiet in the darkened room. He listened for a breath or a sob, and could hear neither. A curtain was drawn over the one window, and he could but indistinctly make out the darker shadow where Isobel lay on the bed. His heart beat faster as he softly called Isobel’s name. There was no answer. He looked back. Little Isobel had found something on the floor and was amusing herself with it. Again he called the mother, and still there was no answer. He was filled with a sort of horror. He wanted to go over to the dark shadow and assure himself that she was breathing, but a hand seemed to thrust him back. And then, piercing him like a knife, there came again those low, moaning words of accusation:
“It was you— it was you— it was you—”
In that voice, low and moaning as it was, he recognized some of Pelliter’s madness. It was the fever. He fell back a step and drew a hand across his forehead. It was damp, clammy with a cold perspiration. He felt a burning pain where he had been struck, and a momentary dizziness made him stagger. Then, with a tremendous effort, he threw himself together and turned to the little girl. As he carried her out through the door into the fresh air Isobel’s feverish words still followed him:
“It was you— you— you— you!”
The cold air did him good, and he hurried toward the tent with baby Isobel. As he deposited her among the blankets and bearskins the hopelessness of his position impressed itself swiftly upon him. The child could not remain in the cabin, and yet she would not be immune from danger in the tent, for he would have to spend a part of his time with her. He shuddered as he thought of what it might mean. For himself he had no fear of the dread disease that had stricken Isobel. He had run the risk of contagion several times before and had remained unscathed, but his soul trembled with fear as he looked into little Isobel’s bright blue eyes and tenderly caressed the soft curls about her face, If Couchée and his wife had only taken her! At thought of them he sprang suddenly to his feet.
“Looky, little one, you’ve got to stay here!” he commanded. “Understand? I’m going to pin down the tent-flap, and you mustn’t cry. If I don’t get that damned half-breed, dead or alive, my name ain’t Billy MacVeigh.”
He fastened the tent-flap so that Isobel could not escape, and left her alone, quiet and wondering. Loneliness was not new to her. Solitude did not frighten her; and, listening with his ear close to the canvas, Billy soon heard her playing with the armful of things he had scattered about her. He hurried to the dogs and harnessed them to the sledge. Couchée and his wife did not have over half an hour the start of him— three-quarters at the most. He would run the race of his life for an hour or two, overtake them, and bring them back at the point of his revolver. If there had to be a fight he would fight.
Where the trail struck into the forest he hesitated, wondering if he would not make better speed by leaving the team and sledge behind. The excited actions of the dogs decided him. They were sniffing at the scent left in the snow by the rival huskies, and were waiting eagerly for the command to pursue. Billy snapped his whip over their heads.
“You want a fight, do you, boys?” he cried. “So do I. Get on with you! M’hoosh! M’hoosh!”
Billy dropped upon his knees on the sledge as the dogs leaped ahead. They needed no guidance, but followed swiftly in Couchée’s trail. Five minutes later they broke into thin timber, and then came out into a narrow plain, dotted with stunted scrub, through which ran the Beaver. Here the snow was soft and drifted, and Billy ran behind, hanging to the tail-rope to keep the sledge from leaving him if the dogs should develop an unexpected spurt. He could see that Couchée was exerting every effort to place distance between himself and the plague-stricken cabin, and it suddenly struck Billy that something besides fear of le mort rouge was adding speed to his heels. It was evident that the half-breed was spurred on by the thought of the blow he had struck in the cabin. Possibly he believed that he was a murderer, and Billy smiled as he observed where Couchée had whipped his dogs at a run through the soft drifts. He brought his own team down to a walk, convinced that the half-breed had lost his head, and that he would bush himself and his dogs within a few miles. He was confident, now that he would overtake them somewhere on the plain.