CHAPTER VIII
The sun was up when Pete Sledge knocked on the kitchen door of Moosehead House. The door was locked. He knocked with his knuckles, then with a stick of stove-wood. It was Jard who at last unlocked and yanked open the door, but Miss Hassock wasn’t far behind him.
“What the devil?” cried Jard; and then, in milder tones, “So it’s yourself, Pete! Glad to see you, but what’s your hurry so early in the mornin’?”
“They got ’im!” exclaimed Pete. “They’ve got the stranger—them Danglers. I seen it, so I come a-jumpin’.”
“What’s that? Who? What stranger? Come along in here an’ set down an’ tell it right.”
“The sport. The lad with the trick pants. The feller who drug Joe Hinch out of bed the night of the fire. That’s who. I seen it.”
“Vane? Yer crazy! He’s in bed in this house, or if he ain’t he’d ought to be.”
“You’d better go see,” said Miss Hassock, turning to the stove and setting a match to the kindlings.
Jard ran. Pete sat down. Jard returned at top speed.
“He ain’t there!” he cried. “What was that you said, Pete? When did it happen? What did they do with him?”
“They picked him up, but I didn’t wait. Reckon they’re totin’ him back to Goose Crick this very minute. That’s where they’ll hide him—till they think up some slick way of losin’ him in the woods.”
“Say, Pete, you got this all straight now, have you? You ain’t been dreamin’ or nothin’ like that?”
“Don’t be a fool, Jard Hassock!” exclaimed Liza. “You got to do something now—simply got to—you and every man in this village. If you don’t, there’ll be murder done. Go tell the McPhees, and the Joneses and the Browns and the Wickets and the Haywards and the McKims and old man Pike—the whole bunch. Get your guns and pistols and light out for the Crick with a couple of teams quick’s the Lord’ll let you! But send Charlie McPhee, or some other lad with a fast horse, to Jim Bell’s to fetch him along too—and tell him to tell Jim to telephone over to Lover’s Glen for the deputy-sheriff. I’ll have coffee ready when you get back, Pete, you go too and help Jard stir ’em up. It’s got to be done this time, Jard—done and done for good and all—so it’s no use you scratchin’ your nose about it.”
“Reckon ye’re right, Liza,” admitted Jard reluctantly, “if Pete ain’t mistaken. But durn that Vane! Out runnin’ the woods all night, hey! Couldn’t he wait? Couldn’t he keep still till I’d thought out a way? Why the hell couldn’t he’ve let sleepin’ dogs lay?”
“Get out!” cried Liza. “Tell us that to-night. I’ll load your gun while you’re gone to scare up the men. Scare’s right.”
Half an hour later, Charlie McPhee set out in a red pung, behind a sorrel mare, for Jim Bell’s place a few miles below the village. Mr. Bell was the nearest constable. Half an hour after that again, two sleds set out for the Dangler settlement on Goose Creek. Each sled was drawn by a pair of horses, and crowded with men armed with many kinds and patterns of explosive weapons in their pockets and their hands. Snow was falling thick and soft and steady. There was not a breath of wind. The bells had been removed from the harness of both teams. The men whispered together, and peered nervously ahead and around into the glimmering, blinding veils of the snow. They spoke with lowered voices before the top of the hill was reached, as if those dangerous Danglers could hear their usual conversational tone across a distance of seven miles. They were not keen on their errand, not even the most daring and independent of them—but Liza Hassock had driven them to it. Liza had talked of murder, disgrace, and cowardice. She had threatened the most reluctant with ridicule, the law and even physical violence. She had sneered and jeered.
“I know your reasons for hanging back,” she had cried. “I know what’s at the bottom of all this ‘live and let live’ slush you’ve been handing out. One’s a reason of the heart—and that’s saying you’re afraid of the Danglers, that you’re cowards! An t’other is a reason of the gullet. Oh, I know! Now I’ll tell you men straight what’s going to happen if you don’t all crowd up to Goose Crick and save Mr. Vane. I’ll go to Fredricton, and if that’s not far enough I’ll go to Ottawa, and I’ll put such a crimp into that gin-mill up to Goose Crick that you’ll all be back to drinking lemon extract again, including Deacon Wicket. That’s what will happen! That will fix the moonshining Danglers, and then you’ll have to go farther and pay more for your liquor. That’ll fix ’em!—the whole b’ilin’ of them; murderers and moonshiners and bootleggers and all!”
Liza had won. Even Deacon Wicket had joined the rescue party with a double-barrelled shotgun.
Jard Hassock drove the leading team. The big, mild horses jogged along without a suspicion of the significance of their errand. Perhaps they wondered mildly why so numerous a company rode each ample sled—but it isn’t likely. Certain it is that they did not so much as guess that they were taking part in an historic event, lending their slow muscles and big feet to the breaking of a century-old tyranny, bumping forward through the obscuring snow to the tragedy that was to flash the modest names of Forkville and Goose Creek before the eyes of the world. Well, what they didn’t know, or even suspect, didn’t hurt them. Perhaps they missed the cheery jangle of their bells, and so sensed something unusual in their morning’s task—but if so they showed no sign of it.
The leading team drew up at the nearest Dangler farmhouse and the second team passed on silently toward the second house. Jard opened the kitchen door, and beheld Jerry Dangler and his wife and children at table eating buckwheat pancakes.
“Seen anything of a stranger round here named Vane?” asked Jard.
“Nope,” replied Jerry. “Never heard tell of him. What’s he done?”
“He’s got himself in a nasty mess, an’ there’s a bunch of us out a-lookin’ for him. He’s been hit on the head an’ drug away somewheres. We got to hunt through your house an’ barn, Jerry.”
“Go to it. You won’t find no stranger here. I’ll show you round the barns.”
“You set right there an’ go ahead with your breakfast, Jerry. Sammy, you keep an eye on him, and see that he don’t disturb himself. Hold your gun like this. That’s right. But don’t shoot onless you got to. Hunt around, boys. Four of you out to the barn. Upstairs, some of you.”
Pete Sledge was not in evidence among the searchers. He had slipped from the sled and vanished into the murk of snowfall, all unnoticed, just before the house had been reached.
The first farmstead was searched without success. The men of the second team drew a blank at the second house. Jard and his crew drove on to the third house of the settlement. There he found a Dangler with two grownup sons and a hang-over; and but for his firmness there would have been a fight.
“We got you cold, boys,” said Jard. “We mean business. Set still an’ be good or there’ll maybe be a funeral you ain’t figgerin’ on.”
The retort of the householders sounded bad, but there was nothing else to it. Young McPhee and the constable drove up at about this time. The snow was still spinning down moist and thick through the windless air. The searchers went from house to house, appearing suddenly out of the blind gray and white weather at the very door, as unexpected as unwelcome. No warning passed ahead of them. Even old Luke Dangler was caught in his sock-feet, smoking beside the kitchen stove, all unbraced and unready. When he realized the nature of Jard’s visit and the futility of physical resistance, the swift darkening of his eyes and the graying pucker of his mouth were daunting things to behold. He denied all knowledge of the whereabouts or fate of the stranger. He denied it with curses which caused profound uneasiness to the spirits of several of Forkville’s substantial citizens. Doubts assailed them as to the soundness of Miss Hassock’s judgment and the wisdom of their course. They wondered if the life of any one stranger could possibly be worth the risk they were taking. They and their fathers had put up with the habits and customs of the Danglers of Goose Creek for over one hundred years. This attitude had acquired the dignity of a tradition. Was it wise to break with tradition now on the question of whether or not a stranger in trick pants and a fancy mackinaw were dead or alive?
Nothing of Vane was discovered on or about old Luke’s premises. Then the deputy sheriff of the county appeared suddenly in the midst of the searchers. He drew Jard Hassock aside and asked for a description of the missing stranger. Jard complied; and the official nodded his head alertly.
“That’s him, for sure,” he said. “The gent from Ottawa. I’ve been kinder expectin’ him down this way a long time. Big man. One of the biggest. We got to find him, Jard—an’ what he come lookin’ for, too. This is serious. Old Luke Dangler guessed right.”
“Not on your life he didn’t! I know Vane. He’s half New York an’ half London. He come to buy a horse of the old Eclipse strain of blood.”
“Say, you’re easy! You don’t know the big fellers, Jard. Maybe’s he’s from New York and London, but that don’t say he ain’t from Ottawa, too. This outfit’s been picked to be made a horrible example of, that’s what—so I reckon it’s about time for me to start in doin’ my duty.”
So the deputy sheriff, fired with professional zeal which burned all the more fiercely now for having so long lain dormant, searched for more than the missing stranger, while the constable and the men of Forkville stood guard over the men of Goose Creek. The hog-house had only one chimney—but the deputy sheriff discovered a secret door, and a second lead running into that chimney, and a distillery at the foot of the second lead. Not content with that, he went ahead and found whisky from Quebec in the haymows.
Old Luke Dangler was handcuffed. His tough old heart came within an ace of clicking off with rage at the indignity of it. The firearms from all the houses of the settlement were confiscated. The men were counted and the tally was found to be two short. Henry Dangler and his son Steve were missing. Everyone denied all knowledge of their whereabouts. More than this, the young woman called Joe could not be found. When old Luke was questioned about her, he answered with inarticulate snarls of his gray lips and a flicker of derision and hate from his darkened eyes.
The leaders were in old Luke’s house, and the crowd stood in front of it, with sentries posted all around it. Amos Dangler stood in the door, jeering. Snow continued to spin down from the low gray clouds.
“We got to find Vane,” said Jard Hassock. “They’ve drug him back somewhere—to lose him. That’s your old game, Amos. I don’t give a damn about this rum, but we got to find the stranger.”
“My game!” sneered Amos. “You say so now, do you—an’ scart to open yer mouth for nigh onto twenty years!”
“And what about Joe,” queried one of the McPhees. “I reckon she’s the one we’re worryin’ about.”
“She’s run back to old Dave Hinch, that’s what she’s done,” said Jard. “Nobody’s tryin’ to lose her. But it’s good night to Vane if we don’t find him before dark. We’d best scatter an’ hunt the woods. I know their dirty, sneakin’ tricks.”
“What do you know, Jard Hassock?” asked Amos, stepping from the doorway and advancing slowly upon the proprietor of Moosehead House. “You’ve found yer tongue all of a suddent, hey? Well, it’s a dirty tongue—an’ I don’t like it—an’ I’m a-goin’ to knock it down yer dirty throat, along with yer teeth.”
“Now that’s fightin’ talk,” said Jard.
“There’ll be no fightin’ here, Amos Dangler!” exclaimed the constable. “You git back there into the house, Amos—an’ you keep quiet, Jard. The law’ll do all the fightin’ that’s got to be done.”
Men closed in upon the angry voices, hoping that Amos and Jard might clash with fists and teeth despite the professional attitude of the constable. They wanted to see a fight. They saw more than enough of that sort of thing to last them a lifetime.
Pete Sledge appeared from the obscurity of the weaving snow. He had been forgotten by all. He jumped in between Jard Hassock and Amos Dangler. He had an axe in his hands. Amos retreated a step.
“My God! Didn’t I kill you once, long ago?” cried Pete.
“In yer eye,” sneered Amos, fumbling at the front of his coat with an unmittened hand. “It’s daytime, you poor nut! Run home to bed.”
“But I killed you!”
“Maybe—in yer mind.”
Pete’s arms twitched even as Amos Dangler’s right hand came away from the front of his coat. The axe flew even as the automatic pistol spat a red jab of flame. The axe struck and the pistol spat again in the same instant of time. Dangler staggered backward and screamed before he fell, but poor Pete Sledge dropped without a sound. That was the end of that old trouble—unless it has been continued elsewhere, beyond the field of vision of Forkville and Goose Creek.
CHAPTER IX
Far away in the broken hut in the snow-blinded forest, Robert Vane gazed in perplexity at the useless webs which Joe held up for his inspection.
“How did I do that?” he asked. “I don’t remember anything of that sort.”
“You didn’t do it,” she answered. “It was done by the Danglers—my relatives.”
“But I don’t understand. And why did they leave me here—with the cord at my wrists so loose that I slipped my hands free? Why didn’t they do me in for keeps, if they feel that way about me?”
The girl let her snowshoes fall with a clatter.
“They did for you,” she said. “They knew nothing about me. When they tore the webbing they killed you as surely as if they had cut your throat—as far as they knew. You have no compass, no food, no matches, no blankets, no snowshoes—nothing. You are weak—for they have hurt you. You are lost—and the snow is deep and still falling. You are lost. They lost you.”
“I see. You have saved my life.”
“I know the way out; and I have matches, but nothing to eat—and nothing to mend your rackets with.”
“How far is it?”
“About seven miles to the nearest clearing—by the right way. By any other way—hundreds of miles! But I know the right one.”
“Seven miles. That’s not far. Two hours—or so. When shall we start? But you must be tired out. Of course you are!”
“I don’t believe I’d know the marks in this storm. It will thin up in a few hours, I think. Are you feeling better?”
“Right as rain,” he said, scrambling to his feet. He staggered a step, stood swaying and propped an arm to the nearest wall for support. He misjudged the distance, or the length of his arm, and would have fallen but for her. She sprang to him, embraced him and eased him to the floor. “But still a trifle dizzy,” he added.
She crouched beside him, with a shoulder to steady him, but with her face averted.
“Any chance of their returning to see how I am doing?” he asked.
She shook her head. “They are too clever for that,” she replied. “They will go to the village, and then home. People will see them and talk to them. They have traveled away from here as fast as they could, and left everything to—to nature.”
“But a man doesn’t starve to death in a few hours, nor in a few days. Suppose I simply sat here until a search-party found me?”
“Alone? As they intended. Without fire? You would freeze to death before a search-party was thought of.”
He felt in all his pockets. “That’s right,” he said. “All my matches are gone, and my pistol and ammunition—but they’ve left my cigarettes. Without a single match, confound them! But what if I had struck right out and happened on the right way? That would have upset their calculations, I imagine.”
“The snow is deep; to your hips, in places—and deeper. Even if you happened on the right way, and happened to keep it in this storm—which could not be—you would have no chance. Weak, and without help, and without a fire to rest by! You could not travel half of seven miles. But I have matches; and I know the way. I can help you.”
“I need help, heaven knows!” he said. “And I’m glad it is you.”
After a silence of several seconds she replied, “I’m glad, too.”
She left him, gathered some old boughs from a bunk, tore strips of bark from the logs of the wall and made a fire on the rough hearth. She tore poles from the fallen patch of roof, broke the smaller of them, and fed them to the fire. She helped him over to a corner near the hearth and gave him a match for his cigarette. She had plenty of matches, a large jack-knife and hairpins in her pockets.
“I can stand a lot of this,” said Vane. “The men who thought they could kill me this way are fools.”
Joe searched about the hut, found a rusty tin kettle at last and went out into the spinning snow. Vane felt a chill, whether physical or spiritual he did not know, the moment the warped door closed between them. He got to his feet, moved unsteadily and painfully to the door and pulled it open. He saw her through the veils of the snow descending the cleared slope before the hut and watched the slender figure until it melted into a dark screen of alders. His legs and arms ached; his ribs and head were sore; and his throat ached and his lips were parched; but his heart was elated.
She returned with the kettle full of chips of ice which she had hacked from the surface of the brook with her knife. She melted this at the fire and cooled it in the heap of snow under the break in the roof. They drank it together, turn and turn about. Vane felt much better for it.
“It’s queer to think that you wasted all that game with your ankle,” he said. “All that effort to make me promise to run away—all that successful effort—thrown away!”
“And worse than thrown away,” she answered. “If I hadn’t done that perhaps you would not have been ambushed.”
“I am glad you tricked me into carrying you on my back,” he returned gravely. “I don’t regret the ambush, the bump on the head, the thumps and kicks—anything. The fact is——”
“I wonder if you promised a horse to that young lady?” she interrupted.
“I did. How did you guess? And her brother bet a thousand dollars I wouldn’t find anything of the blood of Eclipse in these woods. But all that doesn’t matter. It all seems rather idiotic to me now. The real meaning of all this—of my coming to this country—is—well, I struck town just in time to pull you out of a fire, didn’t? And I didn’t even stop to take a look at what I had saved! Good Lord! And now you are saving my life; and even horses of the blood of Eclipse don’t seem so important to me now. It can’t be just chance that——”
“Aren’t you forgetting something?”
“No fear! I haven’t forgotten a word you have said, nor a single——”
“But your mother—and the woman you promised the horse to!”
“I shall give her the horse, if I get it. But it doesn’t matter much, either way.”
“You asked her to be your wife.”
“Twice, I believe—but she said she wouldn’t.”
“She wouldn’t! Why?”
“Why should she? I’m poor.”
“Poor? And yet you wagered one thousand dollars that you’d find a horse of a certain strain of blood up here in these woods!”
“A sporting bet; and I have a thousand.”
“But you love her.”
“You are wrong. I thought I did, once or twice—or thought I thought I did. It was all a matter of thinking, as I see it now. But it doesn’t matter. Do you—are you—do you love someone?”
“What?”
“Do you love somebody?”
“I think—yes.”
“Think? Don’t you know?”
“Yes—I know.”
“Are you happy about it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is it wise?”
“I—I don’t think so. I’m sure it is not.”
“Good God! That fellow who came to see me! That—that——”
“What do you mean?”
“Steve Dangler.”
“Do you mean that? Do you think I love Steve Dangler?”
“But haven’t you just said so?”
She shook her head and turned her face away.
“Forgive me, please,” he whispered. “It’s your duty to forgive me, don’t you know—for I saved your life and you are saving mine. Joe, please look at me. It is your own fault that I—well, why did you pretend to hurt your ankle? Is it fair to walk miles and miles after a man in the woods at night, to save his life, and then to be angry with him for—for telling you the truth?”
“What truth have you told me?” she asked unsteadily, still with averted face.
“You are the dearest person in the world! You are the——”
She got swiftly and lightly to her feet, crossed to the door and opened it, then stood looking out. Vane sighed. Presently the girl turned, but she did not look at him.
“It is thinning,” she said. “I think we had better make a start now. It is clear enough for me to see the landmarks.”
She fastened on her rackets, and picked up the rusty kettle. Vane buttoned his outer coat, drew on his mittens, pulled his cap down about his ears and hoisted himself to his feet. “I’m ready,” he said.
The girl stepped out into the thinning snowfall, glanced back, glanced around, then moved off slowly. Vane followed. He stepped from the threshold and sank to his knees. His next step sank deeper. He plunged ahead, conscious of a protest from every bone in his body. But that did not dismay him. He had lifted his feet before against protests. His head felt clear now, and that was a great thing; and his heart felt like a strong engine in perfect running order. As for his bones, he was sure that none of them was broken. So he plowed forward in the tracks of the girl’s narrow webs.
They descended the little clearing, and entered the screen of alders along the brook. The snow took him to the hips there, and deeper. He plunged, stuck, plunged again and plowed through. The girl turned and watched his efforts for a few seconds with veiled eyes, then turned to her front again, and passed across the brook. Vane staggered in the shallower snow of the brook, fell to his hands and knees and came up again in a flash. He set his teeth and struggled forward. Halfway up the opposite bank he stuck fast. He struggled without a word. It was no use; so he rested, without a word. Joe came back to him and, without looking at him, took his hands and pulled him forward. He seconded her efforts ably, and was soon through that drift. She withdrew one hand from his grasp, but he kept hold of the other.
“I was afraid you had changed your mind,” he said.
“So I have,” she answered coolly.
“Surely not! You came back and pulled me out. You still mean to save my life, evidently.”
“Oh, that! Yes, I’ll save your life”—and she snatched her hand away.
Vane followed again. His heart didn’t feel so high now. In fact, it felt far worse than his knees and shoulders and ribs. He thought back and wondered at his dear companion of the hut as if at some beautiful experience of his childhood. He made one hundred yards, two hundred, two-fifty, before striking another drift. He struggled with the drift in a desperate silence. He got halfway through. She turned and came back to him.
“I’m all right,” he said. “With you in two ticks.”
She searched for his hands, but his were not extended in response. She came closer and pulled at his shoulders.
“I can manage it, thanks all the same,” he said.
“But you know you can’t!” she cried.
He squirmed free of her hands and clear of the drift, leaving her behind him. But her tracks were still in front for a distance of twenty yards or more; so he plowed his way onward without a backward glance. She ran past him and again led the way. He followed—but he fell at last, all in. He felt her arms, her hands. She was trying to raise him from the smothering snow. He pulled himself to his knees.
“I can do it—thanks,” he said. “I must rest—a minute.”
He didn’t look at her.
“Now take my hands,” she said, after a few minutes of silence and inaction.
“I can manage it, thanks all the same,” he said.
“But you can’t! You must let me help you!”
“No, thanks.”
“But—what else can you do?”
“The other thing—whatever it is.”
“Don’t be a fool!”
“Why not?”
“Then I shall light a fire.”
“I’m warm enough, thank you, but if you’ll give me a few of your matches I’ll be tremendously obliged.”
She gave him matches without a glance, and then went away. He lit a cigarette. Presently she reappeared, carrying bark and dry brush. She dug a hole in the snow and lit a fire at the bottom of it. Using a racket for a shovel, she enlarged the hole around the fire into a considerable hollow.
“It is turning colder,” she said. “You must come in here until you are rested.”
He obeyed slowly, painfully. She placed a few green fir boughs for him to sit on, and a few beside him for herself.
“It has almost stopped snowing,” she said. “If a wind comes up it will drift frightfully, and that will be worse than the snowfall.”
“How far have we come?” he asked.
“Nearly a mile,” she answered.
“I wish you would go on alone,” he said. “Without me you’d do it before the wind rises; and then, if you should happen to see Jard Hassock or someone who wouldn’t mind coming back for me, he’d find me waiting right here—if it isn’t too much trouble.”
“Trouble!” she cried, turning a stricken, outraged look at him; and then she hid her face in her hands and shook with sobs.
He slipped an arm around her.
“Why did you turn on me?” he asked. “In the hut you were—very kind. Why did you change—and treat me like a dog?”
She continued to hide her face and sob. His arm tightened.
“I said you were the dearest person in the world,” he continued. “You are—to me. You are the dearest person in the world.”
“You—have no right—to say that.”
“Then whoever has a right to stop me had better make haste. I love you, Joe! Make the worst of that. I love you! Now run away and leave me sticking here in the snow.”
“But—the woman who sent you—after a horse?”
“Bless her for that! She was kinder to me than she intended to be. Look at me, Joe.”
She looked at him.
CHAPTER X
They put a mile and a half between that fire and the next. Vane was no longer weakening. He was strengthening in heart, muscles and spirit gradually but steadily, despite the drag of the snow on his legs and a decided sense of neglect under his belt. He was working back to the pink of condition, throwing off at every forward step something of the effects of his difficult journey with the Danglers. He was recovering by those very efforts which his enemies had reckoned on to work his undoing. But the young woman was tiring. It was Vane who gathered fuel and cleared away the snow and built the third fire. They rested there for twenty minutes, seated close together. She snuggled her head against his shoulder and slept a little.
The snowfall had ceased by that time, the close gray blanket of cloud had thinned everywhere, had been lifted from the horizon at one corner, and now a desolate and subdued illumination seeped across the white and black world. The air, still motionless, was now dry and bitterly cold.
During the third stage of their homeward journey, Joe dragged her snowshoes heavily, and her pulls on Vane’s hands became feebler at every drift. She was sleepy, bone-tired and weak with hunger. Backwoods girl though she was, she was not seasoned to hardship as was her companion. But she continued to recognize the landmarks of the right way.
Their halts and little fires fell more and more frequently and closer and closer together. At last a bitter lash of wind struck and sent a thin wisp of snow glinting and running like spray. They came upon a narrow wood road well beaten by hoofs and bob-sled shoes beneath the four-inch skim of new snow.
“Which way?” asked Vane.
She pointed. “Straight to Larry Dent’s place,” she said.
Then he removed her webs, crouched and hitched her up on his back. She made no protest. “This is how I save your life,” she said, and instantly closed her eyes in sleep. Her arms were about his neck. They clung tight even in her sleep. Her cheek was against his ear. He staggered several times, but he hadn’t far to go. As he reached the kitchen door—the only door—of Larry Dent’s little gray habitation, an icy wind swooped down from the shuddering treetops and filled the whole world with a white suffocation of snow. He pushed open the door, staggered across the threshold, and stumbled to his knees at the large feet of the dumbfounded Mrs. Dent, with his precious burden still secure and asleep on his back.
“See what’s blew in,” said Larry, who was seated beside the stove smoking his pipe. “Shet the door,” he added.
Joe awoke and slipped from Vane’s shoulders. Vane remained on hands and knees, breathing deep. Mrs. Dent pulled herself together, went over, and shut the door against the flying drift. Larry shook the ashes from his pipe, and said. “Glad to see you, Miss Hinch; an’ also yer friend—or is he a hoss?”
Then Joe began to laugh and cry; and, still laughing and crying, she ran to Vane and helped him into a rocking chair, and kissed him again and again right there in front of the Dents.
Having left the stranger in the hut with the broken roof, bruised and unconscious and fatigued, without food or water or blankets or matches or snowshoes, in complete ignorance of the one right way of a hundred wrong ones of escape from that place, Henry Dangler and his big son Steve made straight for Forkville. The snow blotted out their tracks behind them. They visited half a dozen places in the village, including two stores, the forge and the hotel, and were puzzled to encounter only women and children. They asked where the men had gone to, and were puzzled by the answers of the women and children.
“There’s somethin’ wrong,” said Hen.
“It sure looks like it,” agreed Steve. “That dang old Hassock woman had a mean slant to her eye.”
They headed for the settlement on Goose Creek with a growing uneasiness in their tough breasts. They took the road, for it was the shortest way. The new snow had filled up the tracks of the sleds and also of the pung in which young McPhee had brought the constable. They hadn’t gone far before they were startled by a jangle of silvery bells close behind them, sounding suddenly out of the muffling now. They leapt aside into the underbrush and crouched and turned. They saw a large man, white as wool, slip by in a pung behind a long-gaited nag. He was there and past in a dozen seconds. He had sat hunched forward as if bowed by the weight of snow on him. He had not looked to the right or the left.
“The deputy sheriff,” whispered Henry to his son.
“Hell!” whispered Steve.
“Guess we were too late.”
“Guess so. What’ll we do now?”
“Reckon I’ll go along an’ see what’s happened. Maybe the old man will trick ’em yet.”
“You best come back with me, pa. I jist thought of somethin’ that’ll maybe work out all right.”
“Back where to? What you thought of, Steve?”
“Back to where we left that feller, an’ save his blasted life! He ain’t seen us, nor heard our voices. He don’t know who beaned ’im and drug ’im around. Let’s go back an’ save his damn life and git in right with him.”
“No use, Steve! He’d be lost an’ froze dead before we could git there—even if we could find him. He’s the kind will bust right out of the hut the minute he gits his wits back—right out into the storm on his busted rackets—an’ git to runnin’ around in a circle inside ten minutes. That’s his kind. Mind how he jumped us, an’ him tied an’ blindfolded? A fightin’ fool! When he sticks in a drift he’ll tear the woods to pieces—an’ himself. We’d be too late, Steve. Reckon we best forgit all about that business. Reckon we’re in for trouble enough without goin’ back an’ foolin’ around that section of the woods.”
“I guess he won’t—I guess he’s tougher’n you figger on. I’m goin’ back, anyhow.”
So Steve headed back for the hut with the broken roof by the shortest way through the blinding curtains of moist snow. Steve was a smart woodsman under normal conditions—but now the conditions were not normal. Never before had he traveled far in so thick a fall of snow. Never before had he undertaken a journey alone with panic in his heart and doubt in his mind. He had gone a mile before being conscious of the panic and the doubt. After that, they grew with devilish rapidity.
Steve didn’t find the hut wherein he and his father had left the stranger. He didn’t come within miles of it. At last the snow ceased to fall; and soon after that—or was it an hour after?—he came upon a hole in the snow and the ashes and black sticks of a spent fire in the bottom of the hole. The ashes were still warm. These things puzzled and frightened him. He gave up all thought of finding the hut. He walked for a long time, walked meaningless miles, beneath a clearing sky, looking for familiar landmarks. Suddenly a bitter wind swooped down and filled earth and sky with flying snow.
Mrs. Dent put Joe to bed. The girl fell into a deep sleep—but she woke up a little later for long enough to drink and eat from a bountiful tray and answer a few of Mrs. Dent’s eager and illuminating questions. Robert Vane took a few snatches of sleep in the rocking chair, and talked and smoked and drank tea between naps. He answered questions as they came, without thought or care. He felt fine. He loved the whole world, but this part of it more than the rest of it. And when supper was ready he pulled his chair up to the table, and drank coffee as if he had never heard of tea, and ate buckwheat pancakes and fried pork and hot biscuits and doughtnuts and Washington pie. There was nothing the matter with Robert Vane. Everything was right with him.
The wind swished around the corners of the little house, harsh and heavy with its burdens of dry snow. It slashed the roof and lashed the blinded windows and shouldered the door. It whistled in the chimney and under the eaves; and from the surrounding forest came the muffled roar of it like surf along a reef.
“Hark!” exclaimed Mrs. Dent. “What was that?”
“The wind,” said Larry. “Did you expect a brass band?”
The old dog got onto his feet and cocked an ear.
“Rover heard it. There it is again! Hark! Like someone yellin’.”
Larry went to the door and pulled it open. Wind and snow leapt in, the fire roared in the stove, the flame of the lamp jumped high and vanished and the old dog cowered back under the table and howled.
“Shut that door!” screamed Mrs. Dent; and Larry shut it.
Vane struck a match, and lit the lamp.
“I didn’t hear anything but the wind,” he said.
“I guess that’s what it was, all right—but it sure did sound like someone hollerin’, once or twice,” said the woman.
CHAPTER XI
The luck of the Danglers went wrong all at once. They got what was due them and overdue them suddenly and swiftly, no mistake about that! Old Luke and two others were caught in the coils of the law with enough loops over them to hold them for years, and the still and the stock were confiscated. Old Luke had money, but it availed him nothing now. And Amos was dead—and none the less so because poor Pete Sledge’s queer life had also suffered a violent and sudden conclusion. And young Steve Dangler was missing. Steve had been last seen by his father, on the day of the raid, on the road between Forkville and Goose Creek. Days passed without further sign of him or any word of him. Even Miss Hassock was sorry for the Danglers. Though she believed that nothing was too bad for them, she felt that this deluge of disaster might better have been thinned over a period of several years, thus offering opportunities for remorse and perhaps for reform.
Robert Vane, the engine which had been selected by fate for the undoing of the Danglers, did not permit pity for the men who had plotted his death to halt his activities. The obstacles to his inspection of old Luke’s stables having been removed with the removal of the old breeder, Vane went ahead in that matter, advised by Jard. They did business with an elderly spinster, a daughter of Luke’s, who had the old ruffian’s power-of-attorney, but none of his pride in, and jealousy of, the horses of the ancient strain. They found several bays with white legs among the fast ones, and selected a colt going on three, after a searching examination. The price was four hundred dollars, which Vane paid with banknotes.
“An’ what about the pedigree?” asked Jard. “The old man kept a stud-book, for I’ve seen it.”
“He took it away with him,” said Miss Dangler. “If you want that colt’s pedigree you gotter go to jail for it.” She scowled at Vane defiantly, then turned suddenly and burst into tears.
Vane was sorry for her, but he couldn’t think of a word of comfort to say to her. He was embarrassed. He looked to Jard for help.
“Now don’t take on about that,” said Jard in a soothing voice. “There’s worse places than jail, Miss Nancy, an’ there’s been better men in jail than Luke Dangler.”
For some reason which was not clear to Vane, these words quieted the woman. She dried her eyes with the back of a large hand.
“I reckon ye’re right, Jard Hassock,” she said.
“If the colt turns out half as well as I expect him to, he’s worth more than four hundred,” said Vane; and, before Jard could stop his hand, he slipped another bill to her.
“Maybe he’ll show you the book,” she said, yet more softened. “But what’s the use of a pedigree, young man? Why d’you want somethin’ with a colt you don’t ask for with a human? They tell me you be lookin’ to marry Joe Hinch—my own niece, an’ own blood granddaughter to old Luke Dangler an’ old Dave Hinch! Now what kinder pedigree d’ye call that, mister?”
“She hasn’t asked for mine, and I don’t give a damn if all her grandparents are devils!” exclaimed Vane. “I know her—and she’s what I want!”
Miss Dangler smiled for the first time. “I reckon ye’re right,” she said.
On the day of the great adventure in the snowstorm, Joe had promised to marry Robert Vane in two weeks’ time.
Joe lived at the McPhees now, with her Grandfather Hinch; and Vane, still the occupant of the state chamber of Moosehead House, spent charmed hours of every day and evening with her. She had dropped the last shred of doubt of his sincerity during the last few hours of their battle toward Larry Dent’s sheltering roof. They argued sometimes as to which had saved the other’s life that day, only to agree that neither could have won through alive without the heroic devotion of the other. The days and nights slipped along like enchantment toward the great day. Vane lived in a world as new as dawn to him, a world which he had sometimes in the past vaguely suspected and vaguely longed for, a world unlike anything he had ever known.
One midnight, having returned from the McPhees’ at ten o’clock and yarned with Jard for an hour and then smoked alone by his fire for another hour, Vane was startled from his reveries by the slow and silent opening of his door. He got lightly to his feet. A man entered, and cautiously shut the door. It was an old man, bent a trifle at knees and neck, broad-shouldered and white-bearded, wearing an old felt hat pulled low over the forehead. He was a stranger to Vane. He laid a finger on his lip and advanced.
“What do you want?” asked Vane. “And who are you?”
“Not so loud!” cautioned the other in a horse whisper. “I ain’t come for any harm—but there’s no call to wake up Liza Hassock. ’Scuse me if I set down. I’m Luke Dangler.”
Vane pointed him to a chair, and resumed his own seat.
“I thought you were in jail in Fredericton,” he said, in guarded tones.
“So I was, but I got out an’ run for it. I been home to Goose Crick. Now look-a-here, mister, was one of my horses what you come onto this country after? Tell me that now, straight!”
“I came to try to buy a horse of that strain you breed.”
“What d’you know about that strain?”
“Plenty. I know all about Willoughby Girl, that English mare that was stolen from an Englishman ninety-nine years ago. She was a granddaughter of Eclipse.”
“Was she now? Where’d you l’arn all that?”
“I learned all that from my father, when I was a small boy. I’m the grandson of the man who brought Willoughby Girl to this country, and lost her by theft. He hunted for her over half the world—almost everywhere but on Goose Creek.”
“Sufferin’ cats! An’ you come lookin’ for a bit of the old strain of blood! Why the hell didn’t you say so first off? If you’d told me who you was I’d believed you an’ sold you a horse. But you be from the States, an’ the gent who owned the English mare was an Englishman! My pa told me so many’s the time.”
“It was your mistake—all your own fault! As to my grandfather being an Englishman—why not? We are all Americans now.”
“Hell! Maybe a Dangler done yer gran’pa a dirty turn a hundred years ago, but you’ve squared that account with enough left over and to spare to settle for twenty stolen mares. There’s Amos dead—an’ where’s young Steve? Here’s me in jail—or leastwise had oughter be—an’ penitentiary awaitin’ me; an’ the same for Ned an’ Benjamin an’ maybe for two-three more. An’ there’s the business shot to hell! An’ all because you come onto this country to buy a horse, an’ didn’t have courage enough to come an’ tell me the truth!”
“If it amuses you to say so, go ahead. It was my fault that two of your dirty cowards ambushed me and knocked me senseless a couple of times, and left me to die in the woods, I suppose? Don’t be a fool!”
“Sure it was yer fault! If you hadn’t been drug off, that damn saphead Jard Hassock wouldn’t have raised the village ag’in us, an’ the deputy sheriff—damn his eyes!—wouldn’t have spied out the still an’ what not, an’ Amos would be alive now, an’ so would young Steve, an’ I’d be settin’ safe in my own house instead of here tryin’ to make a deal.”
“A deal? What’s the idea?”
“Nancy says you want my pedigree book. All right—an’ I want some money. She give me a couple hundreds of what you paid her for the colt—an’ a mean price that was paid, mister! I need moren’t two hundred for to make a gitaway, but I can’t touch a doller of all my money, for it’s in the bank down to Frederickton, an’ that’s where they cal’late I’m in jail at. I’ll give you the pedigree book for five hundred dollars. You couldn’t git it for thousands, if it wasn’t that the police is after me to put me back in jail, an’ I need the money the worst way.”
“Dangler, you are hard-boiled. And you’re a fool! Why do you imagine for a moment that I’ll supply you with money to escape with? Anything the law may hand to you will be less than you deserve. If you were to receive your deserts you’d be hanged for a murderer. Hasn’t it occurred to you that I’m much more likely to hand you back to the police than to buy your stud-book?”
The old man smiled. “That would be a hell of a way to treat Joe’s gran’pa!” he said. “Wouldn’t it read rotten in the newspapers? I could tell them reporter lads quite a lot about pedigrees they don’t know yet, ‘Robert Vane, New York sport, weds the great-granddaughter of the thief who stole a horse from his gran’pa. Mr. Vane of New York weds Miss Hinch of Goose Crick. The bride’s gran’pa an’ uncles wasn’t to the weddin’, bein’ in jail for moonshinin’ an’ bootleggin’ an’ murder.’ Say, wouldn’t it read great in the newspapers?”
“Go to it, Dangler! You haven’t got me right.”
The old man eyed him keenly, then produced a notebook bound in oilcloth from an inner pocket. He handed it to Vane. “There’s the record back to the English mare of every foal an’ filly me an’ my pa ever bred of that old strain of blood.”
Vane glanced through the book, and saw that this was probably so.
“It’s yer own,” said Luke Dangler. “But I tell you ag’in you give Nancy a mean price for the bay colt. Do I go back to jail, or don’t I?”
“You may go to hell, for all I care,” replied Vane, calmly.
“Thanky, gran’son-in-law. Well, I’ll be startin’.”
“One moment.” Vane dug into an inner pocket, fingered crisp papers and passed four hundred dollars to the old man.
“I think the colt is worth every cent of it,” he said. “You know your way out. Good morning.”
“Say! You’re a real sport! Thank God you didn’t git lost in the woods that day? Shake on it.”
Old Luke Dangler extended his hand. Vane overlooked it.
“Shut the window after you,” said Vane.
So the old rogue went. There was nothing else for him to do.