CHAPTER L
FACE TO FACE
Before daylight next morning the two men dragged the little flat boat to the water's edge. The river had risen to full flood during the night and out of the darkness came the crash and grind of ice, the dull roar and splash of undermined banks, and the purling rumble of swift moving water.
After breakfast Bill and Jeanne, armed with light spruce poles, took their places; Chenault pushed the boat into the current and it shot downstream, whirling in the grip of the flood.
There was no need for oars. Both Bill and the girl had their work cut out warding off from drifting ice cakes and the thrashing branches of uprooted trees.
Time and again they came within a hair's-breadth of destruction. The eddying, seething surface of the swift rushing river seemed to hurl its débris toward their little craft in fiendish malevolence. Ice cakes crashed together on every hand, water-logged tree-butts snagged them bow and stern, and the low-hanging limbs of "sweepers" clawed and tore at them like the teeth of a giant rake as they swept beneath, lying flat upon the bottom of the boat.
Bill grinned at the thought of a canoe. In the suck and swirl of the current the odds were heavily against even the stout flat boat's winning through.
He estimated their speed to be about eight miles an hour and devoted his whole attention to preventing the boat from fouling the drift. They were riding the "run out," and he knew that Moncrossen would wait for the river to become comparatively free of drift before breaking out his rollways.
The rain ceased, but the sky remained heavily overcast and darkness overtook them while yet some distance above the log camp and skirting the opposite shore.
Eager as he was to meet Moncrossen, Bill decided not to risk crossing the river in the fast gathering darkness. Gradually the boat was worked toward shore and poled into the backwater of submerged beaver meadow.
Landing upon a slope a couple of hundred yards back from the river, they tilted the boat on edge, and, inclining it forward, rested it upon the tops of stakes thrust into the ground. The blanket was spread, and with the roaring fire directly in front the uptilted boat made an excellent shelter.
An awkward constraint, broken only by necessary monosyllables, had settled upon the two. On the river each had been too busy with the workin hand to give the other more than a passing thought, but now, in the intimacy of the campfire, each felt uneasily self-conscious.
Supper over, Bill lighted his pipe and stared moodily into the flames with set face and brooding eye. From her position at his side Jeanne covertly watched the silent man.
Of what was he thinking? Surely not of the girl—his wife! She winced at the word—but the tense, almost fierce expression of his face, the occasional spasmodic clenching of the great fists, could scarcely accompany a man's thoughts of his wife of an hour.
Of Moncrossen? she wondered. Of the shooting of Jacques? Of the attack upon her? Of Wa-ha-ta-na-ta? But, no—the gray eyes were staring into the fire calmly, and in their depths she could see no gleam of hate nor steely glitter of rage.
What was it he said the day she told him of the affair on Broken Knee? "I, too, could kill him for that." The girl gave it up, and fell to wondering what the morrow would bring forth.
At daylight, when they poled the boat into the river, Bill gazed in surprise at the surface of the stream. A few belated ice cakes floated lazily in the current, and many uprooted snags reared their scraggly heads as they rolled sluggishly in the water.
But what riveted his attention were the logs. Hundreds and hundreds of smoothly floating logs dotted the river, and as far as the eye could reach more logs were coming.
He leaped to his feet and stood, shading his eyes with his hand. Far up the stream the surface seemed solid with logs, and here and there he could make out moving figures—tiny and frail they looked, like strange, misshapen insects, as they leaped from log to rolling log—the white-water men of the North.
"It's the drive!" he cried excitedly. "Mydrive! Come, pole for your life—we've got to work her across!"
A mile farther down they swept around a wide bend, and before them loomed the cleared rollways of Moncrossen's camp, and on top of the slope, for all the world like fortifications commanding the river, were pile after pile of pyramided logs.
The little flat boat was rapidly approaching, and men could be seen swarming about the rollways. One man with a shirt of flaming red rushed among them, gesticulating wildly, and faintly to their ears came the raucous bellowing of his voice. At the sight of him Jeanne paled visibly. The man was Moncrossen.
Even as they looked the first rollway tore loose; the logs, rolling and tumbling down the steep slope, leaped into the river with a roar and a splash that sent a fountain of white spray flying skyward. Bill set his pole and fairly hurled the boat into the bank well above the rollways.
"Good God!" he cried. "Can't he see the drive? They'll jam and my men will be killed!" He leaped ashore and crashed through the intervening underbrush in great bounds, closely followed by the light-footed Jeanne.
They gained the top, and while rushing along the rollways could hear Moncrossen roaring his orders—could catch the words that foamed from his lips amid volleys of crashing oaths.
"Cut them toggles! Let 'em go! Let 'em go! Damn you! Foul that drive! I'll show 'em if they c'n slip a drive through me!"
And then—face to face between two high-piled pyramids—they met. The words died in a horrible, throaty gurgle; and Moncrossen's face, livid with rage, turned chalky as his eyes roved vacantly from Bill Carmody's face to the face of the girl beyond. His jaw wagged weakly, his flabby lips sagged open, exposing the jagged, brown teeth, and he passed his hand uncertainly across his eyes.
"It's the greener," he mumbled thickly. "It's the greener hisself."
Another rollway rumbled into the river, and Bill leaped into the open. "Stop!" he cried. "It's murder! There are men on that drive!"
The two lumber-jacks who stood almost at his side turned at the sound of his voice. For one moment they stared into his face, and then with a wild yell dropped their peavies and fled toward the bunk-house. Other men looked, and from lip to lip flashed the word, "The greener!" Men stared at him dumbly, or turned and dashed for the clearing in a panic of fear.
"He come up out of the river!" shrilled one as he ran. "I seen him! An' I seen him go under a year back! He come hell a rippin' up through the bushes—an' a she one a follerin'!"
Men crowded about—the bolder spirits, the matter of fact, and the unsuperstitious among the crew—and Bill turned again to Moncrossen, who stood rooted in his tracks.
"Where is she?" he asked in a low voice that cut distinctly upon the silence. "The mother of this girl?" Moncrossen started. With a visible effort he strove for control of himself.
"Who are you?" he blurted, and the words rasped hollow and dry.
Bill turned to the men.
"Doyouknow?" he asked. "An old Indian woman—did he bring her to this camp?"
The men stared blankly from the speaker to Moncrossen and into each other's faces. Suddenly, one stepped forward.
"Look in the storeroom!" he cried. "A little while back—it was at night—I seen 'em drag somethin' in—him an' Larson of the van." At the words, Moncrossen sprang toward the speaker with an inarticulate growl of rage.
"You lie!" he screamed; but before he reached the man, who shrank back into the crowd, Bill stepped in front of him. He raised his arm and pointed toward the clearing.
"To the storehouse," he said in the same low voice. For a fleeting second Moncrossen glared into his eyes, and without a word, turned and led the way, closely followed by Bill and Jeanne, while the crowd of wondering lumber-jacks brought up the rear.
At the storehouse Moncrossen paused. "I'll fetch the key from the office," he leered; but Bill turned to a man who stood leaning upon his axe.
"Smash that door!" he commanded; and a half-dozen men sprang to the task. The next instant the door flew inward, and the men crowded into the building to return a few moments later bearing the old squaw, gagged, bound, and wrapped tightly in a blanket, but with the undimmed black eyes glaring upon them like a hawk's.
The cords were cut and the gag removed by willing hands. Someone held a bottle to her lips, and she drank greedily. Jeanne dropped to her knees by the old woman's side.
"He has come," she whispered. "M's'u' Bill, The-Man-Who-Cannot-Die, has come to you." Wa-ha-ta-na-ta nodded her understanding, and her beady black eyes flashed.
"She must have water!" cried the girl; "and food!"
At the words a half-dozen men rushed toward the cook-shack, returning a few minutes later laden as to victual a regiment.
CHAPTER LI
THE PROMISE FULFILLED
Again the interest centered upon the two big men who faced each other on the trodden ground of the clearing. Other men came—the ones who had fled from the rollway, their curiosity conquering their fear at the sight of the dead man.
And now the greener was speaking, and the tone of his voice was gentle in its velvety softness. His lips smiled, and his gray eyes, narrowed to slits, shone cold—with a terrible, steely coldness, so that men looked once, and shuddered as they looked.
"And, now, Moncrossen," he was saying, "we will fight. It is a long score that you and I have to settle. It starts with your dirty schemes that Stromberg wouldn't touch.
"Then, the well-laid plan to have Creed bump me off that night at Melton's No. 9; and the incident of the river, when you broke the jam. You thought you had me, then, Moncrossen. You thought I was done for good and all, when I disappeared under the water.
"There are other things, too—little acts of yours, that we will figure in as we go. The affair on Broken Knee, when you attacked this young girl; the shooting of Blood River Jack, from ambush; the second attack on the girl at the foot of the rapid—and the brutal starving of Wa-ha-ta-na-ta.
"Oh, yes; and the little matter of the bird's-eye. I have the logs, Moncrossen, all safely cached—the pile of ashes you found was a blind. Quite a long score, take it first and last, isn't it, Moncrossen?"
The silence, save for the sound of the voice, was almost painful. Men strained to listen, looking from one to the other of the two big men, with white, tense faces.
At the words, the blood rushed to the boss's face. His little, swinish eyes fairly blazed in their sockets. He was speechless with fury. The cords knotted in his neck, and a great blue vein stood out upon his forehead. The breath hissed through his clenched teeth as the goading words fell in the voice of purring softness.
"But it has come to a show-down at last, between you and me," the greener went on as he slowly and methodically turned the sleeves of his shirt back from his mighty forearms. "They tell me you are a fighting man, Moncrossen. They tell me you have licked men—here in the woods—good men, too. And they tell me you have knocked down drunken men, and stamped on their faces with your steel-calked boots.
"Maybe—if you last well—I will save a couple of punches for those poor devils' account. I think you will last, Moncrossen. You are big, and strong, and you are mad enough, in your blind, bull-headed way.
"But I am not going to knock you out. I am going to make youlie down—to make you show your yellow, and quit cold; for this is going to be your last fight. When I am through, Moncrossen, you won't be worth licking—no ten-year-old boy will think it worth his while to step out of his way to slap your dirty face."
With a hoarse bellow, Moncrossen launched himself at the speaker. And just at that moment—swarming over the bank at the rollways—came the men of the upper drive. The leaders paused, and sizing up the situation, came on at a run.
"A fight!" they yelled. "A fight! H-o-o-r-a-y!"
Then came Appleton and Sheridan with their wives, and beside them walked a slender, girlish figure, whose shoulders drooped wearily, and whose face was concealed by a heavy, dark-blue veil.
The two lumbermen guided the ladies hurriedly in the direction of the office, when suddenly the shrill voice of Charlie Manton broke upon their ears.
"Whoo-p-e-e! It'sBill! Go to it, Bill! Swing on him! Give him your left, Bill! Give him your left!"
They halted, and obeying some strange impulse, the girlish figure turned and made straight for the wildly yelling men, who stood in the form of a great circle in the center of which two men weaved and milled about each other in a blur of motion.
Old Daddy Dunnigan was the first to see her hovering uncertainly upon the edge of the crowd. Brandishing his crutch he howled into the ears of those nearest him:
"Give th' lady a chanst! Come on, miss! He'sherman, an' God be praised! she wants to see 'um foight!"
The men made a lane, and scarcely knowing what she did, Ethel found herself standing beside the old Irishman, who had wormed his way to the very front rank of the crowding circle. She stared in fascinated terror, throwing back her veil for a clearer view, regardless of the men who stared atherin surprise and wondered at the whiteness of her face.
Bill Carmody met Moncrossen's first rush with a quick, short jab that reached the corner of his eye. With an almost imperceptible movement he leaned to one side, and the flail-like swing of the huge boss's arm passed harmlessly within an inch of his ear.
Moncrossen lost no time. Pivoting, he swung a terrific body blow which glanced lightly against Bill's lowered shoulder, and the greener came back with two stiff raps to the ear.
Again and again Moncrossen rushed his antagonist, lashing out with both fists, but always the blows failed by a barely perceptible margin, and Bill—always smiling, and without appreciable effort—stung him with short, swift punches to the face.
And always he talked. Low and smooth his voice sounded between the thud of blows and the heavy breathing of the big boss.
"Poor business, Moncrossen—poor judgment—for a fighting man. Save your wind—take it easy, and you'll last longer—this is alongfight, Moncrossen—take it slow—slow and steady."
The taunting voice was always in the boss's ears, goading him to blind fury. He paused for breath, with guard uplifted, and in that moment Bill Carmody saw for the first time the figure of his wife. For an instant their eyes met, and then Moncrossen was at him again. But Bill's low, taunting voice did not waver.
"That's better," he said, and moved his head to one side as a vicious blow passed close. "And now, Moncrossen, I'm going to hit you on the nose—I haven't hit you yet—those others were just to feel you out."
With an incredibly swift movement he swung clear from the shoulder. There was the wicked, smashing sound of living flesh hard struck. The big boss staggered backward, pawing the air, and the red blood spurted from his flattened nose.
"That one is for trying to get Stromberg to file a link." Bill ducked a lunging blow without raising his guard. "And now your ear, Moncrossen; I won't knock it off, but it will never be pretty again."
Another long swing landed with a glancing twist that split the ear in half. "That is for the Creed item—and this one is for the river."
The boss's head snapped backward to the impact of a smashing blow; again he staggered, and, turning, spat a mouthful of blood which seeped into the ground, leaving upon the surface several brownish, misshapen nuggets.
"God!" breathed a man, and turned away. "It's his teeth!"
The yelling had ceased and men stared white faced. This was not the fighting they were used to; they understood only the quick, frenzied fighting of fury, where men pummel each other in blind rage, fighting close—as tigers fight—gouging and biting one another as they roll upon the ground locked in each other's grip.
The men gazed in awe, with a strange, unspoken terror creeping into their hearts, upon the vicious battering blows, the coldly gleaming eyes and smiling lips of the man who fought, not in any fume of passion, but deliberately, smoothly, placing his terrific blows at will with a cold, deadly accuracy that smashed and tore.
Moncrossen rushed again.
"And now for the other things," Bill continued; "the attacks upon the defenseless girl—the attempted murder from ambush—and the starving of an old woman."
Blow followed blow, until in the crowd men cried out sharply, and those who had watched a hundred fights turned away white lipped.
Moncrossen fought blindly now. His eyes were closed and his face one solid mass of blood. And still the blows fell. Smash! Smash! Smash! It was horrible—those deliberate, tearing blows, and the lips that smiled in cold, savage cruelty.
No blow landed on the point of the jaw, on the neck, on the heart, or the pit of the stomach—blows that bring the quiet of oblivion; but each landed with a cutting twist that ground into the flesh.
At last, with his face beaten to a crimson pulp, Moncrossen sagged to his knees, tried to rise, and crashed limp and lifeless to the ground. And over him stood Bill Carmody, smiling down at the broken and battered wreck of the bad man of the logs.
Gradually the circle that surrounded the fighters broke into little groups of white-faced, silent men who shot nervous, inquiring glances into each other's faces and swore softly under their breath—the foolish, meaningless oaths of excitement.
Minutes passed as Ethel stood gazing in terrible fascination from the big man to the thing on the ground at his feet. And as she looked, a hideous old squaw, apparently too weak to stand, struggled from her place of vantage among the feet of the men, and crawled to the limp, sprawled form.
Leaning close she peered into the shapeless features, crooning and gurgling, and emitting short, sharp whines of delight. Her beady eyes glittered wickedly, like the eyes of a snake, and the withered lips curled into a horrid grin, exposing the purple snag-toothed gums.
Suddenly the bent form knelt upright, the skeleton arms raised high above the tangle of gray-black hair, the thin, high-pitched voice quavered the words of a weird chant, the clawlike fingers twitched in short, jerky spasms, and the emaciated body swayed and weaved to the wild, barbaric rhythm of the chanted curse.
Terrible, blighting, the words were borne to the ears of the girl. Bearded men looked, listened, and turned away, shuddering. The sun burst suddenly through a rift in the flying clouds, and his golden radiance fell incongruously upon the scene.
Ethel gazed as at some horrid phantasm—the rough men with gaudy shirts of red and blue and multicolored checks, standing in groups with tense, set faces—the other man—herman—standing alone, silent and smiling, by the side of his blood-bathed victim, and the old crone, whose marcid form writhed in the swing of the thin-shrieked chant.
And then before she sensed that he had moved he stood before her. She raised her eyes to his in which the hard, cold gleam had given place to a look of intense longing, of infinite love, and the long-pent yearning of a soul.
He stretched his arms toward her and she saw that the bruised and swollen hands were stained with blood. Suddenly she realized that this man was herhusband. A sickening fear overcame her, and she shrank, shuddering, from the touch of the blood-smeared hands.
A look of terror came into her face; she covered her eyes with her hands as if to shut out the horror of it all, and, turning, fled blindly—she knew not where.
As she ran there still sounded in her ears the words of the high, thin chant—the blighting curse of Yaga Tah.
CHAPTER LII
THE BIG MAN
Darkness settled over the North country. The sky had cleared, the wind gone down, and the air was soft and balmy with the feel of spring. A million stars sparkled overhead and above the intense blackness of the pines the moon rose, flooding the timberland with the mystery of her soft radiance.
Ethel tossed uneasily in her cot and glanced across to where her aunt and Mrs. Sheridan slumbered heavily. Then she arose and stood at the window gazing out on the moonlit clearing with its low, silent buildings, and clean-cut, black shadows.
Noiselessly she dressed and stole into the silvery world. Utterly wretched, dispirited, heartsick, she wandered aimlessly, neither knowing nor caring whither her slow, dragging steps carried her.
Somewhere in the distance, sounding faint and far, came the shouts of men. Unconsciously she wandered toward the river. On the edge of a high bluff overlooking the rollways and the rushing waters she paused, leaning wearily against the bole of a giant birch.
Thanks to the quick action of Bill Carmody Moncrossen's scheme of fouling the upper drive had taken no toll of human life. The few rollways that were broken out, however, were sufficient to cause a nasty jam, and far below where the girl stood the men of both crews worked furiously among the high-piled logs.
Weird and unreal it seemed to Ethel as she gazed down upon the flare of huge fires built upon the bank, the tiny flash of lanterns and the flicker of torches, where the men swarmed out upon the uncertain footing.
Rough calls of rough men sounded above the crash and pound of logs and the roar of the rushing waters. Now and then a scrap of rude chantey reached her ears, a hoarse oath, or a loud, clear order in a voice she knew so well.
It was like some eery fantasy, born of an overwrought brain. And yet she knew it was real—intensely real. Down there among the flashing lights men played with death—big, rough men who laughed loud as they played, and swore mighty oaths, and sang wild, full-throated songs.
From the shadow almost at her side came the sound of a half-stifled sob. She started. There was a soft footfall on the leaf-mold, and before her stood Jeanne Lacombie. The soft moonlight touched with silvery sheen the long hairs of the great, white wolf-skin which the girl wore thrown loosely across her shoulders.
As Ethel gazed upon the wild, dark beauty of the Indian girl her tiny fists clenched, and her breath came in short, quick gasps.
Why was she here? Had she followed to taunt her to her face? A mighty rage welled up within her, her shoulders stiffened, and as she faced the girl her blue eyes flashed.
And then the Indian girl spoke, and at the first words of the soft, rich voice, the rage died in her heart. She looked closely, and in the dark, liquid eyes was a look the white girl will never forget.
She listened, and with few words and all the dramatic eloquence of the pure Indian the half-breed girl told of the rescue from the river; of her own love for M's'u' Bill, "The-Man-Who-Cannot-Die"; of his firm rejection of that love; of her pursuit of him when he started for the land of the white man; of the scene at the camp-fire when old Wa-ha-ta-na-ta called him "The One Good White Man"; of the broken knife; of The Promise; of her peril at the hand of Moncrossen, and of the cold-blooded shooting of her brother.
And then she told of Bill's all-absorbing love for her, Ethel. And of how he always loved her, even when he believed she hated and despised him; of his deep hurt and the misery of his soul when he believed that she was to marry another.
Until suddenly there in the moonlight the girl of the city saw for the first time the bigness of the man—her man. She saw him as he was now and as he had been in the making—the man who had been dubbed "Broadway Bill, the sport"; the "souse," who had "soaked a cop" and then "beat it in a taxi."
And then the man who, without name or explanation, had won the regard of such a keen judge of men as Appleton, and who, under the stigma of theft, held that regard without question; the man who beat the booze game after he had lost his heart's desire, and had been sneered at as a coward and a quitter; the man who having gained his heart's desire, in the very bigness of him, had unhesitatingly risked wrecking his whole life's happiness to keep his promise to an old, toothless, savage crone; and who, in brute fashion, bare-fisted, had all but pounded the life from the body of the hulking Moncrossen in defense of a woman's honor.
Andthiswas the man who, eighteen short months before, had turkey-trotted upon the sidewalk in front of a gay resort, and had "pulled it too raw even for Broadway!"
The flood-gates of her soul opened, as is the way of women in all the world. The great sobs came, and with them tears, and in the tree-filtered moonlight the two girls—the tutored white girl and the half-savage Indian—women both—wept in each other's arms.
Up the trail from the river, almost at their feet, wearily climbed a man, dog-tired from physical exertion; and worn out with responsibility and heart-rack he toiled slowly up the steep ascent.
At the top he paused and removed his cap to let the cool air blow against his throbbing temples. At the sight of the two forms he drew back; but at the same moment they saw him.
With one last, long look, and no word of farewell save a dry, choking sob, the Indian girl glided silently into the darkness of the forest, which was her home, and the home of her people.
On the edge of the bluff the other stood silhouetted against the star-flecked sky. She, too, gazed at the man who stood motionless in the moonlight. Then with a lithe, quick movement she opened her arms to him, her lips parted, and in the blue eyes blazed the love of all the ages.
As her body poised to meet his the man sprang toward her. His arms closed about her, their lips met; and for a long, long time they looked deep into each other's eyes.
Then slowly the tiny fingers closed about his, the girl raised them reverently to her lips and covered with kisses the great, bruised, and swollen hands.
THE END