CHAPTER XIV
AT BAY
Bill Carmody was no coward; but neither was he a fool, and for the first time the seriousness of his position dawned upon him. Other shapes appeared and ranged themselves beside their leader, and as the man looked upon their gaunt, sinewy leanness, the slavering jaws, and blazing eyes, he shuddered. Here, indeed, was a very real danger.
He decided to camp. Fire, he remembered to have read, would hold the brutes at bay. Wood there was in plenty, and, quickly clearing a space in the snow, he soon had the satisfaction of seeing tiny tongues of flame crackle in a pile of dry branches.
He unslung his light axe and attacked the limbs of a dead pine that lay at the edge of the road.
After an hour's work his cleared space was flanked on either side by piles of dry firewood, and at his back the great pile of tops afforded shelter from the wind which swept down the roadway, driving before it stinging volleys of snow.
He spread his blanket and drew from his pack the unappetizing food. He warmed the remaining half-can of salmon and whittled at his nubbin of bread.
"Dinner is served, sir," he announced to himself, "dead fish with formaldehyde dressing, petrified dough, andaqua nivis." The storm continued, and as he smoked the gravity of his plight forced itself upon him.
The laggards had caught up, and at the edge of the arc of firelight a wide semicircle of insanely glaring eyeballs and gleaming fangs told where the wolf-pack waited.
There was a terrifying sense of certainty in their method. They took no chance of open attack, wasted no breath in needless howling or snarling, but merely sat upon their haunches beyond the circle of the firelight—waiting.
Again the man shuddered. Before him, he knew, lay at least fifteen miles of trail knee-deep with snow, and he had left but one small ration of unpalatable and unnutritious food.
"I seem to be up against a tough proposition," he mused. "What was it Appleton said about battle, murder, and sudden death? It looks from here as if the old boy knew what he was talking about. But it is kind of rough on a man to roll them all up into one bundle and hand it to him right on the kick-off."
He had heard of men who became lost in the woods and died horribly of cold and starvation, or went down to the rush of the wolf-pack.
"As long as I stick to this road I won't get lost," he thought. "I may freeze to death, or starve, or furnish a cozy meal for the wolves yonder, but even at that I still have the edge on those others—I'm damned if I'mlost!"
And, strange as it may seem, the thought gave him much comfort.
He tossed more wood on the fire and watched the shower of sparks which shot high above the flames.
"To-morrow will be my busy day," he remarked, addressing the wolves. "Good night, you hell-hounds! Just stick around and see that nothing sneaks up and bites me."
He hurled a blazing firebrand among the foremost of the hungry hoard, but these did not retreat—merely leaped back, snarling, to lurk in the outer shadows.
Bill's sleep was fitful. The snow ceased to fall during the early hours of the night, and the pair of blankets with which he had provided himself proved entirely inadequate protection against the steadily increasing cold.
Time and again he awoke and replenished the fire, for, no matter in what position he lay, one side of his body seemed freezing, while the other toasted uncomfortably in the hot glare of the flames. And always—just at the rim of the fire-light—sat the wolves, waiting in their ominous circle of silence.
But in the interims between these awakenings he slept profoundly, oblivious alike to discomfort and danger—as the dead sleep.
At the first hint of dawn Bill hastily consumed the last of his unpalatable food and resumed his journey.
Hour after hour he toiled through the snow, and always the wolf-pack followed, haunting his trail in the open roadway and flanking him in the deep shade of the evergreen forest, moving tirelessly through the loose snow in long, slow leaps.
Seventeen of them he counted—seventeen murderous, ill-visaged curs of the savage kill! And the leader of the pack was a very demon wolf. A monstrous female, almost pure white, huge, misshapen, hideous—the ultimate harridan of the wolf-breed—she stood a full two hands above the tallest of the rank and file of her evil clan.
The foot and half of a foreleg had been left between iron jaws where she had gnawed herself out of a trap, and the shrunken stub, depending from a withered shoulder, dragged over the surface of the snow, leaving a curious mark like the trail of a snake.
The remaining foreleg was strong and thick and, from redistribution of balance, slanted inward from the massive shoulder, which was developed out of all proportion to its mate, giving the great white brute a repulsive, lopsided appearance.
The long, stiff hair stood out upon her neck in a great ruff, which accentuated the fiendish ferocity of her, adding a hyena-like slope to her ungainly body. But it was in the expression of her face that she reached the climax of hideous malevolence.
One pointed ear stood erect upon her head, while the other, mangled and torn into a serried red excrescence, formed the termination of a broad, ragged scar which began at the corner of her mouth, giving her face the expression of a fiendish grin that belied the green glare of her venomous, opalescent eyes.
The loss of the leg seemed in nowise to hamper her freedom of action. She moved ceaselessly among the pack with a peculiar bounding gallop, fawning in subtle cajolery upon those in the forefront, slashing right and left among the laggards with vicious clicks of her long, white fangs; and always she watched the tiring man who found his own gaze fixed upon her in horrid fascination.
There was something sinister in the wolf-pack's noiseless pursuit. The brutes drew nearer as the man's pace slowed to the wearying of his muscles.
Instinctively he knew that at the last there would be no waiting—no delay. The very minute he sank exhausted into the snow they would be upon him—the great white leader and her rapacious horde—and in his imagination he could feel the viselike clench of iron jaws and the tearing rip with which the quivering flesh would be stripped from his bones.
At midday the man placed the sheath-knife in his belt and threw away the pack. Relieved of the burden, his shoulders felt strangely light. There was a new buoyancy in his stride.
But the relief was temporary, and as the sun sank early behind the pines his brain was again driving his wearied muscles to their work.
The wolves were following close in now, and the silence of their relentless persistence filled the man with a dumb terror which no pandemonium of howling could have inspired.
His advance was halting. Each step was a separate and conscious undertaking, and it was with difficulty that he lifted his moccasins clear of the snow.
Suddenly he stumbled. The leaders were almost upon him as he recovered and faced them there in the white reach of the tote-road. They halted just out of reach of the swing of his axe, and as the man looked into their glaring eyes a frenzy of unreasoning fury seized him.
His nerves could no longer stand the strain. Something seemed to snap in his brain, and through his veins surged the spirit of his fighting ancestors.
A sudden memory flash, as of deeds forgotten through long ages, and with it came strength—the very abandon of fierce, brute strength of a man with the mind to kill.
"Come on!" he cried. "Fight it out, you fiends! I may die, but I'll be damned if I'll be hounded to death! You may get me, but you'llfight! When a McKim goes down some one pays! And if it is die—By God! There'll be fun in the dying!"
With a weird primordial scream, as the first man might have screamed in the face of the first saber-tooth, he hurled his axe among them and sprang forward, flashing the cold, gray blade of his sheath-knife!
CHAPTER XV
THE WERWOLF
Now, as all men know, Bill Carmody had done a most foolish and insane thing.
But the very audacity of his act—and the god of chance—favored him, for as the axe whizzed through the air the keen edge of the whirling bit caught one of the larger wolves full on the side of the head.
There followed the peculiar, dull scrunching sound that stands alone among all other sounds, being produced by no other thing than the sudden crush of a living skull.
The front and side of the skull lifted and turned backward upon its hinge of raw scalp and the wolf went down, clawing and biting, and over the snow flowed thick red blood, and a thicker mucus of soft, wet brains.
At the sight and scent of the warm blood, the companions of the stricken brute—the gaunt, tireless leaders, who had traveled beside him in the van, and the rag-tag and bobtail alike—fell upon him tooth and nail, and the silence of the forest was shattered by the blood-cry of the meat-getters.
Not so the great she-wolf, who despised these others that fought among themselves, intent only upon the satisfaction of their hunger.
Her purpose in trailing this man to destruction was of deep vengeance: the assuagement of an abysmal hatred that smoldered in her heart against every individual of the terrible man kind, whose cruel traps of iron, blades of steel, and leaden bullets had made her a monstrous, sexless thing, feared and unsought by mating males, hated of her own breed.
And now, at the moment she had by the cunning of her generalship delivered this man an easy prey to her followers, they deserted her and fell in swinish greed upon the first meat at hand.
So that at the last she faced her enemy alone, and the smoldering fury of her heart blazed green from her wicked eyes. She stood tense as a pointer, every hair of her long white coat bristlingly aquiver.
Suddenly she threw back her head, pointed her sharp muzzle to the sky, and gave voice to the long-drawn ululation which is the battle-cry of wolves.
Yet it was not the wolf-cry, for long ago the malformation of a healing throat-wound had distorted the bell-like cry into a hideous scream like the shriek of a soul foredamned, which quavered loud and shrill upon the keen air and ended in a series of quick jerks, like stabs of horrible laughter.
And then, with tight-drawn lips and jaws agape, she hurled herself straight at the throat of the stumbling man.
Darkness was gathering when, a mile to the northward, Jake LaFranz and Irish Fallon, who were laboring with six big horses and a rough log drag to break out the trail, suddenly paused to listen.
Through the thin, cold air rang a sound the like of which neither had ever heard. And then, as if in echo, the long-drawn wail of the great white wolf.
They stared at each other white-lipped; for that last cry was a thing men talked about of nights with bated breath and deep curses. Neither had heard it before—nor would either hear it again—but each recognized the sound instinctively, as he would recognize the sound of Gabriel's trump.
"It'sher!" gasped LaFranz. "God save us! It's Diablesse—theloup-garou!"
"'Tis none other—that last. But, man! Man! The first wan! Was it a human cry or from the throat of another of her hell-begotten breed?"
Without waiting to reply the Frenchman swung the big six-team in their tracks and headed them toward camp. But Irish Fallon reached for him as he fumbled at the clevis.
"Howld on, ye frog-eater! Be a man! If 'twas human tore loose that yell he'll be the bether fer help, notwithstandin' there was more av foight nor fear in th' sound."
"No, no, no! It'sher! It's Diablesse!" He crossed himself.
"Sure, an' ut is; bad cess to her altogether. But Oi got a hear-rt in me ribs o'good rid blood that takes relish now an' agin in a bit av a foight. An', man or baste, Oi ain't particular, so 'tis a good wan. Oi'll be goin' down th' thrail a piece an' see phwat's to see. Oi ain't axin' ye to go 'long. Ye poor prayer-dhrivlin' haythen, wid yer limon av a hear-rt ye've got a yallar shtripe that raches to th' length an' width av ye. Ye'd be no good nohow.
"But 'tis mesilf ain't fearin' th' evil eye av th' werwolf—an' she is called be the name av th' divil's own.
"But listen ye here, ye pea-soup Frinchy! Ye'll not go shnakin' off wid thim harses. Ye'll bide here till Oi come back."
The other made a whimper of protest, but Irish Fallon reached out a great hairy hand and shook him roughly.
"Yez moind now, an' Oi mane ut! Here ye shtay. An' av ye ain't here, ye'd bether kape on goin'. F'r th' nixt toime Oi lay eyes on ye Oi'll br-reak ye in two! An' don't ye fergit ut!"
The big Irishman turned and swung down the tote-road, the webs of his rackets leaving a broad trail in the snow. LaFranz cowered upon the snow-plow and sought refuge in craven prayer and curses the while he shot frightened glances into the darkening forest.
He thought of cutting the horses loose and starting them for camp at a run. But, much as he feared the werwolf, he feared Irish Fallon more; for many were the tales of Fallon's man-fights when his "Irish was up."
When the white wolf sprang the man had nearly reached the snarling pack. Before him, scarcely six feet away, lay his axe, the blade smeared with blood and brains, to which clung stiff gray hairs.
Instinctively he ducked and, as the huge form flashed past, his right arm shot out straight from the shoulder. The long, clean blade entered just at the point of the brisket and, ranging upward, was buried to the haft as the knife was torn from his grasp.
One step and the man's fingers closed about the helve of his axe, and he whirled to meet the second onslaught.
But there was small need. The great brute stood still in her tracks and, with lowered head, snapped and wrenched at the thing that bit into her very lungs.
The stag-horn plates of the protruding hilt were splintered under the clamp of the mighty jaws, and the long, gleaming teeth made deep dents in the brass beneath. Her lips reddened, and before her the snow was flecked with blood.
All this the man took in at a glance without conscious impression. He gripped his weapon and sprang among the fighting pack, which ripped and dragged at the carcass of the dead wolf.
Right and left he struck in a reckless fume of ferocity, which spoke of unreasoning fights in worlds of savage firstlings. And under the smashing blows of the axe wolves went down—skulls split, spines crushed, ribs caved in—a side at a stroke, and shoulders were cloven clean and deep to pink sponge lungs.
As if realizing that her hurt was mortal, the great she-wolf abandoned her attack on the knife-haft and, summoning her strength for a supreme effort, sprang straight into the midst of the red shambles.
The man, caught unawares, went down under the impact of her body. For one fleeting second he stared upward into blazing eyes. From between wide-sprung rows of flashing fangs the blood-dripping tongue seemed to writhe from the cavernous throat, and the foul breath blew hot against his face. Instantly his strong fingers buried themselves in the shaggy fur close under the hinge of the jaw, while his other hand closed about the dented brass of the protruding knife-hilt.
With the whole strength of his arm he held the savage jaws from his face as he wrenched and twisted at the firmly embedded knife. Finally it loosened, and as the thick-backed blade was withdrawn from the wound it was followed by spurt after spurt of blood—bright, frothy blood, straight from the lungs, which gushed hot and wet over him.
Blindly he struck; stabbing, thrusting, slashing at the great form which was pressing him deeper and deeper into the snow. Again and again the knife was turned against rib and shoulder-blade, inflicting only shallow surface wounds.
At length a heavy, straight upthrust encountered no obstacle of bone, and the blade bit deep and deeper into living flesh.
As with a final effort the knife was driven home, a convulsive shiver racked the body of the great white wolf, and with a low, gurgling moan of agony her jaws set rigid, her muscles stiffened, and she toppled sidewise into the snow, where she lay twitching spasmodically with glazing eyes.
Bill staggered weakly to his feet.
The uninjured wolves had vanished, leaving their dead upon the snow, while the wounded left flat, red trails as they sought to drag their broken bodies to the cover of the forest.
Irish Fallon rounded a turn of the tote-road. He brought up sharply and stared open-mouthed at the man who, sheath-knife in hand, stood looking down at an indistinct object which lay upon the blood-trampled snow.
Carmody turned and shouted a greeting, but without a word the Irishman advanced to his side until he, too, stood looking down at the thing in the snow. Suddenly Bill's hand was seized in a mighty grip.
"Man! 'Tisher, an' no mistake! She's done for at lasht—an' blade to fang, in open foight ye've knoifed her! Sure, 'tis a gr-rand toime ye've had altogether," he said, glancing at the carcasses, "wid six dead besides her an' three more as good as."
Bill laughed: "This wolf—the big white one—seems to enjoy a reputation, then?"
"R-r-reputation! R-r-reputation, is ut? Good Lord, man! Don't ye know her? 'Tis th' werwolf! D'ablish, th'loup-garou, the Frinchies call her; an' the white divil, the Injuns—an' good rayson, f'r to me own knowledge she's kilt foive folks, big an' shmall, an' some Injuns besides. They claim she's a divil, an' phwin she howls, 'tis because some sowl has missed th' happy huntin' grounds in th' dyin', an' she's laughin'."
"I don't know that I blame them," said Bill. "She favored me with a vocal selection. And, believe me, she was no mocking-bird."
"Well, she looks dead, now," grinned Fallon; "but we'd besht make sure. Owld man Frontenelle kilt her wunst. Seven year back, ut was over on Monish.
"He shot her clean t'rough th' neck an' dhrug her to his cabin be th' tail. He was for skinnin' her flat f'r th' robe she'd make. He had her stretched out phwin wid a flash an' a growl, she was at um, an' wid wan clap av th' jaws she ripped away face an' half th' scalp.
"They found um wanderin' blind on th' lake ice an' carried um to Skelly's phwere he died in tin days' toime av hydrophoby, shnarlin' an' bitin' at folks till they had to chain um in th' shtoreroom."
As he spoke, Fallon picked up the axe, and with several well-directed blows shattered the skull of the werwolf against any possibility of a repetition of the Frontenelle incident.
"But come, man, get yer rackets an' we'll be hittin' the thrail f'r camp. Sure, Frinchy'll be scairt shtiff av we lave um longer."
"Rackets?" asked Bill, with a look of perplexity.
"Yer shnow shoes, av coorse."
"Haven't got any. And I don't suppose I could use them if I had." The other stared at him incredulously.
"Not got any! Thin how'd ye git here?"
"Walked—or rather, stumbled along."
"Phwere from?"
"It started to snow as I left the old shack—the last one this way, I don't know how far back. It was there I traded my boots to an Indian for these." He extended a moccasined foot.
"'Tis a good job ye traded. But even at that—thirty-foive moile t'rough th' snow widout webs!" The Irishman looked at him in open admiration. "An' on top av that, killin' th' werwolf wid a knoife, an' choppin' her pack loike so much kindlin's! Green, ye may be—an' ignorant. But, frind, ye've done a man's job this day, an' Oi'm pr-roud to know yez."
Again he extended his hand and Bill seized it in a strong grip. Somehow, he did not resent being called green, and ignorant—he was learning the North.
"Fallon's me name," the other continued, "an' be an accident av birth, Oi'm called Oirish, f'r short."
"Mine is Bill, which is shorter," replied Carmody, smiling.
For just a second Irish hesitated as if expecting further enlightenment, but, receiving none, reached down and grasped the tail of the white wolf.
"'Tis a foine robe she'll make, Bill, an' in th' North, among white min an' Injuns, 'twill give ye place an' shtandin'—but not wid Moncrossen," he added with a frown.
"Come on along. Foller yez in behint, f'r th' thrail'll be fair br-roke. Phwat wid two thrips wid th' rackets an' th' dhrag av th' wolf, 'twill not be bad. 'Tis only a mather av twinty minutes to phwere Frinchy'll bether be waitin' wid th' harses."
CHAPTER XVI
MONCROSSEN
They found LaFranz waiting in fear and trembling. The heavy snow-plow was left in readiness for the morrow's trail-breaking, and the horses hitched to a rough sled and headed for camp.
"An' ye say Misther Appleton sint ye up to wor-rk in Moncrossen's camp?" The two were seated on the log bunk at the back of the sled while the Frenchman drove, keeping a fearful eye on the white wolf. For old man Frontenelle had been his uncle.
"Yes, he told me to report here."
"D'ye know Moncrossen?"
"No."
"Well, ye will, ag'in' shpring," Irish replied dryly.
"What do you mean?" asked Bill.
Irish shrugged. "Oi mane this," he answered. "Moncrossen is a har-rd man altogether. He hates a greener. He thinks no wan but an owld hand has any business in th' woods, an' 'tis his boast that in wan season he'll make a lumberjack or a corpse out av any greener.
"An' comin' from Appleton hisself he'll hate ye worse'n ever, f'r he'll think ye'll be afther crimpin' his bird's-eye game. Take advice, Bill, an' kape on th' good side av um av ye can. He'll t'row ut into ye wid all manner av dhirty thricks, but howld ye're timper, an' maybe ye'll winter ut out—an' maybe ye won't."
"What is a bird's-eye game?"
Fallon glanced at him sharply. "D'ye mane ye don't know about th' bird's-eye?" he asked.
"Not a thing," replied Bill.
"Thin listen to me. Don't ye niver say bird's-eye in this camp av ye expect to winter ut out."
Bill was anxious to hear more about the mysterious bird's-eye, but the sled suddenly emerged into a wide clearing and Irish was pointing out the various buildings of the log camp.
Bright squares of light showed from the windows of the bunk-house, office, and grub-shack, with its adjoining cook-shack, from the iron stovepipe of which sparks shot skyward in a continuous shower.
Fallon shouldered the wolf and, accompanied by Bill, made toward the bunk-house, while the Frenchman turned the team toward the stable.
"Ag'in' we git washed up, supper'll be ready," announced Irish, as he deposited the wolf carcass beside the door and entered.
Inside the long, low room, lined on either side by a double row of bunks, were gathered upward of a hundred men waiting the supper call.
They were big men, for the most part, rough clad and unshaven. Many were seated upon the edges of the bunks smoking and talking, others grouped about the three big stoves, and the tobacco-reeking air was laden with the rumble of throaty conversation, broken here and there by the sharp scratch of a match, a loud laugh, or a deep-growled, good-natured curse.
Into this assembly stepped Irish Fallon, closely followed by Bill, the sight of whose blood-stained face attracted grinning attention. The two men passed the length of the room to the wash-bench, where a few loiterers still splashed noisily at their ablutions.
"I heard it plain, I'm tellin' you," some one was saying. "'Way off to the south it sounded."
"That ain't no lie," broke in another, "I hearn it myself—jest before dark, it was. An' I know! Didn't I hear it that night over on Ten Fork? The time she got Jack Kane's woman, four year ago, come Chris'mus. Yes, sir! I tell you the werwolf's nigh about this camp, an' it's me in off the edges afore dark!"
"They say she never laughs but she makes a kill," said one.
"God! I was at Skelly's when they brought old man Frontenelle in," added a big man, whose heavy beard was shot with gray, as he turned from the stove with a shudder.
"They's some Injuns trappin' below; she might of got one of them," opined a short, stockily built man who, catching sight of the newcomers, addressed Fallon:
"Hey, Irish, you was down on the tote-road; did you hear Diablesse?"
Fallon finished drying his face upon the coarse roller-towel and turned toward the group who waited expectantly. "Yis, Oi hear-rd her, all roight," he replied lightly. "An' thin Oisee'dher."
Others crowded about, hanging upon his words. "An' thin, be way av showin' me contimpt," he added, "Oi dhrug her a moile or more t'rough th' woods be th' tail."
Loud laughter followed this assertion; but not a few, especially among the older men, shook their heads in open disapproval, and muttered curses at his levity.
"But me frind Bill, here," Irish continued, "c'n tell ye more about her'n phwat Oi kin. He's new in th' woods, Bill is; an' so damned green he know'd nayther th' manein' nor use av th' rackets. So, be gad, he come widout 'em. Mushed two whole days t'rough th' shnow.
"But, listen; no mather how ignorant, nor how much he don't know, a good man's a man—an' to pr-rove ut he jumps wid his axe roight into th' middle av th' werwolf's own an' kills noine, countin' th' three cripples Oi finished.
"But wid D'ablish herself, moind, he t'row'd away his axe an' goes to a clinch wid his knoife in his fisht. An' phwin 'tis over an' he picks himsilf up out av th' shnow an' wipes th' blood from his eyes—her blood—f'r he comes out av ut widout scratch nor scar—D'ablish lays at his feet dead as a nit."
Fallon gazed triumphantly into the incredulous faces of the men, and, with a smile, added, "'Twas thin Oi dhrug her be th' tail to th' sled, afther shmashin' her head wid th' axe to make sure."
"An' where is she now, Irish?" mocked one. "Did she jump off the sled an' make a get-away?"
Over at the grub-shack the cook's half-breed helper beat lustily upon the discarded saw-blade that hung suspended by a wire, and the men crowded noisily out of the doors.
"Oi'll show ye afther supper, ye damned shpalpeen, how much av her got away!" shouted Irish, who waited for Bill to remove the evidence of his fight before piloting him to the grub-shack.
A single table of rough lumber covered with brown oilcoth extended the full length of the center of the room. Above this table six huge "Chicago burners" lighted the interior, which, as the two men entered, was a hive of noisy activity.
Men scuffled for places upon the stationary benches arranged along either side of the table. Heavy porcelain thumped the board, and the air was filled with the metallic din of steel knives and forks being gathered into bearlike hands.
Up and down the wide alleys behind the benches hurried flunkies bearing huge tin pots of steaming coffee, and the incessant returning of thick cups to their saucers was like the rattle of musketry.
But the thing that impressed the half-famished Bill was the profusion of food; never in his life, he thought, had he beheld so tempting an array of things to eat. Great trenchers of fried pork, swimming in its own grease, alternated the full length of the table with huge pans of baked beans.
Mountains of light, snowy bread rose at short intervals from among foot-hills of baked potatoes, steaming dishes of macaroni and stewed tomatoes, canned corn, peas, and apple sauce, and great yellow rolls of butter into which the knives of the men skived deeply.
The two passed behind the benches in search of vacant places when suddenly an undersized flunky stumbled awkwardly, dropping the coffee-pot, which sent a wash of steaming brown liquid over the floor.
Instantly a great, hulking man with a wide, flat face and low forehead surmounted by a thick thatch of black hair, below which two swinish eyes scintillated unevenly, paused in the act of raising a great calk-booted foot over the bench.
The thick, pendulous lips under his ragged mustache curled backward, exposing a crenate row of jagged brown teeth. He stepped directly in front of the two men and, reaching out a thick hand caught the unfortunate flunky by the scruff as he regained his balance.
From his lips poured an unbroken stream of vile epithets and soul-searing curses while he shook the whimpering wretch with a violence that threatened serious results, and ended by pinning him against the log wall and drawing back his huge arm for a terrific shoulder blow.
The vicious brutality of the attack following so trivial an offense aroused Bill Carmody's anger. The man's back was toward him, and Bill grasped the back-drawn arm at the wrist and with an ungentle jerk whirled the other in his tracks.
The man released the flunky and faced him with a snarl. "Who done that?" he roared.
"I did. Hit me. I tripped him."
Bill's voice was dead level and low, but it carried to the farthest reaches of the room, over which had fallen a silence of expectation. Men saw that the hard gray eyes of the stranger narrowed ominously.
"An' who the hell areyou?" The words whistled through the bared teeth and a flush of fury flooded the man's face.
"What do you care? I tripped him. Hit me!" and the low, level tone blended into silence. It seemed athing—that uncanny silence when noise should have been.
There were sounds—sounds that no one heeded nor heard—the heavy breathing of a hundred men waiting for something to happen—the thin creak of the table boards as men leaned forward upon hands whose knuckles whitened under the red skin, and stared, fascinated, at the two big men who faced each other in the broad aisle.
The swinish eyes of the brutish man glared malignantly into the gray eyes of the stranger, in which there appeared no slightest flicker of rage nor hate, nor any other emotion.
Only a cold, hard stare which held something of terrible intensity, accentuated by the little fans of whitening wrinkles which radiated from their corners.
In that instant the other's gaze wavered. He knew that this man had lied; and he knew that every man in the room knew that he had lied. That he had deliberately lied into the row and then, without raising his guard, had dared him to strike.
It was inconceivable.
Had the man loudly shouted his challenge or thrown up his guard when he dared him to strike, or had his eye twitched or burned with anger, he would have unhesitatingly lunged into a fight to the finish.
But he found himself at a disadvantage. He was up against something he did not understand. The calm assurance of the stranger—his fists were not doubled and his lips smiled—disconcerted him.
A strange, prickly chill tingled at the back of his neck, and in his heart he knew that for the first time in his life he dared not strike a man. He cast about craftily to save his face and took his cue from the other's smile. With an effort his loose, thick lips twisted into a grin.
"G'wan with yer jokin', stranger," he laughed.
"Y'u damn near made me mad—fer a minute," and he turned to the table.
Instantly a clatter of noise broke forth. Men rattled dishes nervously in relief or disappointment, and the room was filled with the rumble of voices in unmeaning chatter. But in the quick glances which passed from man to man there was much of meaning.
"God, man, that was Moncrossen!" whispered Fallon, when the two found themselves seated near the end of the table. Bill smiled.
"Was it?" he asked. "I don't like him."
CHAPTER XVII
A TWO-FISTED MAN
A half-hour later when Bill sought out the boss in the little office, the latter received him in surly silence; and as he read Appleton's note his lip curled.
"So you think you'll make a lumberjack, do you?"
"Yes." There was no hesitation; nothing of doubt in the reply.
"My crew's full," the boss growled. "I don't need no men, let alone a greener that don't know a peavey from a bark spud. Wha'd the old man send you up here for, anyhow?"
"That, I presume, ishisbusiness."
"Oh, it is, is it? Well, let me tell you first off—I'm boss of this here camp!" Moncrossen paused and glared at the younger man. "You get that, do you? Just you remember that what I say goes, an' I don't take no guff offen no man, not even one of the old man's pets—an' that'smybusiness—see?"
Bill smiled as the scowling man crushed the note in his hand and slammed it viciously into the wood-box.
"Wants you broke in, does he? All right; I'll break you! Ag'in' spring you'll know a little somethin' about logs, or you'll be so damn sick of the woods you'll run every time you hear a log chain rattle; an' either way, you'll learn who's boss of this here camp."
Moncrossen sank his yellow teeth into a thick plug of tobacco and tore off the corner with a jerk.
"Throw yer blankets into an empty bunk an' be ready fer work in the mornin'. I'll put you swampin' fer the big Swede—I guess that 'll hold you. Yer wages is forty-five a month—an' I'm right here to see that you earn 'em."
"Can I buy blankets here? I threw mine away coming out."
"Comin' out! Comin' in, you mean! Men comeinto the woods. In the spring they goout—if they're lucky. Get what you want over to the van; it'll be charged ag'in' yer wages." Bill turned toward the door.
"By the way," the boss growled, "what's yer name—back where you come from?"
"Bill."
"Bill what?"
"No. Just Bill—with a period for a full stop. And that'smybusiness—see?" As Moncrossen encountered the level stare of the gray eyes he leered knowingly.
"Oh, that's it, eh? All right,Bill! 'Curiosity killed the cat,' as the feller says. An' just don't forget to remember that what a man don't know don't hurt him none. Loggin' is learnedinthe choppin's. Accidents happens; an' dead men tells no tales. Them that keeps their eyes to the front an' minds their own business gen'ally winters through. That's all."
Bill wondered at the seemingly irrelevant utterances of the boss, but left the office without comment.
On the floor of the bunk-house Irish Fallon, assisted by several of the men, was removing the skin from Diablesse, while others looked on.
The awkward hush that fell upon them as he entered told Bill that he had been the subject of their conversation. Men glanced at him covertly, as though taking his measure, and he soon found himself relating the adventures of the trail to an appreciative audience, which grinned approval and tendered flasks, which he declined.
Later, as he helped Fallon nail the wolfskin to the end of the bunk-house he told him of the interview with Moncrossen. The Irishman listened, frowning.
"Ye've made a bad shtar-rt wid um," he said, shaking his head. "Ye eyed 'im down in th' grub-shack, an' he hates ye fer ut. How ye got by wid ut Oi don't know, fer he's a scr-rapper from away back, an' av he'd sailed into ye Oi'm thinkin' he'd knocked th' divil out av ye, fer he's had experience, which ye ain't. But he didn't dast to, an' he knows ut, an' he knows that the men knows ut. An' now he'll lay fer a chanst to git aven. Ut's th' besht ye c'n do—loike he says, kape th' two eyes av ye to th' front an' moind yer own business—only kape wan eye behint ye to look out fer throuble. Phwat fer job did he give yez?"
"I am to start swamping, whatever that is, for the big Swede."
The Irishman grinned.
"Oi thoucht so; an' may God have mercy on yer sowl."
"What is the matter with the Swede?"
"Mather enough. Bein' hand an' glove wid Moncrossen is good rayson to suspicion any man. Fer t'is be the help av Shtromberg that Moncrossen kapes a loine on th' men an' gits by wid his crooked wor-rk.
"He ain't long on brains nohow, Moncrossen ain't, an' he ain't a good camp-boss nayther, fer all he gits out th' logs.
"Be bluff an' bullyin' he gits th' wor-rk out av th' crew; but av ut wasn't that Misther Appleton lets um pay a bit over goin' wages, he'd have no crew, fer th' men hate um fer all they're afraid av um.
"Th' rayson he puts ye shwampin' fer th' big Swede is so's he'll kape an eye on yez. As long as ye do yer wor-rk an' moind yer own business ye'll get along wid him as well as another. But, moind ye, phwin th' bird's-eye shtar-rts movin' ye don't notice nothin,' or some foine avenin' ye'll turn up missin'."
"What is this bird's-eye thing?" asked Bill. "What has it got to do with Moncrossen—and me?"
The Irishman considered the question and, without answering, walked to the corner of the bunk-house near which they were standing and peered into the black shadow of the wall. Apparently satisfied, he returned again to where Bill was standing.
"Come on in th' bunk-house, now," he said. "I want to locate Shtromberg an' wan or two more. We'll sit around an' shmoke a bit, an' phwin they begin rollin' in ye'll ask me phwere is th' van, fer ye must have blankets an' phwat not. Oi'll go along to show ye, an' we'll take a turn down th' tote-road phwere we c'n talk widout its gittin' to th' ears av th' boss."
Wondering at the man's precautions for secrecy, he followed, and for a half-hour listened to the fireside gossip of the camp. He noticed that Fallon's glance traveled over the various groups as if seeking some one, and he wondered which of the men was Stromberg.
Suddenly the door was flung open and a huge, yellow-bearded man stamped noisily to the stove, disregarding the curses that issued from the bunks of those who had already turned in.
This man was larger even than Moncrossen, with protruding eyes of china blue, which stared weakly from beneath heavy, straw-colored eyebrows. Two hundred and fifty pounds, thought Bill, as the man, snorting disagreeably, paused before him and fixed him with an insolent stare.
"Hey, you! Boss says you swamp for me," he snorted. Bill nodded indifferently.
"You know how to swamp good?" he asked. Bill studied the toes of his moccasins and, without looking up, replied with a negative shake of his head.
"I learn you, all right. In couple days you swamp good, or I fix you."
Bill looked up, encountered the watery glare of the blue eyes, and returned his gaze to the points of his moccasins. The voice of the Swede grew more aggressive. He snorted importantly as the men looked on, and smote his palm with a ponderous fist.
"First thing, I duck you in waterhole. Then I slap you to peak an' break off the peak." The men snickered, and Stromberg, emboldened by the silence of his new swamper, continued:
"It's time boys was in bed. To-morrow I make you earn your wages."
Bill rose slowly from his seat, and as he looked again into the face of the big Swede his lips smiled. But Fallon noticed, and others, that in the steely glint of the gray eyes was no hint of smile, and they watched curiously while he removed his mackinaw and tossed it carelessly onto the edge of a near-by bunk from where it slipped unnoticed to the floor.
Stromberg produced a bottle, drank deep, and returned the flask to his pocket. He rasped the fire from his throat with a harsh, grating sound, drew the back of his hand across his mouth, and kicked contemptuously at the mackinaw which lay almost at his feet.
As he did so a long, thick envelope, to which was tightly bound the photograph of a girl, slipped from the inner pocket. Instantly he stooped and seized it.
"Haw, haw!" he roared, "the greener's got a woman. Look, she's a——"
"Drop that!" The voice was low, almost soft in tone, but the words cut quick and clear, with no hint of gentleness.
"Come get it, greener!" The man taunted as he doubled a huge fist, and held the photograph high that the others might see.
Bill came. He covered the intervening space at a bound, springing swiftly and straight—as panthers spring; and as his moccasined feet touched the floor he struck. Once, twice, thrice—and all so quickly that the onlookers received no sense of repeated effort.
The terrific force of the well-placed blows, and their deadly accuracy, seemed to be consecutive parts of a single, continuous, smoothly flowing movement.
In the tense silence sounds rang sharp—the peculiar smack of living flesh hard hit, as the first blow landed just below the ear, the dull thump of a heavy body blow, and the clash of teeth driven against teeth as the sagging jaw of the big Swede snapped shut to the impact of the long swing that landed full on his chin's point.
The huge form stiffened, spun half-way around, and toppled sidewise against a rack of drying garments, which fell with a crash to the floor.
Without so much as a glance at the ludicrously sprawled figure, Bill picked up his mackinaw and returned the envelope to the pocket.
"Irish," he asked, "where is the van? I must get some blankets. My nurse, there, says it's time to turn in."
"Oi'll go wid ye," said Fallon, and a roar of laughter followed them out into the night.