CHAPTER XXVI
MAN OR TOY MAN?
The newspaper prediction of the forthcoming announcement of the engagement of Miss Ethel Manton and Gregory St. Ledger was published, not without color of authority, nor was it entirely out of keeping with appearances.
As the gay calendar of society's romp and rout drew toward its close, the names of these two became more and more intimately associated. It was an association assiduously cultivated by young St. Ledger, and earnestly fostered and abetted by the St. Ledger sisters who, fluttering uncertainly upon the outermost rim of the circle immediately surrounding society's innermost shrine, realized that the linking of the Manton name with the newer name of St. Ledger, would prove an open sesame to the half-closed doors of the Knickerbockers.
Despite two years' residence in the most expensive suite of a most expensive hotel, nobody seemed to know much about the St. Ledgers. It was an accepted fact that they were islanders from somewhere, variously stated to be Jamaica, The Isle of Pines, and Barbadoes, whose wealth was founded upon sugar, and appeared limitless.
St. Ledgerpère, tall and saturnine, divided his time about equally between New York and "the islands."
The two girls, ravishingly beautiful in their dark, semi-mysterious way, had been brought from some out-of-the-way French convent to the life of the great city, where to gain entrée into society's holy of holies became a fetish above their gods.
There was nomèreSt. Ledger, and vague whisperings passed back and forth between certain bleached out, flat-chested virgins, whose forgotten youth and beauty were things long past, but whose tenure upon society was as firm and unassailable as Plymouth Rock and the silver leg of Peter Stuyvesant could make it.
It was hinted that the high-piled tresses of the sisters matched too closely the hue of the raven's wing, and that the much admired "waves" if left to themselves would resolve into decided "kinks."
They were guarded whisperings, however, non-committal, and so worded that a triumphantly blazoned "I told you so!" or a depreciatory and horrified: "You misunderstood me,dear," hung upon the pending verdict of the powers that be.
Gregory St. Ledger, in so far as any one knew, was neither liked nor disliked among men; being of the sort who enjoy watching games of tennis and, during the later hours of the afternoon, drive pampered Pekingese about the streets in silver-mounted electrics.
He enjoyed, also, a baby-blue reputation which successfully cloaked certain spots of pale cerise in his rather negligible character.
He smoked innumerable scented cigarettes, gold as to tip and monogram, which he selected with ostentatious unostentation from a heavy gold case liberally bestudded with rubies and diamonds.
He viewed events calmly through a life-size monocle, was London tailored, Paris shod, and New York manicured; and carried an embossed leather check-book, whose detachable pink slips proved a potent safety factor against undue increment of the St. Ledger exchequer.
Thus equipped, and for reasons of family, young St. Ledger decided to marry Ethel Manton; and to this end he devoted himself persistently and insidiously, but with the inborn patience and diplomacy of the South Islander.
Bill Carmody he hated with the snakelike hate of little men, but shrewdly perceiving that the girl held more than a friendly regard for him, enthusiastically sang his praises in her ears; praises that, somehow, always left her with a strange smothering sensation about the heart and a dull resentment of the fact that she cared.
With the disappearance of young Carmody, St. Ledger redoubled his attentions. The young man found it much easier than did his sisters to be numbered "among those present" at the smart functions of the élite.
When New York shivered in the first throes of winter, a well-planned cruise in mild waters under soft skies on board the lavishly appointed and bountifully supplied St. Ledger yacht, whose sailing list included a carefully selected and undeniably congenial party of guests, worked wonders in the matter of St. Ledger's social aspirations.
At the clubs, substantial and easily forgotten loans to members of the embarrassed elect, coupled with vague hints, rarely failed to pay dividends in the form of invitations to ultra-exclusiveaffaires.
At the hostelry the St. Ledgersoirées, if so glitteringly bizarre as to draw high-browed frowns from the more reserved and staid of the thinning old guard of ancestor-worshipers, nevertheless, were enthusiastically hailed and eagerly attended by the younger set, and played no small part in the insinuation of "those St. Ledgers" into the realms of the anointed.
Thus the winter wore away, and, at all times and in all places Gregory St. Ledger appeared as the devoted satellite of Ethel Manton, who entered the social mêlée without enthusiasm, but with dogged determination to let the world see that the disappearance of Bill Carmody affected her not at all.
She tolerated St. Ledger, even encouraged him, for he amused and offered a welcome diversion for her thoughts.
She was a girl of moods whose imagination carried her into far places in the picturing of a man—her man—big, and strong, and clean; fighting bare-fisted among men for his place in the world, and alone conquering the secret devil of desire that he might claim the right to her love.
Then it was, curled up in the big armchair in the library, the blue eyes would glow softly and tenderly in the flare of the flickering firelight, and between parted lips the warm breath would come and go in short stabbing whispers to the quick rise and fall of the rounded bosom, and the little fists would clench white in the tense gladness of it.
But there were other times—times when the dancing wall-shadows were dark specters of ill-omen gloating ghoulishly before her horror-widened eyes as her brain conjured the picture of the man—battered, broken, helpless, with bloated, sottish features, and bleared eyes—a beaten man drifting heedlessly, hopelessly, furtive-eyed, away from his standards—and from her.
At such times the breath would flutter uncertainly between cold, bloodless lips, and the marble whiteness of her face became a pallid death mask of despair.
Always in extremes she pictured him, for, knowing the man as she knew him—the bigness of him—the relentless dynamic man-power of his being, she knew that with him there would be no half-way measure—no median line of indifferent achievement which should stand for neither the good nor the bad among men.
Here was no Tomlinson whose little sins and passive virtues became the jest of the gods; but a man who in the final accounting would stand four-square upon the merit of his works, and in the might of their right or wrong, accept fearlessly his reward.
The days dragged into weeks and the weeks into months—empty months to the heart of the girl who waited, dreading, yet hoping for word from the man she loved. Yet knowing, deep down in her heart, she would hear no word.
He would come to her—would answer the call of her great love—would beat down the barriers and in the flush of victory would claim her as his own; or, in the everlasting silence of the weird realm of missing men, be lost to her forever.
Daily she scanned the newspapers. Not front pages whose glaring headlines flaunted world-rumblings, politics, and the illness of rich men's dogs, but tiny cable-whispers from places far from the beaten track, places forgotten or unknown, whose very names breathed mystery; whispers that hinted briefly of life-tragedies, of action and the unsung deeds of men.
And as she read, she mused.
A tramp steamer dashed upon the saw-tooth rocks off Sarawak. Thirty perish—seven saved—no names. "Where is Sarawak? Is it possible thathe——?"
Four sailors killed in the rescue of a girl from a dive in Singapore. Investigation ordered—no names. "Hewould have done that."
The rum-sodden body of a man, presumably a derelict American, picked up on the bund at Papiete; no marks of identification save the tightly clutched photograph of a well-dressed young woman. "Hadhegiven up the fight? And was this the end?"
Eight revolutionist prisoners taken by General Orotho in yesterday's battle were shot at sunrise this morning before the prison wall of Managua.
One, an American, faced the firing squad with a laugh, and the next instant pitched forward, his body riddled with bullets. "Hewould have laughed! Would have played gladly the game with death and, losing—laughed!"
Each day she read the little lines of the doings of men; unnamed adventurers whose deeds were virile deeds; rough men, from whose contaminating touch society gathers up her silken skirts and passes by upon the other side; unlovely men, rolled-sleeved and open-throated, deep-seamed of face, and richly weather-tanned of arm, who tread roughshod the laws of little right and wrong; who drink red liquor and swear lurid oaths and loud; but who, shoulder to shoulder, redden the gutters of Singapore with their hearts' blood in the snatching of a young girl from danger.
And in the reading there grew up in her heart a mighty respect for these men, for, in the analysis of their deeds, the beam swayed strongly against the measure of the world in its balance of good and harm.
Many times her feet carried her into strange streets among strange people, where the reek of shipping became incense to her nostrils, and hairy-chested men of many ports stared boldly into her face and, reading her aright, made room with deference.
Upon an evening just before the annual surcease of frivolity, Gregory St. Ledger called at the Manton home and, finding Ethel alone in the library, asked her to be his wife.
Because it was an evening of her blackest mood she neither refused nor accepted him, but put him off for a year on the ground that she did not know her mind.
In vain he protested, arguing the power and prestige of the St. Ledger millions, and in the end departed to seek out an acquaintance who had to do with a blatant Sunday newspaper.
During the interview that followed, in the course of which the reporter ordered and St. Ledger paid for many tall drinks of intricate concoction, the gilded youth made no statement of fact, but the impression he managed to convey furnished the theme for the news story whose headlines seared into Bill Carmody's soul to the crashing of his tenets and gods.
In the library the girl sat far into the night and thought of the man who had won her heart and of the toy man who would buy her hand.
CHAPTER XXVII
JEANNE
Bill Carmody opened his eyes. A weird darkness surrounded him through which dancing half-lights played upon a close-thrown screen. Dully he watched the grotesque flickering of lights and shadows. He was not surprised—not even curious. Nothing mattered—nothing save the terrible pain in his head and the racking ache of the muscles of his body. His skin felt hot and drawn and he gasped for air. A great weight seemed pressing upon him, and when he tried to fill his bursting lungs instead of great drafts of cooling air, hot, stabbing pains shot through his chest and he groaned aloud at the hurt of it.
He turned his aching body, wincing at the movement, and stared dully through a low aperture in the encircling screen. Beyond, in another world, it seemed, a tiny fire flickered under a suspended iron kettle.
Near the fire a blanketed form sat motionless with knees tight-hugged against shrunken breast. Upon the blanket-covered knees rested the angular chin of a dark-skinned, leathern face, upon which the firelight played fitfully, and beneath a tangled mop of graying hair two eyes flashed and dulled like black opals.
He glanced upward and realized that the close-thrown screen, upon which danced the lights and shadows, was the smoke-blackened canvas of a tepee, loosely stretched upon its slanting lodge-poles.
Again he attempted to fill his congested lungs with cool, sweet air, and again the attempt ended in a groan and he relaxed, gasping, while upon his forehead the cold sweat stood in clammy beads.
Yet his head was burning hot, and the blankets which covered him were blankets of fire. Suddenly it dawned upon him that this was a hideous nightmare.
The blackened lodge with its terrifying shadow-pictures that flickered and faded and flickered again; the old crone by the fire; the pain in his head, and the hot aches of his body, were horrid brain fancies.
With a mighty effort he would break the spell, and from the bunk below the rich brogue of Fallon would "bawl him out" for his restlessness—good old Fallon!
Vainly he attempted to marshal his scattered wits, and break the spell of the torturing brain picture. The shadows above him took on weird shapes; grinning faces with tangled gray locks; long snakelike bodies, and tails of red and yellow light twined and writhed sinuously about the beautiful face of a girl.
How real—how distinct in the half-light, was the face beneath the mass of gleaming black hair. And eyes! Dark, serious eyes, into which one might gaze far into mysterious depths—soft, restful eyes, thought the man as he stared upward into the phantom face.
From the curve of the parted red lips the perfect teeth flashed whitely, and from the delicately turned chin the soft full-throated neck swept beneath the open throat of the loose-fitting buckskin hunting shirt whose deep fringed trimmings only half-concealed the rich lines of a rounded bosom.
The man remained motionless, fearing to move lest the vision fade and the harsh voice of Fallon blare out from below. "Damn Fallon!" he muttered, and then the pictured lips moved and in his ears was the soft, sweet sound of a voice.
The writhing snakes with the shining tails resolved into flickering wall-shadows which danced lightly among the slanting lodge-poles. But the dream-face did not fade, the dream-eyes gazed softly into his, the dream-lips moved, and the low sound of the dream-voice was music to his ears.
"You are sick," the voice said; "you are in pain." Bill's throat was dry with a burning thirst.
"Water!" he gasped, and the word rasped harsh.
The girl reached into the shadows and a tiny white-brown hand appeared holding a dripping tin cup. She bent closer and the next instant the man's burning cheek was pillowed against the soft coolness of her bared arm and his head was raised from the blanket while the tiny white-brown hand held the tin cup to his lips.
With the life-giving draft the man's brain cleared and he smiled into the eyes of his dream-girl. Her lips returned the smile and there was a movement of the rounded arm that pillowed his head.
"No! No!" he whispered, and pressed his cheek closer against the soft, bare flesh. The arm was not withdrawn, the liquid eyes gazed for a moment into his and were veiled by the swift downsweep of the long, dark lashes.
In the silence, a little white-brown hand strayed over his face and rested with delicious coolness upon the fevered brow. Bill's eyes closed and for blissful eons he lay, while in all the world was no such thing as pain—only the sweet, restful peace of Dreamland.
Unconsciously his lips pressed close against the softness of her arm, and at their touch the arm trembled, and from far away came the quick, sibilant gasp of an indrawn breath.
The arm pressed closer, the tapering fingers of the little hand strayed caressingly through the tangled curls of his hair, and Bill Carmody slipped silently into the quiet of oblivion.
The fire under the iron kettle died down, and the shadows faded from the walls of the tepee. Inside, the girl sat far into the night, and the mystery of the dark eyes deepened as they gazed into the bearded face close pillowed against her arm.
By the dying fire the old crone drew her blanket more closely about her and glowered into the red embers as her beady, black eyes shot keen glances toward the motionless forms in the blackness beyond the open flap of the tepee.
On Blood River the logs floated steadily millward, the bateau followed the drive, and the men of the logs passed noisily out of the North.
CHAPTER XXVIII
A PROPHECY
In the gray of the morning Jacques Lacombie returned to his lodge to find Wa-ha-ta-na-ta seated in front of the tepee staring into the dead ashes of the fire.
In answer to his rough questioning she arose stiffly, stalked to the open flap of the lodge and, standing aside, pointed mutely to the silent figures within.
Both slept. The fever-flushed face of the man pillowed upon the bare arm of the girl, whose body had settled wearily forward until her head, with its mass of black tresses, rested upon his breast, where it rose and fell to the heave of his labored breathing.
Long the half-breed looked, uttering no word, while the old squaw searched his face which remained as expressionless as a face of stone.
"Make a fire," he commanded gruffly, and slung his pack upon the ground. She obeyed, muttering the while, and Jacques watched her as he filled and lighted his pipe.
"The man is M's'u' Bill," he observed, apparently talking to himself, "The-Man-Who-Cannot-Die."
The old woman shot him a keen glance as she hovered over the tiny flame that licked at the twigs of dry larchwood. "All men die," she muttered dully. "Did not Lacombie die?"
"At midnight I passed through the deserted camp of Moncrossen," the man continued, paying no heed to her remark. "Creed did not go out with the drive, but stayed behind to guard the camp, and he told me of the death of this man; how he himself saw him sink beneath the waters of the river and saw the logs of the jam rush over him.
"As we talked, and because he had been drinking much whisky, he told me that it was he who locked this man in the shack last winter and then set fire to the shack. He told me also Moncrossen desired this man's death above any other thing, and had ordered the breaking of the jam at a moment when he knew thechechakocould not escape, so that he was hurled into the water and killed."
The old woman interrupted him. "I drew him upon the bank, thinking he was Moncrossen, and that I might breathe upon him the curse. Because his heart is bad, being a man of logs, I would have returned him to the river whence he came; but Jeanne prevented." Jacques smiled at the bitter disappointment in her voice.
"It is well," he returned. "See to it that he lives. Moncrossen is great among the white men—and his heart is bad. But the heart of thechechakois good, and one day will come a reckoning, and in that day the curse of the Yaga Tah shall fall from thy lips upon the dead face of Moncrossen."
"All white men are bad," grumbled the squaw. "There is no good white man."
Jacques silenced her with a gesture of impatience. "What is that to you, oh, Wa-ha-ta-na-ta, good or bad, if he kills Moncrossen?"
The old woman leaped to her feet and pointed a sharp skinny finger toward the tepee, her eyes flashed, and the cracked voice rang thin with anger.
"The girl!" she cried. "Jeanne, thy sister!"
Her son stepped close to her side and spoke low with the quiet voice of assurance:
"No harm will come to the girl. I have many times talked with this man as he worked in the timber. His heart is good—and his lips do not lie. I, who have looked into his eyes, have spoken. And, that you shall know my words are true, if harm befall the girl at the hand of the whitechechako, with this knife shall you kill me as I sleep."
He withdrew a long, keen blade from its sheath and handed it to the squaw, who took it.
"And not only you will I kill, but him also," she answered, testing its edge upon her thumb. "For the moon has spoken, and blood will flow. Last night, in the wet red moon, I saw it—dripping tears of blood—twelve, besides one small one, and they were swallowed up in the mist of the river. I, Wa-ha-ta-na-ta, the daughter of Kas-ka-tan, the chief, who know the signs, have spoken.
"Before the full of the thirteenth moon blood will flow upon the bank of the river. But whose blood I know not, for a great cloud came and covered the face of the moon, and when it was gone the tears of blood were no more and the mist had returned to the river—and the meaning of this I know not."
She ceased speaking abruptly at a sound from the tepee as the girl emerged and stepped quickly to the fire.
"I am glad you have come," said Jeanne hurriedly to her brother. "You, who are skilled in the mending of bones. The man's leg is broken; it is swollen and gives him much pain."
Jacques followed her into the tepee and, after a careful examination, removed the unconscious man.
The setting of the bones required no small amount of labor and ingenuity. Carmody was placed between two trees, to one of which his body was firmly bound at the shoulders.
A portion of the bark was removed from the other tree and the smooth surface rubbed with fat. Around this was passed a stout line, one end of which was made fast to the injured leg at the ankle.
A trimmed sapling served as a capstan bar, against which the two women threw their weight, while Jacques fitted the bone ends neatly together and applied the splints.
The Indians, schooled in the treatment of wounds and broken bones, were helpless as babes before the ravages of the dreaded pneumonia which racked the great body of the sick man.
Bill Carmody's recollection of the following days was confined to a hopeless confusion of distorted brain pictures in which the beautiful face of the girl, the repulsive features of the old crone, and the swart countenance of the half-breed were inextricably blended.
For two weeks he lay, interspersing long periods of unconsciousness with hours of wild, delirious raving. Then the disease wore itself out, and Jeanne Lacombie, entering the tepee one morning, encountered the steady gaze of the sunken eyes.
With a short exclamation of pleasure she crossed the intervening space and knelt at his side. The two regarded each other in silence. At length Bill's lips moved and he started slightly at the weak, toneless sound of his own voice.
"So you are real, after all," he smiled.
The girl returned the smile frankly.
"M's'u' has been very sick," she imparted, speaking slowly, as though selecting her words.
Bill nodded; he felt dizzy and helplessly weak.
"How long have I been here?" he asked.
"Since the turning of the moon."
"I'm afraid that is not very definite. You see I didn't even know the moon had been turned. Who turned it? And is it really turned to cheese or just turned around?"
The girl regarded him gravely, a puzzled expression puckering her face. Bill laughed.
"Forgive me," he begged. "I was talking nonsense. Can you tell me how many days I have been here?"
"It is fifteen days since we drew you from the river."
"Who'swe?"
Again the girl seemed perplexed.
"I mean, who helped you pull me out of the drink?"
"Wa-ha-ta-na-ta. She is my mother. She is an Indian, and very old."
"Areyouan Indian?" asked the man in such evident surprise that the girl laughed.
"My father was white. I am a breed," she answered; then with a quick lifting of the chin, hastened to add: "But not like the breeds of the rivers! My father was Lacombie, the factor at Crossette, and Wa-ha-ta-na-ta was the daughter of Kas-ka-tan, the chief, and they were married by a priest at the mission.
"That was very long ago, and now Lacombie is dead and the priest also, Wa-ha-ta-na-ta has a paper; also it is written in the book at the mission that men may read it and know."
Carmody was amused at her eagerness and watched the changing expression of her face as she continued more slowly:
"My father was good. But he is dead and, until you came, there has been no good white man."
Bill smiled at the naïve frankness of her.
"Why do you think that I am good?" he inquired.
"In your eyes I have read it. That night, before the wild fever-spirit entered your body, I looked long into your eyes. And has not Jacques told me of how you killed theloup-garou; of how you are hated by Moncrossen, and feared by Creed?
"Do I not know that fire cannot burn you nor water drown? Did you not beat down the greatest of Moncrossen's fighting men? And has not Wabishke told in the woods, to the wonder of all, how you drink no whisky, but pour it upon your feet?"
The girl spoke softly and rapidly, her face flushing.
"Do I not know all your thoughts?" she continued. "I who have sat at your side through the long days of your sickness and listened to the voice of the fever-spirit? At such times the heart cannot lie, and the lips speak the truth."
She leaned closer, and unconsciously a slender, white-brown hand fell upon his, and the soft, tapering fingers closed upon his own. A delicious thrill passed through his body at the touch.
As he looked into the beautiful face so close to his, with the white flash of pearly teeth in the play of the red lips, the eyes luminous, like twin stars, a strange, numbing loneliness overcame him.
She was speaking in a voice that sounded soothing and far away, so that he could not make out the words. Slowly his eyelids closed, blotting out the face—and he slept.
CHAPTER XXIX
A BUCKSKIN HUNTING-SHIRT
The days of his convalescence in the camp of the Lacombies were days fraught with mingled emotions in the heart of Bill Carmody.
Old Wa-ha-ta-na-ta treated him with cold deference, anticipating his needs with a sagacity that was almost uncanny. She appeared hardly to be aware of his presence, yet many times the man felt, without seeing, the deep, burning gaze of the undimmed, black eyes.
Jacques, whom he had known in the logging-camp as Blood River Jack, treated him with open friendliness, and as he became able to move about the camp, taught him much of the lore of the forest, of the building of nets and traps, the smoke-tanning of buckskin, and the taking and drying of salmon.
During the long evenings the two sat close to the smudge of the camp-fire and talked of many things, while the women listened.
But of the three it was the girl who most interested him. She was his almost constant companion, silent and subtle at times, and with the inborn subtlety of women she defied his most skilful attempts to share her thoughts.
At other times her naïve frankness and innocent brutality of expression surprised and amused him. Baffling, revealing—she remained at all times an enigma.
By the middle of June Bill was able to make short excursions to the river with the aid of the crutches which Blood River Jack crudely fashioned from young saplings.
With his increased freedom of movement his restlessness increased. Somewhere along the river, he knew, the bird's-eye logs were banked, awaiting the arrival of Moncrossen and Stromberg to raft them to the railway, and he surmised that their coming would not be long delayed.
Over and over in his mind he turned schemes for outwitting the boss. The strength was rapidly returning to his injured leg and he discarded one crutch, using the other only to help him over the rough places.
He was in no condition to undertake a journey to the railway, and in spite of Blood River Jack's expressed hatred of Moncrossen and friendship for himself, he hesitated about taking the half-breed into his confidence.
At length he could stand the suspense no longer. Each day's delay lessened his chance of success. He decided to act—to lay the matter before Blood River Jack and ask his coöperation, and if he refused, to play the game alone.
He came to this decision one afternoon while seated upon a great log overlooking the rushing rapid. Beside him sat Jeanne, apparently deeply engrossed in the embroidering of a buckskin hunting-shirt.
After a long silence Bill knocked the dead ashes from his pipe, and his jaw squared as he looked out over the foaming white-water. He turned toward the girl and encountered the intense gaze of her dark eyes.
The neglected needlework lay across her knees, the small hands were folded, and the shining needle glinted in the sun where it had been deftly caught into the yellow buckskin at the turning of an unfinished scroll.
"The logs which you seek," she said quietly, "are piled upon the bank of the river, half a mile below the rapids." The man regarded her with a startled glance.
"What do you know about these logs—and of what I was thinking?"
She answered him with a curious, baffling smile, and, ignoring his question, continued:
"You need help. I am but a girl and know naught of logs nor why these logs did not go down the river with the others. But in your face as you pondered from day to day I have read it. Is it not that you would prevent Moncrossen from taking these logs? But you know not how to do it, for the logs must go down the river and Moncrossen must come up the river?"
"You are a wonder!" he exclaimed in admiration. "That's exactly what's been bothering me." She blushed furiously under his gaze and, with lowering eyes, continued:
"I do not know how it can be managed, but Jacques will know. You may trust Jacques as you trust me. For we are your friends, and his hatred of Moncrossen is a real hatred."
She raised her eyes to his.
"Do you know why Jacques hates Moncrossen, and why Wa-ha-ta-na-ta hates all white men?" she asked. Bill shook his head and listened as the girl, with blazing eyes, told him of the death of Pierre, and then, of the horror of that night on Broken Knee.
At her words Bill Carmody's face darkened, and his great fists clenched until the nails bit deep into his palms. The steel-gray eyes narrowed to slits and, as the girl finished, he arose and gently lifted one of the little hands between his own.
"I, too, could kill Moncrossen forthat," he said, and the tone of his voice was low, and soft, with a tense, even softness that sounded in the ears of the girl more terrible than a thousand loud hurled threats.
She looked up quickly into the face of the glinting eyes, her tiny hand trembled in his, and a sudden flush deepened the warm color of her neck.
"For me?" she faltered. "Me?" And, with a half-smothered, frightened gasp, tore her hand free and fled swiftly into the forest.
Bill stared a long time at the place where she disappeared, and, smiling, stooped and picked up her needlework where it had fallen at his feet.
He examined it idly for a moment and then more closely as a puzzled look crept into his eyes. The garment he held in his hand was never designed for a covering for the girl's own lithe body, nor was it small enough even for Jacques.
"She's worked on it every day for a month," he murmured, as he glanced from the intricate embroidered design to his own shirt of ragged flannel, and again he smiled—bitterly.
"She's a queer kid," he said softly, as he recovered his crutch; "and a mighty good kid, too."
CHAPTER XXX
CREED
That night the four sat late about the campfire.
Old Wa-ha-ta-na-ta, silent and forbidding, as usual, but with a sharp ear for all that was said, listened as they laid their plans.
At their conclusion the others sought their blankets, while Jacques took the trail for the camp of old Wabishke whose help was needed in the undertaking which was to involve no small amount of labor.
As the two women finished the preparation of breakfast the following morning, the half-breed appeared, followed closely by the old Indian trapper whose scarred lips broke into a hideous grin at the sight of Bill.
"This is Wabishke, of whom I spoke," said Jacques, indicating the Indian. Bill laughingly extended his hand, which the other took.
"Well! If it isn't my friend, the Yankee!" he exclaimed. "Wabishke and I are old friends. He is the first man I met in the woods." The Indian nodded, grunted, and pointed to his feet which were encased in a very serviceable pair of boots.
"Oh, I remember, perfectly," laughed Bill. "Have you still got my matches?" Wabishke grinned.
"You keelloup-garouwith knife?" he asked, as if seeking corroboration for an unbelievable story.
"I sure did," Bill answered. "The old gal tried to bite me."
The Indian regarded him with grave approval and, stepping to his side, favored him with another greasy hand-shake, after which ceremony he squatted by the fire and removing a half-dozen pieces of bacon from the frying-pan proceeded to devour them with evident relish.
Breakfast over, the three men accompanied by Jeanne set out for the river, leaving to old Wa-ha-ta-na-ta the work of the camp. Sliding a canoe into the water, they took their places, Jacques and Wabishke at the paddles, with Jeanne and Bill seated on the bottom amidships.
Close to the opposite bank the canoe was headed down-stream and, under the swift, strong strokes of the paddles, glided noiselessly in the shadows. A few minutes later, at a sign from Jacques who was in the bow, Wabishke, with a deft twist of his paddle, slanted the canoe bankward.
With a soft, rustling sound the light craft parted the low hanging branches of killikinick and diamond willow, and buried its nose in the soft mud.
Peering through the tangle of underbrush the occupants of the canoe made out, some fifty yards below their position, a small clearing in the center of which, just above the high-water mark of the river, was a small pyramid of logs.
Seated beside the pile, with his back resting against the ends of the logs, sat a man holding a rifle across his knees.
Bill Carmody's fighting spirit thrilled at the sight. Here at last was action. Here were the stolen logs of bird's-eye, and guarding them was Creed!
While the others steadied the canoe he stepped noiselessly onto the bank, where he sank to his ankles in the mud, and, seizing hold of the bow shot the canoe out into the current.
Creed had been left in the woods by Moncrossen, ostensibly to guard the Blood River camp against pilfering Indians and chance forest fires, but his real mission was to keep watch on the bird's-eye until it could be safely rafted to the railway.
Moncrossen promised to return about the middle of June, and ten mornings Creed had skulked the three miles from the lumber camp to the logs, and ten evenings he had skulked fearfully back again, muttering futile curses at the boss's delay.
Creed was uneasy. Not since the evening the greener had walked into Hod Burrage's store at the very moment when he, Creed, was recounting to the interested listeners the circumstances attending his demise, had he been entirely free from a haunting, nameless fear.
True, as he told Blood River Jack, he had afterward seen with his own eyes, the greener go down under the rushing jam where no man could possibly go down and live.
But, nevertheless, deep in his heart was theterror—nameless, unreasoning, haunting,—that clung to him night and day. So that a hundred times a day, alone in the timber, he would start and cast quick, jerky glances over his shoulder and jump, white-faced and trembling, at the snapping of a twig.
As the days went by the nameless terror grew, dogging his footsteps, phantomlike by day, and haunting him at night, as he lay shaking in his bunk in the double-locked little office.
With the single exception of Blood River Jack, he had seen no human being since the drive, and his frenzied desire for companionship would have been pitiful, had it been less craven.
He slept fitfully with his rifle loaded and often cocked in his bunk beside him, while during the day it was never out of reach of his hand.
In his daily excursions to the bird's-eye rollway he never took the same route twice, but skulked, peering fearfully about in the underbrush, avoiding even the game trails.
And always he détoured widely the place where he had seen the greener disappear beneath the muddy, log-ridden waters.
And so it was that upon this particular morning Creed sat close against the pyramid of logs—waiting.
At a sound from the river he jerked his rifle into readiness for immediate action and sat nervously alert, his thumb twitching on the hammer. Approaching down-stream came a canoe.
Creed leaped to his feet with a maudlin grin of relief as he recognized the three occupants. Apparently they had not seen him, and he stepped to the bank fearful lest they pass.
"Hey! You, Jack!" he called, waving his cap.
The bow-man ceased paddling and gazed shoreward in evident surprise; the man on the bank was motioning them in with wide sweeps of the arm. The half-breed called a few hasty words over his shoulder and the canoe shot toward shore.
"Where y' goin'?" asked Creed, as the three stepped onto the bank. Blood River Jack replied with an indefinite sweep of his arm to the southward.
"Well, y' ain't in no hurry. Never seen a Injun yet cudn't stop long 'nough to take a drink o' licker. Har, har, har!"
He laughed foolishly, with an exaggerated wink toward the old Indian.
"How 'bout it, Wabishke; leetle fire-water make yer belt fit better? 'Tain't a goin' to cost y' nawthin'."
The Indian grinned and grunted acquiescence, and Creed inserted his arm between two logs and withdrew a squat, black bottle.
"Here's some reg'lar ol' 'rig'nal red-eye. An' here's lookin' at ye," he said, as he removed the cork and sucked greedily at the contents. "Jest tuk a taste fust, 'cause I don't like to give vis'tors whisky I wudn't drink m'self, har, har, har! Anyways, the way I figger, it's white men fust, then half white, then Injuns." He passed the bottle to Jacques.
"'Fraid's little too strong fer ladies," he smirked, at Jeanne, and, reaching out quickly, jerked the upturned bottle from Wabishke's lips.
"Hey, y' ol' pirate! Y' don't need fer to empty it all to wunst. Set roun' a while, an' bimeby we'll have 'nother. 'S all on me to-day; this here's my party."
They seated themselves on the ground and engaged in conversation, in which Creed did most of the talking.
"Trade rifles?" asked Blood River Jack, idly picking up Creed's gun and examining it minutely.
"Beats all how a Injun allus wants to be a tradin'," grinned Creed. "Don't know but what I mought, though, at that. What's yourn?"
"Winchester, 30-40," replied Jacques, handing it over for inspection.
"Mine, too," said Creed; "only mine's newer. What'll y' give to boot?" Jacques did not hurry his answer, being engaged in removing the cartridges for the better inspection of magazine and chamber.
"Mine's better kep'," he opined after a careful squinting down the muzzle.
"Kep' nawthin'! 'S all nicked up. An', besides, it pulls hard."
Jacques was deliberately refilling the magazine, but so intent was Creed in picking out fancied defects in the other's weapon that he failed to notice that the cartridges which were being placed in his own rifle had had their bullets carefully drawn, while his original cartridges reposed snugly in the pocket of the half-breed's mackinaw.
"Tell y' what I'll do," said Creed, speaking in a tone of the utmost generosity. "Give me ten dollars to boot, an' we'll call it a trade."
Jacques laughed loudly and, handing the other his rifle, picked up his own.
"We must be goin'," he observed, and rose to his feet.
"Better have 'nother drink 'fore y' go," said Creed, tendering the bottle. They drank around and Creed returned the bottle to its cache, while the others took their places in the canoe.
"Make it five, then," Creed extended the rifle as though giving it away.
Jacques shook his head, and pushed the canoe out into the stream.
The man on shore eyed the widening strip of water between the bank and the canoe.
"I'll make it three, seein' ye're so hell-bent on a trade," he called. But his only answer was a loud laugh as the canoe disappeared around a sharp bend of the river.
Creed resumed his position with his back against the ends of the logs.
At a point some fifty feet up-stream from the diminutive rollway, and about the same distance from the shore, a blackened snag thrust its ugly head above the surface of the water, and against this snag brushwood and drift had collected and was held by the push of the stream which gurgled merrily among its interstices.
Creed's gaze, resting momentarily upon this miniature island, failed entirely to note that it concealed a man who stood immersed in the river from his neck down, and eyed him keenly through narrowed gray eyes; and that also this man was doing a most peculiar thing.
Reaching into the pocket of his water-soaked shirt he withdrew several long, steel-jacketed bullets and, holding them in the palm of his hand, grinned broadly.
Then, one by one, he placed them in his mouth, drew a long breath, and dived. The water at this point was about four feet in depth and the man swam rapidly, close to the bottom.
Creed's glance, roving idly over the river, was arrested by a quick commotion upon the surface of the water almost directly in front of him.
He seized his rifle and leaped to his feet, hoping for a shot at a stray otter. The next instant the rifle slipped from his nerveless fingers and struck upon the ground with a muffled thud.
Instead of an otter he was looking directly into the face of a man.
"God A'mi'ty," he gurgled, "it's the greener!" He leaned heavily against the logs, plucking foolishly at the bark. His scalp tingled from fright.
His mouth sagged open and the lolling, flabby tongue drooled thickly. His face became a dull, bloodless gray, glistening glaireously with clammy sweat, and his eyes dilated until they seemed bulging from their sockets.
It seemed ages he stood there, staring in horrible fascination at the man in the river—and then the man moved!
He was advancing slowly shoreward, with a curious limp, as he had entered Burrage's store. Creed's ashen lips moved stiffly, and his tongue seemed to fill his mouth.
"I've got 'em! I've got 'em," he maundered. "'S the booze, an' I'm seein' things!"
His groping brain grasped at the idea, and it gave him strength—better the "snakes" thanthat! But he must do something, the man was coming toward him—only hip-deep now—
"Go 'way! Go 'way!" he shrieked in a sudden frenzy of action. "Damn you! Y're dead! D'ye hear me! Go 'way from here!"
Suddenly his weakening knees stiffened under him, and he reached swiftly for the rifle on the ground at his feet.
Slowly and deliberately he raised it, cocked it, rested it across a log, and took deliberate aim at the center of the man's face—twenty paces away.
"Bang!" The crack of the rifle sounded loud and sharp in the tense stillness.
The apparition, at the water's edge, raised its hand slowly to its lips, and from between its teeth took a small object which it tossed toward the other. The object struck lightly against Creed's breast and dropped to the ground.
He looked, downward—it was a 30-40 bullet—his own! He stared dumbly at the thing on the ground. Then, automatically, he fired again, taking careful aim.
Again the ghost's hand moved slowly toward its mouth, and again the light tap upon his chest—and two bullets lay upon the ground at his feet.
His head felt strange and large, and inside his skull things were moving—long, gray maggots that twisted, and writhed, and squirmed, like fishing worms in a can.
He laughed flatly, a senile, cackling laugh. He did not want to laugh, but laughed again and, stooping, reached for the bullets. He stared at his fingers, bewildered; they groped helplessly at a spot a foot from the place where lay the two bullets with their shining steel jackets.
He must move his fingers to the right—this way. Again he stared—puzzled; they were moving farther and farther toward the left—away from the bullets. Again the dry, cackling laugh. He would fool his fingers. He would move themawayfrom the bullets.
He tried, and the next instant the groping fingers closed unerringly upon the little cylinders. The laugh became an inarticulate babble of satisfaction, his knees collapsed, and he pitched forward and lay still with wide, staring eyes, while upon the corners of his mouth appeared little flecks of white foam.
A shadow fell across his face—he was staring straight into the eyes of the greener, who stood, dripping wet with the water of the river into which he had fallen more than two months before.
The man leaped from the ground in a sudden frenzy of terror, and fled screaming into the forest, crashing, wallowing, tearing through the underbrush, he plunged, shrieking like a demon.
The greener stood alone in the clearing and listened to the diminishing sounds.
At length they ceased and, in the silence, the greener turned toward the sparkling river, and as he looked there came to his ear faint and far, one last, thin scream.