Helen watched her captive closely as he backed through the door before her, for she dared not lose sight of him until free. The middle room was lighted by a glass lamp on the bar and its rays showed that the front-door was secured by a large iron bolt. She thanked Heaven there was no lock and key.
Struve had retreated until his back was to the counter, offering no word, making no move, but the darting brightness of his eyes showed that he was alert and planning. But when the door behind Helen, urged by the wind through the broken casement, banged to, the man made his first lightning-like sign. He dashed the lamp to the floor, where it burst like an egg-shell, and darkness leaped into the room as an animal pounces. Had she been calmer or had time for an instant’s thought Helen would have hastened back to the light, but she was midway to her liberty and actuated by the sole desire to break out into the open air, so plunged forward. Without warning, she was hurled from her feet by a body which came out of the darkness upon her. She fired the little gun, but Struve’s arms closed about her, the weapon was wrenched from her hand, and she found herself fighting against him, breast to breast, with the fury of desperation. His wine-burdened breath beat into her face and she felt herself bound to him as though by hoops, while the touch of his cheek against hers turned her into a terrified, insensate animal, which fought with every ounce of its strength and every nerve of its body. She screamed once, but it was not like the cry of a woman. Then the struggle went on in silence and utter blackness, Struve holding her like a gorilla till she grew faint and her head began to whirl, while darting lightsdrove past her eyes and there was the roar of a cataract in her ears. She was a strong girl, and her ripe young body, untried until this moment, answered in every fibre, so that she wrestled with almost a man’s strength and he had hard shift to hold her. But so violent an encounter could not last. Helen felt herself drifting free from the earth and losing grip of all things tangible, when at last they tripped and fell against the inner door. This gave way, and at the same moment the man’s strength departed as though it were a thing of darkness and dared not face the light that streamed over them. She tore herself from his clutch and staggered into the supper-room, her loosened hair falling in a gleaming torrent about her shoulders, while he arose from his knees and came towards her again, gasping:
“I’ll show you who’s master here—”
Then he ceased abruptly, cringingly, and threw up an arm before his face as if to ward off a blow. Framed in the window was the pallid visage of a man. The air rocked, the lamp flared, and Struve whirled completely around, falling back against the wall. His eyes filled with horror and shifted down where his hand had clutched at his breast, plucking at one spot as if tearing a barb from his bosom. He jerked his head towards the door at his elbow in quest of a retreat, a shudder ran over him, his knees buckled and he plunged forward upon his face, his arm still doubled under him.
It had happened like a flash of light, and although Helen felt, rather than heard, the shot and saw her assailant fall, she did not realize the meaning of it till a drift of powder smoke assailed her nostrils. Evenso, she experienced no shock nor horror of the sight. On the contrary, a savage joy at the spectacle seized her and she stood still, leaning slightly forward, staring at it almost gloatingly, stood so till she heard her name called, “Helen, little sister!” and, turning, saw her brother in the window.
That which he witnessed in her face he had seen before in the faces of men locked close with a hateful death and from whom all but the most elemental passions had departed—but he had never seen a woman bear the marks till now. No artifice nor falsity was there, nothing but the crudest, intensest feeling, which many people live and die without knowing. There are few who come to know the great primitive, passionate longings. But in this black night, fighting in defence of her most sacred self, this girl’s nature had been stripped to its purely savage elements. As Glenister had predicted, Helen at last had felt and yielded to irresistibly powerful impulse.
Glancing backward at the creature sprawled by the door, Helen went to her brother, put her arms about his neck, and kissed him.
“He’s dead?” the Kid asked her.
She nodded and tried to speak, but began to shiver and sob instead.
“Unlock the door,” he begged her. “I’m hurt, and I must get in.”
When the Kid had hobbled into the room, she pressed him to her and stroked his matted head, regardless of his muddy, soaking garments.
“I must look at him. He may not be badly hurt,” said the Kid.
“Don’t touch him!” She followed, nevertheless,and stood near by while her brother examined his victim. Struve was breathing, and, discovering this, the others lifted him with difficulty to the couch.
“Something cracked in here—ribs, I guess,” the Kid remarked, gasping and feeling his own side. He was weak and pale, and the girl led him into the bunk-room, where he could lie down. Only his wonderful determination had sustained him thus far, and now the knowledge of his helplessness served to prevent Helen’s collapse.
The Kid would not hear of her going for help till the storm abated or daylight came, insisting that the trails were too treacherous and that no time could be saved by doing so. Thus they waited for the dawn. At last they heard the wounded man faintly calling. He spoke to Helen hoarsely. There was no malice, only fear, in his tones:
“I said this was my madness—and I got what I deserved, but I’m going to die. O God—I’m going to die and I’m afraid.” He moaned till the Bronco Kid hobbled in, glaring with unquenched hatred.
“Yes, you’re going to die and I did it. Be game, can’t you? I sha’n’t let her go for help until daylight.”
Helen forced her brother back to his couch, and returned to help the wounded man, who grew incoherent and began to babble.
A little later, when the Kid seemed stronger and his head clearer, Helen ventured to tell him of their uncle’s villany and of the proof she held, with her hope of restoring justice. She told him of the attack planned that very night and of the danger which threatened the miners. He questioned her closely and, realising thebearing of her story, crept to the door, casting the wind like a hound.
“We’ll have to risk it,” said he. “The wind is almost gone and it’s not long till daylight.”
She pleaded to go alone, but he was firm. “I’ll never leave you again, and, moreover, I know the lower trail quite well. We’ll go down the gulch to the valley and reach town that way. It’s farther but it’s not so dangerous.”
“You can’t ride,” she insisted.
“I can if you’ll tie me into the saddle. Come, get the horses.”
It was still pitchy dark and the rain was pouring, but the wind only sighed weakly as though tired by its violence when she helped the Bronco into his saddle. The effort wrenched a groan from him, but he insisted upon her tying his feet beneath the horse’s belly, saying that the trail was rough and he could take no chance of falling again; so, having performed the last services she might for Struve, she mounted her own animal and allowed it to pick its way down the steep descent behind her brother, who swayed and lurched drunkenly in his seat, gripping the horn before him with both hands.
They had been gone perhaps a half-hour when another horse plunged furiously out of the darkness and halted before the road-house door. Its rider, mud-stained and dishevelled, flung himself in mad haste to the ground and bolted in through the door. He saw the signs of confusion in the outer room, chairs upset and broken, the table wedged against the stove, and before the counter a shattered lamp in a pool of oil. He calledloudly, but, receiving no answer, snatched a light which he found burning and ran to the door at his left. Nothing greeted him but the empty tiers of bunks. Turning, he crossed to the other side and burst through. Another lamp was lighted beside the couch where Struve lay, breathing heavily, his lids half closed over his staring eyes. Roy noted the pool of blood at his feet and the broken window; then, setting down his lamp, he leaned over the man and spoke to him.
When he received no answer he spoke again loudly. Then, in a frenzy, Glenister shook the wounded man cruelly, so that he cried out in terror:
“I’m dying—oh, I’m dying.” Roy raised the sick man up and thrust his own face before his eyes.
“This is Glenister. I’ve come for Helen—where is she?” A spark of recognition flickered into the dull stare.
“You’re too late—I’m dying—and I’m afraid.”
His questioner shook Struve again. “Where is she?” he repeated, time after time, till by very force of his own insistence he compelled realization in the sufferer.
“The Kid took her away. The Kid shot me,” and then his voice rose till it flooded the room with terror. “The Kid shot me and I’m dying.” He coughed blood to his lips, at which Roy laid him back and stood up. So there was no mistake, after all, and he had arrived too late. This was the Kid’s revenge. This was how he struck. Lacking courage to face a man’s level eyes, he possessed the foulness to prey upon a woman. Roy felt a weakening physical sickness sweep over him till his eye fell upon a sodden garment which Helen hadremoved from her brother’s shoulders and replaced with a dry one. He snatched it from the floor and in a sudden fury felt it come apart in his hands like wet tissue-paper.
He found himself out in the rain, scanning the trampled soil by light of his lamp, and discerned tracks which the drizzle had not yet erased. He reasoned mechanically that the two riders could have no great start of him, so strode out beyond the house to see if they had gone farther into the hills. There were no tracks here, therefore they must have doubled back towards town. It did not occur to him that they might have left the beaten path and followed down the little creek to the river; but, replacing the light where he had found it, he remounted and lashed his horse into a stiff canter up towards the divide that lay between him and the city. The story was growing plainer to him, though as yet he could not piece it all together. Its possibilities stabbed him with such horror that he cried out aloud and beat his steed into faster time with both hands and feet. To think of those two ruffians fighting over this girl as though she were the spoils of pillage! He must overtake the Kid—hewould! The possibility that he might not threw him into such ungovernable mental chaos that he was forced to calm himself. Men went mad that way. He could not think of it. That gasping creature in the road-house spoke all too well of the Bronco’s determination. And yet, who of those who had known the Kid in the past would dream that his vileness was so utter as this?
Away to the right, hidden among the shadowed hills, his friends rested themselves for the coming battle, waiting impatiently his return, and timing it to therising sun. Down in the valley to his left were the two he followed, while he, obsessed and unreasoning, now cursing like a madman, now grim and silent, spurred southward towards town and into the ranks of his enemies.
DAYwas breaking as Glenister came down the mountain. With the first light he halted to scan the trail, and having no means of knowing that the fresh tracks he found were not those of the two riders he followed, he urged his lathered horse ahead till he became suddenly conscious that he was very tired and had not slept for two days and nights. The recollection did not reassure the young man, for his body was a weapon which must not fail in the slightest measure now that there was work to do. Even the unwelcome speculation upon his physical handicap offered relief, however, from the agony which fed upon him whenever he thought of Helen in the gambler’s hands. Meanwhile, the horse, groaning at his master’s violence, plunged onward towards the roofs of Nome, now growing gray in the first dawn.
It seemed years since Roy had seen the sunlight, for this night, burdened with suspense, had been endlessly long. His body was faint beneath the strain, and yet he rode on and on, tired, dogged, stony, his eyes set towards the sea, his mind a storm of formless, whirling thoughts, beneath which was an undeviating, implacable determination.
He knew now that he had sacrificed all hope of theMidas, and likewise the hope of Helen was gone; in fact, he began to realize dimly that from the beginning he had never had the possibility of winning her, that she had never been destined for him, and that his love for her had been sent as a light by which he was to find himself. He had failed everywhere, he had become an outlaw, he had fought and gone down, certain only of his rectitude and the mastery of his unruly spirit. Now the hour had come when he would perform his last mission, deriving therefrom that satisfaction which the gods could not deny. He would have his vengeance.
The scheme took form without conscious effort on his part and embraced two things—the death of the gambler and a meeting with McNamara. Of the former, he had no more doubt than that the sun rising there would sink in the west. So well confirmed was this belief that the details did not engage his thought; but on the result of the other encounter he speculated with some interest. From the first McNamara had been a riddle to him, and mystery breeds curiosity. His blind, instinctive hatred of the man had assumed the proportions of a mania; but as to what the outcome would be when they met face to face, fate alone could tell. Anyway, McNamara should never have Helen—Roy believed his mission covered that point as well as her deliverance from the Bronco Kid. When he had finished—he would pay the price. If he had the luck to escape, he would go back to his hills and his solitude; if he did not, his future would be in the hands of his enemies.
He entered the silent streets unobserved, for the mists were heavy and low. Smoke columns arosevertically in the still air. The rain had ceased, having beaten down the waves which rumbled against the beach, filling the streets with their subdued thunder. A ship, anchored in the offing, had run in from the lee of Sledge Island with the first lull, while midway to the shore a tender was rising and falling, its oars flashing like the silvered feelers of a sea insect crawling upon the surface of the ocean.
He rode down Front Street heedless of danger, heedless of the comment his appearance might create, and, unseen, entered his enemy’s stronghold. He passed a gambling-hall, through the windows of which came a sickly yellow gleam. A man came out unsteadily and stared at the horseman, then passed on.
Glenister’s plan was to go straight to the Northern and from there to track down its owner relentlessly, but in order to reach the place his course led him past the office of Dunham & Struve. This brought back to his mind the man dying out there ten miles at his back. The scantiest humanity demanded that assistance be sent at once. Yet he dared not give word openly, thus betraying his presence, for it was necessary that he maintain his liberty during the next hour at all hazards. He suddenly thought of an expedient and reined in his horse, which stopped with wide-spread legs and dejected head while he dismounted and climbed the stairs to leave a note upon the door. Some one would see the message shortly and recognize its urgency.
In dressing for the battle at the Midas on the previous night he had replaced his leather boots with “mukluks,” which are waterproof, light, and pliable footgear made from the skin of seal and walrus. He was thus able to move as noiselessly as though in moccasins.Finding neither pencil nor paper in his pocket, he tried the outer door of the office, to find it unlocked. He stepped inside and listened, then moved towards a table on which were writing materials, but in doing so heard a rustle in Struve’s private office. Evidently his soft soles had not disturbed the man inside. Roy was about to tiptoe out as he had come when the hidden man cleared his throat. It is in these involuntary sounds that the voice retains its natural quality more distinctly even than in speaking. A strange eagerness grew in Glenister’s face and he approached the partition stealthily. It was of wood and glass, the panes clouded and opaque to a height of some six feet; but stepping upon a chair he peered into the room beyond. A man knelt in a litter of papers before the open safe, its drawers and compartments removed and their contents scattered. The watcher lowered himself, drew his gun, and laid soft hand upon the door-knob, turning the latch with firm fingers. His vengeance had come to meet him.
After lying in wait during the long night, certain that the Vigilantes would spring his trap, McNamara was astounded at news of the battle at the Midas and of Glenister’s success. He stormed and cursed his men as cowards. The Judge became greatly exercised over this new development, which, coupled with his night of long anxiety, reduced him to a pitiful hysteria.
“They’ll blowusup next. Great Heavens! Dynamite! Oh, that is barbarous. For Heaven’s sake, get the soldiers out, Alec.”
“Ay, we can use them now.” Thereupon McNamara roused the commanding officer at the post and requestedhim to accoutre a troop and have them ready to march at daylight, then bestirred the Judge to start the wheels of his court and invoke this military aid in regular fashion.
“Make it all a matter of record,” he said. “We want to keep our skirts clear from now on.”
“But the towns-people are against us,” quavered Stillman. “They’ll tear us to pieces.”
“Let ’em try. Once I get my hand on the ringleader, the rest may riot and be damned.”
Although he had made less display than had the Judge, the receiver was no less deeply worried about Helen, of whom no news came. His jealousy, fanned to red heat by the discovery of her earlier defection, was enhanced fourfold by the thought of this last adventure. Something told him there was treachery afoot, and when she did not return at dawn he began to fear that she had cast in her lot with the rioters. This aroused a perfect delirium of doubt and anger till he reasoned further that Struve, having gone with her, must also be a traitor. He recognized the menace in this fact, knowing the man’s venality, so began to reckon carefully its significance. What could Struve do? What proof had he? McNamara started, and, seizing his hat, hurried straight to the lawyer’s office and let himself in with the key he carried. It was light enough for him to decipher the characters on the safe lock as he turned the combination, so he set to work scanning the endless bundles within, hoping that after all the man had taken with him no incriminating evidence. Once the searcher paused at some fancied sound, but when nothing came of it drew his revolver and laid it before him just inside the safe door and close beneath his hand, continuingto run through the documents while his uneasiness increased. He had been engaged so for some time when he heard the faintest creak at his back, too slight to alarm and just sufficient to break his tension and cause him to jerk his head about. Framed in the open door stood Roy Glenister watching him.
McNamara’s astonishment was so genuine that he leaped to his feet, faced about, and prompted by a secretive instinct swung to the safe door as though to guard its contents. He had acted upon the impulse before realizing that his weapon was inside and that now, although the door was not locked, it would require that one dangerous, yes, fatal, second to open it.
The two men stared at each other for a time, silent and malignant, their glances meeting like blades; in the older man’s face a look of defiance, in the younger’s a dogged and grim-purposed enmity. McNamara’s first perturbation left him calm, alert, dangerous; whereas the continued contemplation of his enemy worked in Glenister to destroy his composure, and his purpose blazed forth unhidden.
He stood there unkempt and soiled, the clean sweep of jaw and throat overgrown with a three days’ black stubble, his hair wet and matted, his whole left side foul with clay where he had fallen in the darkness. A muddy red streak spread downward from a cut above his temple, beneath his eyes were sagging folds, while the flicker at his mouth corners betrayed the high nervous pitch to which he was keyed.
“I have come for the last act, McNamara; now we’ll have it out, man to man.”
The politician shrugged his shoulders. “You havethe drop on me. I am unarmed.” At which the miner’s face lighted fiercely and he chuckled.
“Ah, that’s almost too good to be true. I have dreamed about such a thing and I have been hungry to feel your throat since the first time I saw you. It’s grown on me till shooting wouldn’t satisfy me. Ever had the feeling? Well, I’m going to choke the life out of you with my bare hands.”
McNamara squared himself.
“I wouldn’t advise you to try it. I have lived longer than you and I was never beaten, but I know the feeling you speak about. I have it now.”
His eyes roved rapidly up and down the other’s form, noting the lean thighs and close-drawn belt which lent the appearance of spareness, belied only by the neck and shoulders. He had beaten better men, and he reasoned that if it came to a physical test in these cramped quarters his own great weight would more than offset any superior agility the miner might possess. The longer he looked the more he yielded to his hatred of the man before him, and the more cruelly he longed to satisfy it.
“Take off your coat,” said Glenister. “Now turn around. All right! I just wanted to see if you were lying about your gun.”
“I’ll kill you,” cried McNamara.
Glenister laid his six-shooter upon the safe and slipped off his own wet garment. The difference was more marked now and the advantage more strongly with the receiver. Though they had avoided allusion to it, each knew that this fight had nothing to do with the Midas and each realized whence sprang their fierce enmity. And it was meet that they shouldcome together thus. It had been the one certain and logical event which they had felt inevitably approaching from long back. And it was fitting, moreover, that they should fight alone and unwitnessed, armed only with the weapons of the wilderness, for they were both of the far, free lands, were both of the fighter’s type, and had both warred for the first, great prize.
They met ferociously. McNamara aimed a fearful blow, but Glenister met him squarely, beating him off cleverly, stepping in and out, his arms swinging loosely from his shoulders like whalebone withes tipped with lead. He moved lightly, his footing made doubly secure by reason of his soft-soled mukluks. Recognizing his opponent’s greater weight, he undertook merely to stop the headlong rushes and remain out of reach as long as possible. He struck the politician fairly in the mouth so that the man’s head snapped back and his fists went wild, then, before the arms could grasp him, the miner had broken ground and whipped another blow across; but McNamara was a boxer himself, so covered and blocked it. The politician spat through his mashed lips and rushed again, sweeping his opponent from his feet. Again Glenister’s fist shot forward like a lump of granite, but the other came on head down and the blow finished too high, landing on the big man’s brow. A sudden darting agony paralyzed Roy’s hand, and he realized that he had broken the metacarpal bones and that henceforth it would be useless. Before he could recover, McNamara had passed under his extended arm and seized him by the middle, then, thrusting his left leg back of Roy’s, he whirled him from his balance, flinging him clear and with resistless force. It seemed that a fatal fall must follow,but the youth squirmed catlike in the air, landing with set muscles which rebounded like rubber. Even so, the receiver was upon him before he could rise, reaching for the young man’s throat with his heavy hands. Roy recognized the fatal “strangle hold,” and, seizing his enemy’s wrists, endeavored to tear them apart, but his left hand was useless, so with a mighty wrench he freed himself, and, locked in each other’s arms, the men strained and swayed about the office till their neck veins were bursting, their muscles paralyzed.
Men may fight duels calmly, may shoot or parry or thrust with cold deliberation; but when there comes the jar of body to body, the sweaty contact of skin to skin, the play of iron muscles, the painful gasp of exhaustion—then the mind goes skittering back into its dark recesses while every venomous passion leaps forth from its hiding-place and joins in the horrid war.
They tripped across the floor, crashing into the partition, which split, showering them with glass. They fell and rolled in it; then, by consent, wrenched themselves apart and rose, eye to eye, their jaws hanging, their lungs wheezing, their faces trickling blood and sweat. Roy’s left hand pained him excruciatingly, while McNamara’s macerated lips had turned outward in a hideous pout. They crouched so for an instant, cruel, bestial—then clinched again. The office-fittings were wrecked utterly and the room became a litter of ruins. The men’s garments fell away till their breasts were bare and their arms swelled white and knotted through the rags. They knew no pain, their bodies were insensate mechanisms.
Gradually the older man’s face was beaten into a shapeless mass by the other’s cunning blows, whileGlenister’s every bone was wrenched and twisted under his enemy’s terrible onslaughts. The miner’s chief effort, it is true, was to keep his feet and to break the man’s embraces. Never had he encountered one whom he could not beat by sheer strength till he met this great, snarling creature who worried him hither and yon as though he were a child. Time and again Roy beat upon the man’s face with the blows of a sledge. No rules governed this solitary combat; the men were deaf to all but the roaring in their ears, blinded to all but hate, insensible to everything but the blood mania. Their trampling feet caused the building to rumble and shake as though some monster were running amuck.
Meanwhile a bareheaded man rushed out of the store beneath, bumping into a pedestrian who had paused on the sidewalk, and together they scurried up the stairs. The dory which Roy had seen at sea had shot the breakers, and now its three passengers were tracking through the wet sand towards Front Street, Bill Wheaton in the lead. He was followed by two rawboned men who travelled without baggage. The city was awakening with the sun which reared a copper rim out of the sea. Judge Stillman and Voorhees came down from the hotel and paused to gaze through the mists at a caravan of mule teams which trotted into the other end of the street with jingle and clank. The wagons were blue with soldiers, the early golden rays slanting from their Krags, and they were bound for the Midas.
Out of the fogs which clung so thickly to the tundra there came two other horses, distorted and unreal, on one a girl, on the other a figure of pain and tragedy, a grotesque creature that swayed stiffly to the motionof its steed, its face writhed into lines of suffering, its hands clutching cantle and horn.
It was as though Fate, with invisible touch, were setting her stage for the last act of this play, assembling the principals close to the Golden Sands where first they had made entrance.
The man and the girl came face to face with the Judge and marshal, who cried out upon seeing them, but as they reined in, out from the stairs beside them a man shot amid clatter and uproar.
“Give me a hand—quick!” he shouted to them.
“What’s up?” inquired the marshal.
“It’s murder! McNamara and Glenister!” He dashed back up the steps behind Voorhees, the Judge following, while muffled cries came from above.
The gambler turned towards the three men who were hurrying from the beach, and, recognizing Wheaton, called to him: “Untie my feet! Cut the ropes! Quick!”
“What’s the trouble?” the lawyer asked, but on hearing Glenister’s name bounded after the Judge, leaving one of his companions to free the rider. They could hear the fight now, and all crowded towards the door, Helen with her brother, in spite of his warning to stay behind.
She never remembered how she climbed those stairs, for she was borne along by that hypnotic power which drags one to behold a catastrophe in spite of his will. Reaching the room, she stood appalled; for the group she had joined watched two raging things that rushed at each other with inhuman cries, ragged, bleeding, fighting on a carpet of débris. Every loose and breakable thing had been ground to splinters as though by iron slugs in a whirling cylinder.
To this day, from Dawson to the Straits, from Unga to the Arctics, men tell of the combat wherever they foregather at flaring camp-fires or in dingy bunk-houses; and although some scout the tale, there are others who saw it and can swear to its truth. These say that the encounter was like the battle of bull moose in the rutting season, though more terrible, averring that two men like these had never been known in the land since the days of Vitus Bering and his crew; for their rancor had swollen till at feel of each other’s flesh they ran mad and felt superhuman strength. It is true, at any rate, that neither was conscious of the filling room, nor the cries of the crowd, even when the marshal forced himself through the wedged door and fell upon the nearest, which was Glenister. He came at an instant when the two had paused at arm’s-length, glaring with rage-drunken eyes, gasping the labored breath back into their lungs.
With a fling of his long arms the young man hurled the intruder aside so violently that his head struck the iron safe and he collapsed insensible. Then, without apparent notice of the interruption, the fight went on. It was seen during this respite that McNamara’s mouth was running water as though he were deathly sick, while every retch brought forth a groan. Helen heard herself crying: “Stop them! Stop them!” But no one seemed capable of interference. She heard her brother muttering and his breath coming heavily like that of the fighters, his body swaying in time to theirs. The Judge was ashy, imbecile, helpless.
McNamara’s distress was patent to his antagonist, who advanced upon him with the hunger of promised victory; but the young man’s muscles obeyed his commandssluggishly, his ribs seemed broken, his back was weak, and on the inner side of his legs the flesh was quivering. As they came together the boss reached up his right hand and caught the miner by the face, burying thumb and fingers crablike into his cheeks, forcing his slack jaws apart, thrusting his head backward, while he centred every ounce of his strength in the effort to maim. Roy felt the flesh giving way and flung himself backward to break the hold, whereupon the other summoned his wasting energy and plunged towards the safe, where lay the revolver. Instinct warned Glenister of treachery, told him that the man had sought this last resource to save himself, and as he saw him turn his back and reach for the weapon, the youth leaped like a panther, seizing him about the waist, grasping McNamara’s wrist with his right hand. For the first time during the combat they were not face to face, and on the instant Roy realized the advantage given him through the other’s perfidy, realized the wrestler’s hold that was his, and knew that the moment of victory was come.
The telling takes much time, but so quickly had these things happened that the footsteps of the soldiers had not yet reached the door when the men were locked beside the safe.
Of what happened next many garbled accounts have gone forth, for of all those present, none but the Bronco Kid knew its significance and ever recounted the truth concerning it. Some claim that the younger man was seized with a fear of death which multiplied his enormous strength, others that the power died in his adversary as reward for his treason; but it was not so.
No sooner had Roy encompassed McNamara’s waistfrom the rear than he slid his damaged hand up past the other’s chest and around the back of his neck, thus bringing his own left arm close under his enemy’s left armpit, wedging the receiver’s head forward, while with his other hand he grasped the politician’s right wrist close to the revolver, thus holding him in a grasp which could not be broken. Now came the test. The two bodies set themselves rocklike and rigid. There was no lunging about. Calling up the final atom of his strength, Glenister bore backward with his right arm and it became a contest for the weapon which, clutched in the two hands, swayed back and forth or darted up and down, the fury of resistance causing it to trace formless patterns in the air with its muzzle. McNamara shook himself, but he was close against the safe and could not escape, his head bowed forward by the lock of the miner’s left arm, and so he strained till the breath clogged in his throat. Despite the grievous toil his right hand moved back slightly. His feet shifted a bit, while the blood seemed bursting from his eyes, but he found that the long fingers encircling his wrist were like gyves weighted with the strength of the hills and the irresistible vigor of youth which knew no defeat. Slowly, inch by inch, the great man’s arm was dragged back, down past his side, while the strangling labor of his breath showed at what awful cost. The muzzle of the gun described a semicircle and the knotted hands began to travel towards the left, more rapidly now, across his broad back. Still he struggled and wrenched, but uselessly. He strove to fire the weapon, but his fingers were woven about it so that the hammer would not work. Then the miner began forcing upward.
The white skin beneath the men’s strips of clothing was stretched over great knots and ridges which sunk and swelled and quivered. Helen, watching in silent terror, felt her brother sinking his fingers into her shoulder and heard him panting, his face ablaze with excitement, while she became conscious that he had repeated time and again:
“It’s the hammer-lock—the hammer-lock.”
By now McNamara’s arm was bent and cramped upon his back, and then they saw Glenister’s shoulder dip, his elbow come closer to his side, and his body heave in one final terrific effort as though pushing a heavy weight. In the silence something snapped like a stick. There came a deafening report and the scream of a strong man overcome with agony. McNamara went to his knees and sagged forward on to his face as though every bone in his huge bulk had turned to water, while his master reeled back against the opposite wall, his heels dragging in the litter, bringing up with outflung arms as though fearful of falling, swaying, blind, exhausted, his face blackened by the explosion of the revolver, yet grim with the light of victory.
Judge Stillman shouted, hysterically:
“Arrest that man, quick! Don’t let him go!”
It was the miner’s first realization that others were there. Raising his head he stared at the faces close against the partition, then groaned the words:
“I beat the traitor and—and—I broke him with—my hands!”
SOLDIERSseized the young man, who made no offer at resistance, and the room became a noisy riot. Crowds surged up from below, clamoring, questioning, till some one at the head of the stairs shouted down:
“They’ve got Roy Glenister. He’s killed McNamara,” at which a murmur arose that threatened to become a cheer.
Then one of the receiver’s faction called: “Let’s hang him. He killed ten of our men last night.” Helen winced, but Stillman, roused to a sort of malevolent courage, quieted the angry voices.
“Officer, hold these people back. I’ll attend to this man. The law’s in my hands and I’ll make him answer.”
McNamara reared himself groaning from the floor, his right arm swinging from the shoulder strangely loose and distorted, with palm twisted outward, while his battered face was hideous with pain and defeat. He growled broken maledictions at his enemy.
Roy, meanwhile, said nothing, for as the savage lust died in him he realized that the whirling faces before him were the faces of his enemies, that the Bronco Kid was still at large, and that his vengeance was but halfcompleted. His knees were bending, his limbs were like leaden bars, his chest a furnace of coals. As he reeled down the lane of human forms, supported by his guards, he came abreast of the girl and her companion and paused, clearing his vision slowly.
“Ah, there you are!” he said, thickly, to the gambler, and began to wrestle with his captors, baring his teeth in a grimace of painful effort; but they held him as easily as though he were a child and drew him forward, his body sagging limply, his face turned back over his shoulder.
They had him near the door when Wheaton barred their way, crying: “Hold up a minute—it’s all right, Roy—”
“Ay, Bill—it’s all right. We did our—best, but we were done by a damned blackguard. Now he’ll send me up—but I don’t care. I broke him—with my naked hands. Didn’t I, McNamara?” He mocked unsteadily at the boss, who cursed aloud in return, glowering like an evil mask, while Stillman ran up dishevelled and shrilly irascible.
“Take him away, I tell you! Take him to jail.”
But Wheaton held his place while the room centred its eyes upon him, scenting some unexpected dénouement. He saw it, and in concession to a natural vanity and dramatic instinct, he threw back his head and stuffed his hands into his coat-pockets while the crowd waited. He grinned insolently at the Judge and the receiver.
“This will be a day of defeats and disappointments to you, my friends. That boy won’t go to jail because you will wear the shackles yourselves. Oh, you played a shrewd game, you two, with your senators, yourpolitics, and your pulls; but it’s our turn now, and we’ll make you dance for the mines you gutted and the robberies you’ve done and the men you’ve ruined. Thank Heaven there’sonehonest court and I happened to find it.” He turned to the strangers who had accompanied him from the ship, crying, “Serve those warrants,” and they stepped forward.
The uproar of the past few minutes had brought men running from every direction till, finding no room on the stairs, they had massed in the street below while the word flew from lip to lip concerning this closing scene of their drama, the battle at the Midas, the great fight up-stairs, and the arrest by the ’Frisco deputies. Like Sindbad’s genie, a wondrous tale took shape from the rumors. Men shouldered one another eagerly for a glimpse of the actors, and when the press streamed out, greeted it with volleys of questions. They saw the unconscious marshal borne forth, followed by the old Judge, now a palsied wretch, slinking beside his captor, a very shell of a man at whom they jeered. When McNamara lurched into view, an image of defeat and chagrin, their voices rose menacingly. The pack was turning and he knew it, but, though racked and crippled, he bent upon them a visage so full of defiance and contemptuous malignity that they hushed themselves, and their final picture of him was that of a big man downed, but unbeaten to the last. They began to cry for Glenister, so that when he loomed in the doorway, a ragged, heroic figure, his heavy shock low over his eyes, his unshaven face aggressive even in its weariness, his corded arms and chest bare beneath the fluttering streamers, the street broke into wild cheering. Here was a man of their own, a son of the Northlandwho labored and loved and fought in a way they understood, and he had come into his due.
But Roy, dumb and listless, staggered up the street, refusing the help of every man except Wheaton. He heard his companion talking, but grasped only that the attorney gloated and gloried.
“We have whipped them, boy. We have whipped them at their own game. Arrested in their very door-yards—cited for contempt of court—that’s what they are. They disobeyed those other writs, and so I got them.”
“I broke his arm,” muttered the miner.
“Yes, I saw you do it! Ugh! it was an awful thing. I couldn’t prove conspiracy, but they’ll go to jail for a little while just the same, and we have broken the ring.”
“It snapped at the shoulder,” the other continued, dully, “just like a shovel handle. I felt it—but he tried to kill me and I had to do it.”
The attorney took Roy to his cabin and dressed his wounds, talking incessantly the while, but the boy was like a sleep-walker, displaying no elation, no excitement, no joy of victory. At last Wheaton broke out:
“Cheer up! Why, man, you act like a loser. Don’t you realize that we’ve won? Don’t you understand that the Midas is yours? And the whole world with it?”
“Won?” echoed the miner. “What do you know about it, Bill? The Midas—the world—what good are they? You’re wrong. I’ve lost—yes—I’ve lost everything she taught me, and by some damned trick of Fate she was there to see me do it. Now, go away; I want to sleep.”
He sank upon the bed with its tangle of blankets andwas unconscious before the lawyer had covered him over.
There he lay like a dead man till late in the afternoon, when Dextry and Slapjack came in from the hills, answering Wheaton’s call, and fell upon him hungrily. They shook Roy into consciousness with joyous riot, pommelling him with affectionate roughness till he rose and joined with them stiffly. He bathed and rubbed the soreness from his muscles, emerging physically fit. They made him recount his adventures to the tiniest detail, following his description of the fight with absorbed interest till Dextry broke into mournful complaint:
“I’d have give my half of the Midas to see you bust him. Lord, I’d have screeched with soopreme delight at that.”
“Why didn’t you gouge his eyes out when you had him crippled?” questioned Slapjack, vindictively. “I’d ’a’ done it.”
Dextry continued: “They tell me that when he was arrested he swore in eighteen different languages, each one more refreshin’ly repulsive an’ vig’rous than the precedin’. Oh, I have sure missed a-plenty to-day, partic’lar because my own diction is gettin’ run down an’ skim-milky of late, showin’ sad lack of new idees. Which I might have assim’lated somethin’ robustly original an’ expressive if I’d been here. No, sir; a nose-bag full of nuggets wouldn’t have kept me away.”
“How did it sound when she busted?” insisted the morbid Simms, but Glenister refused to discuss his combat.
“Come on, Slap,” said the old prospector, “let’s go down-town. I’m so het up I can’t set still, an’ besides, mebbe we can get the story the way it really happened,from somebody who ain’t bound an’ gagged an’ chloroformed by such unbecomin’ modesties. Roy, don’t never go into vawdyville with them personal episodes, because they read about as thrillin’ as a cook-book. Why, say, I’ve had the story of that fight from four different fellers already, none of which was within four blocks of the scrimmage, an’ they’re all diff’rent an’ all better ’n your account.”
Now that Glenister’s mind had recovered some of its poise he realized what he had done.
“I was a beast, an animal,” he groaned, “and that after all my striving. I wanted to leave that part behind, I wanted to be worthy of her love and trust even though I never won it, but at the first test I am found lacking. I have lost her confidence, yes—and what is worse, infinitely worse, I have lost my own. She’s always seen me at my worst,” he went on, “but I’m not that kind at bottom, not that kind. I want to do what’s right, and if I have another chance I will, IknowI will. I’ve been tried too hard, that’s all.”
Some one knocked, and he opened the door to admit the Bronco Kid and Helen.
“Wait a minute, old man,” said the Kid. “I’m here as a friend.” The gambler handled himself with difficulty, offering in explanation:
“I’m all sewed up in bandages of one kind or another.”
“He ought to be in bed now, but he wouldn’t let me come alone, and I could not wait,” the girl supplemented, while her eyes avoided Glenister’s in strange hesitation.
“He wouldn’tletyou. I don’t understand.”
“I’m her brother,” announced the Bronco Kid. “I’ve known it for a long time, but I—I—well, you understandI couldn’t let her know. All I can say is, I’ve gambled square till the night I played you, and I was as mad as a dervish then, blaming you for the talk I’d heard. Last night I learned by chance about Struve and Helen and got to the road-house in time to save her. I’m sorry I didn’t kill him.” His long white fingers writhed about the arm of his chair at the memory.
“Isn’t he dead?” Glenister inquired.
“No. The doctors have brought him in and he’ll get well. He’s like half the men in Alaska—here because the sheriffs back home couldn’t shoot straight. There’s something else. I’m not a good talker, but give me time and I’ll manage it so you’ll understand. I tried to keep Helen from coming on this errand, but she said it was the square thing and she knows better than I. It’s about those papers she brought in last spring. She was afraid you might consider her a party to the deal, but you don’t, do you?” He glared belligerently, and Roy replied, with fervor:
“Certainly not. Go on.”
“Well, she learned the other day that those documents told the whole story and contained enough proof to break up this conspiracy and convict the Judge and McNamara and all the rest, but Struve kept the bundle in his safe and wouldn’t give it up without a price. That’s why she went away with him—— She thought it was right, and—that’s all. But it seems Wheaton had succeeded in another way. Now, I’m coming to the point. The Judge and McNamara are arrested for contempt of court and they’re as good as convicted; you have recovered your mine, and these men are disgraced. They will go to jail—”
“Yes, for six months, perhaps,” broke in the other,hotly, “but what does that amount to? There never was a bolder crime consummated nor one more cruelly unjust. They robbed a realm and pillaged its people, they defiled a court and made Justice a wanton, they jailed good men and sent others to ruin; and for this they are to suffer—how? By a paltry fine or a short imprisonment, perhaps, by an ephemeral disgrace and the loss of their stolen goods. Contempt of court is the accusation, but you might as well convict a murderer for breach of the peace. We’ve thrown them off, it’s true, and they won’t trouble us again, but they’ll never have to answer for their real infamy. That will go unpunished while their lawyers quibble over technicalities and rules of court. I guess it’s true that there isn’t any law of God or man north of Fifty-three; but if there is justice south of that mark, those people will answer for conspiracy and go to the penitentiary.”
“You make it hard for me to say what I want to. I am almost sorry we came, for I am not cunning with words, and I don’t know that you’ll understand,” said the Bronco Kid, gravely. “We looked at it this way; you have had your victory, you have beaten your enemies against odds, you have recovered your mine, and they are disgraced. To men like them that last will outlive and outweigh all the rest; but the Judge is our uncle and our blood runs in his veins. He took Helen when she was a baby and was a father to her in his selfish way, loving her as best he knew how. And she loves him.”
“I don’t quite understand you,” said Roy.
And then Helen spoke for the first time eagerly, taking a packet from her bosom as she began:
“This will tell the whole wretched story, Mr. Glenister,and show the plot in all its vileness. It’s hard for me to betray my uncle, but this proof is yours by right to use as you see fit, and I can’t keep it.”
“Do you mean that this evidence will show all that? And you’re going to give it to me because you think it is your duty?”
“It belongs to you. I have no choice. But what I came for was to plead and to ask a little mercy for my uncle, who is an old, old man, and very weak. This will kill him.”
He saw that her eyes were swimming while the little chin quivered ever so slightly and her pale cheeks were flushed. There rose in him the old wild desire to take her in his arms, a yearning to pillow her head on his shoulder and kiss away the tears, to smooth with tender caress the wavy hair, and bury his face deep in it till he grew drunk with the madness of her. But he knew at last for whom she really pleaded.
So he was to forswear this vengeance, which was no vengeance after all, but in verity a just punishment. They asked him—a man—a man’s man—a Northman—to do this, and for what? For no reward, but on the contrary to insure himself lasting bitterness. He strove to look at the proposition calmly, clearly, but it was difficult. If only by freeing this other villain as well as her uncle he would do a good to her, then he would not hesitate. Love was not the only thing. He marvelled at his own attitude; this could not be his old self debating thus. He had asked for another chance to show that he was not the old Roy Glenister; well, it had come, and he was ready.
Roy dared not look at Helen any more, for this was the hardest moment he had ever lived.
“You ask this for your uncle, but what of—of the other fellow? You must know that if one goes free so will they both; they can’t be separated.”
“It’s almost too much to ask,” the Kid took up, uncertainly. “But don’t you think the work is done? I can’t help but admire McNamara, and neither can you—he’s been too good an enemy to you for that—and—and—he loves Helen.”
“I know—I know,” said Glenister, hastily, at the same time stopping an unintelligible protest from the girl. “You’ve said enough.” He straightened his slightly stooping shoulders and looked at the unopened package wearily, then slipped the rubber band from it, and, separating the contents, tore them up—one by one—tore them into fine bits without hurry or ostentation, and tossed the fragments away, while the woman began to sob softly, the sound of her relief alone disturbing the silence. And so he gave her his enemy, making his offer gamely, according to his code.
“You’re right—the work is done. And now, I’m very tired.”
They left him standing there, the glory of the dying day illumining his lean, brown features, the vision of a great loneliness in his weary eyes.
He did not rouse himself till the sky before him was only a curtain of steel, pencilled with streaks of soot that lay close down above the darker sea. Then he sighed and said, aloud:
“So this is the end, and I gave him to her with these hands”—he held them out before him curiously, becoming conscious for the first time that the left one was swollen and discolored and fearfully painful. He noted it with impersonal interest, realizing its need ofmedical attention—so left the cabin and walked down into the city. He encountered Dextry and Simms on the way, and they went with him, both flowing with the gossip of the camp.
“Lord, but you’re the talk of the town,” they began. “The curio hunters have commenced to pull Struve’s office apart for souvenirs, and the Swedes want to run you for Congress as soon as ever we get admitted as a State. They say that at collar-an’-elbow holts you could lick any of them Eastern senators and thereby rastle out a lot of good legislation for us cripples up here.”
“Speakin’ of laws goes to show me that this here country is gettin’ too blamed civilized for a white man,” said Simms, pessimistically, “and now that this fight is ended up it don’t look like there would be anything doin’ fit to claim the interest of a growed-up person for a long while. I’m goin’ west.”
“West! Why, you can throw a stone into Bering Strait from here,” said Roy, smiling.
“Oh, well, the world’s round. There’s a schooner outfittin’ for Sibeery—two years’ cruise. Me an’ Dex is figgerin’ on gettin’ out towards the frontier fer a spell.”
“Sure!” said Dextry. “I’m beginnin’ to feel all cramped up hereabouts owin’ to these fillymonarch orchestras an’ French restarawnts and such discrepancies of scenery. They’re puttin’ a pavement on Front Street and there’s a shoe-shinin’ parlor opened up. Why, I’d like to get where I could stretch an’ holler without disturbin’ the pensiveness of some dude in a dress suit. Better come along, Roy; we can sell out the Midas.”
“I’ll think it over,” said the young man.
The night was bright with a full moon when theyleft the doctor’s office. Roy, in no mood for the exuberance of his companions, parted from them, but had not gone far before he met Cherry Malotte. His head was low and he did not see her till she spoke.
“Well, boy, so it’s over at last!”
Her words chimed so perfectly with his thoughts that he replied: “Yes, it’s all over, little girl.”
“You don’t need my congratulations—you know me too well for that. How does it feel to be a winner?”
“I don’t know. I’ve lost.”
“Lost what?”
“Everything—except the gold-mine.”
“Everything except—I see. You mean that she—that you have asked her and she won’t?” He never knew the cost at which she held her voice so steady.
“More than that. It’s so new that it hurts yet, and it will continue to hurt for a long time, I suppose—but to-morrow I am going back to my hills and my valleys, back to the Midas and my work, and try to begin all over. For a time I’ve wandered in strange paths, seeking new gods, as it were, but the dazzle has died out of my eyes and I can see true again. She isn’t for me, although I shall always love her. I’m sorry I can’t forget easily, as some do. It’s hard to look ahead and take an interest in things. But what about you? Where shall you go?”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t really matter—now.” The dusk hid her white, set face and she spoke monotonously. “I am going to see the Bronco Kid. He sent for me. He’s ill.”
“He’s not a bad sort,” said Roy. “And I suppose he’ll make a new start, too.”
“Perhaps,” said she, gazing far out over the gloomyocean. “It all depends.” After a moment, she added, “What a pity that we can’t all sponge off the slate and begin afresh and—forget.”
“It’s part of the game,” said he. “I don’t know why it’s so, but it is. I’ll see you sometimes, won’t I?”
“No, boy—I think not.”
“I believe I understand,” he murmured; “and perhaps it’s better so.” He took her two soft hands in his one good right and kissed them. “God bless you and keep you, dear, brave little Cherry.”
She stood straight and still as he melted into the shadows, and only the moonlight heard her pitiful sob and her hopeless whisper:
“Good-bye, my boy, my boy.”
He wandered down beside the sea, for his battle was not yet won, and until he was surer of himself he could not endure the ribaldry and rejoicing of his fellows. A welcome lay waiting for him in every public place, but no one there could know the mockery of it, no one could gauge the desolation that was his.
The sand, wet, packed, and hard as a pavement, gave no sound to his careless steps; and thus it was that he came silently upon the one woman as she stood beside the silver surf. Had he seen her first he would have slunk past in the landward shadows; but, recognizing his tall form, she called and he came, while it seemed that his lungs grew suddenly constricted, as though bound about with steel hoops. The very pleasure of her sight pained him. He advanced eagerly, and yet with hesitation, standing stiffly aloof while his heart fluttered and his tongue grew dumb. At last she saw his bandages and her manner changed abruptly. Coming closer she touched them with caressing fingers.
“It’s nothing—nothing at all,” he said, while his voice jumped out of all control. “When are you—going away?”
“I do not know—not for some time.”
He had supposed she would go to-morrow with her uncle and—the other, to be with them through their travail.
With warm impetuosity she began: “It was a noble thing you did to-day. Oh, I am glad and proud.”
“I prefer you to think of me in that way, rather than as the wild beast you saw this morning, for I was mad, perfectly mad with hatred and revenge, and every wild impulse that comes to a defeated man. You see, I had played and lost, played and lost, again and again, till there was nothing left. What mischance brought you there? It was a terribly brutal thing, but you can’t understand.”
“But Icanunderstand. I do. I know all about it now. I know the wild rage of desperation; I know the exultation of victory; I know what hate and fear are now. You told me once that the wilderness had made you a savage, and I laughed at it just as I did when you said that my contact with big things would teach me the truth, that we’re all alike, and that those motives are in us all. I see now that you were right and I was very simple. I learned a great deal last night.”
“I have learned much also,” said he. “I wish you might teach me more.”
“I—I—don’t think I could teach you any more,” she hesitated.
He moved as though to speak, but held back and tore his eyes away from her.
“Well,” she inquired, gazing at him covertly.
“Once, a long time ago, I read a Lover’s Petition, and ever since knowing you I have made the constant prayer that I might be given the purity to be worthy the good in you, and that you might be granted the patience to reach the good in me—but it’s no use. But at least I’m glad we have met on common ground, as it were, and that you understand, in a measure. The prayer could not be answered; but through it I have found myself and—I have known you. That last is worth more than a king’s ransom to me. It is a holy thing which I shall reverence always, and when you go you will leave me lonely except for its remembrance.”
“But I am not going,” she said. “That is—unless—”
Something in her voice swept his gaze back from the shimmering causeway that rippled seaward to the rising moon. It brought the breath into his throat, and he shook as though seized by a great fear.
“Unless—what?”
“Unless you want me to.”
“Oh, God! don’t play with me!” He flung out his hand as though to stop her while his voice died out to a supplicating hoarseness. “I can’t stand that.”
“Don’t you see? Won’t you see?” she asked. “I was waiting here for the courage to go to you since you have made it so very hard for me—my pagan.” With which she came close to him, looking upward into his face, smiling a little, shrinking a little, yielding yet withholding, while the moonlight made of her eyes two bottomless, boundless pools, dark with love, and brimming with the promise of his dreams.
THE END