CHAPTER IVA Stroke of Fate
THE hush of the woods was undisturbed by the rhythmic clip of the farmer’s axe. The cloak of winter seemed to muffle the whole world, and transform it into a dour desolation, fit only to harbour the timber wolves and the coyotes which haunted the foothills.
A foot and more of snow lay everywhere in the open. Mounting snowdrifts were driven against every obstruction. The pine bluffs were laden with a roofing of crystal whiteness, and the greater hills had become a world of snow, which would remain unchanging throughout the winter.
But George Marton was without concern for Nature’s desperate moods. He knew she was a simple blusterer, governed by laws she had no power to defy. She might rage or smile. It was only the weakling she could ever hope to bluff. No, he never permitted himself an anxious thought in the life that was his. He moved on with machine-like precision, and his undisturbed methods brought him a slowly but steadily rising measure of success.
For days now he had been labouring in the timber belt, hewing, splitting, without pause for aught but those scheduled moments when the needs of his stout body must be ministered to. And thus the stack of cordwood stored at his homestead had risen to the proportions which experience had taught him were necessary.
The sun had already set, and in something over an hour darkness would have fallen. His day’s tally of cordwood was stacked on his double-bob sleigh, and his team stoodready and eager for the journey that would terminate at their snug barn.
Ordinarily he would have set out forthwith, and left the next day’s work for the day to which it belonged. But for once in his life he had decided to prolong his labours. The reason was that less than a week ago he had lost half a day’s work because of his charity to an escaping convict, and his spirit rebelled against that loss. So he turned again to the standing timber, determined to employ the last hour of daylight, and make the homeward journey in the darkness.
So the gleaming axe, with its razor edge, kept on at its work of destruction. And in that hour twenty more of the youth of the forest lay sprawled in the clearing. With the fall of the twentieth the tireless man glanced up at the western sky. Already the starry sheen of night was looking down at him.
But he turned back at once to a standing trunk that was a good deal larger than those he had already felled. He measured its height with a swift, upward glance, and ran his thumb over the edge of his axe. Then he hunched himself, and flung his weapon at the work.
It was a strange scene in the growing darkness. The swing of the axe was faultless. There was not an ounce of wasted strength in the blows which fell on the rapidly widening cut at the base of the trunk. There was not a single blow that fell other than where it was intended. Each cut told, and each cut came nearer and nearer to the soft heart of precious white timber. Just for an instant there was a pause, to measure again the fall of the tree. Then he spat on his hands and returned to his work.
The axe swung aloft and descended into the heart of the tree. It rose again. Again it fell. Again and again the cutting edge hewed out the flying chips. Then, in a moment, the snowy crest of foliage swung over, and thetearing of uncut wood crashed sharply. The man stepped to move clear. And then—and then——
It was done in less than a flash of the falling axe. The disaster came before the doomed man could utter a sound. That step back, which had been made a thousand times in the work he knew so well, should have carried him to safety. But the darkness robbed him of that certainty of vision that was always his.
His foot struck heavily against a prone log. It struck with sufficient force to upset his balance. He sought to recover himself and jump clear. It was too late. The falling tree crashed to the ground, bearing him with it. And he lay pinned beneath it, face downwards, with the great trunk crushing his shoulders and chest under its enormous weight.
Night had descended upon the farm, and the lamplight of the living-room threw into relief the slight figure of Molly as she stood in the open doorway. She was talking to Lightning, and her tone was anxious. There was no smile in her eyes. She was urgent, and the trouble in her mind was something which, in all her eighteen years, she had never known before.
“It’s no use, Lightning,” she said at last. “Father’s never been late like this. It’s been dark more than two hours, and the bluff isn’t more than a half-hour away. Ther’s not a thing to keep him. Jane and Blue Pete should have hauled him to home nearly two hours ago. I just can’t stand it. That’s all. Beat it and hook up the cutter. Hook up my pinto. She’ll get us out to the bluff quicker than the other beasts. Get a great big move on. I—I—can’t stand waiting around. And his supper’s baking itself to death.”
“Won’t you give him another haf-hour, Molly gal?” Lightning urged. “I can’t ever see reason to jump in tillyou need. Your father’ll raise hell with us. Guess he’s a hunch for folks keeping tight to their own business, an’ not buttin’ in wher’ they ain’t needed. Won’t——”
Molly’s gaze came back abruptly from the dark direction of the invisible snow-trail. And there was a cold look in her eyes which silenced the man instantly.
“Beat it, Lightning, an’ do as I say,” she cried sharply. “Get your old fur coat on, and a robe. You’ll need to come along. I’ll fix the rest I need.”
The man offered no further protest. He realised something which before he had not rightly understood. This girl was in a complete state of panic. Had he been more imaginative he would perhaps have understood. George Marton should have returned to his supper at the proper hour. Never within his daughter’s memory had he failed to do so before.
Lightning went off in a hurry, and this lean, queer creature’s hurry was something astonishing. He was back at the door of the homestead with the pinto mare and the cutter before Molly had completed her preparations.
She came to the door carrying a small wicker basket. She stood clad in a long beaver coat, with a fur cap pressed low down over her ears. Her storm collar was turned up and secured about her neck by a long woollen scarf, and with her darkly-fringed grey eyes anxiously peering out into the night, she was a vision that warmed the old choreman’s heart under his tattered buffalo coat.
“No sign?” she said a little hopelessly. “Still no sign.” Then she sighed deeply. “Something’s happened, Lightning. I just know it.”
Lightning cleared his throat.
“I’m not worrying, Molly, gal,” he said, with a poor attempt to restore the smile to her anxious eyes. “But I sure am feeling bad about the thing he’s goin’ to hand us when we meet him on the trail.”
The girl climbed into the driving-seat and took the lines from the man.
“We aren’t going to meet him on the trail,” she said, in a low, significant tone, as she eased her hand to the impatient mare.
Out of a cloudless sky a myriad of coldly winking stars peered down upon the snowbound earth. No breath of wind came to stir the snow-laden tree-tops. The cold was intense, and zero had long since been left behind by the sinking mercury.
The clearing in the timber belt was littered with sprawling trunks. They lay still—so still. Near by to them, drawn up in the shelter of standing timber, was the team still hitched to its load of cordwood. The horses stood in their harness quite unmoving, their great heads drooping in sleep. They had waited and waited for the sharp tones of the voice they knew, and then, with equine philosophy, had permitted their dream world to overwhelm them.
Drawn up near by stood the dim outline of a cutter, with its single pinto mare. The mare had been driven hard, but tied fast to a sapling, and wrapped in the comfort of a fur robe, she, too, was resting quietly, with down-drooped head.
In the starlight two darkly-outlined figures crouched about the heavy end of a fallen tree. Near to them lay the shining head of an axe where it had fallen from the grasp of the man who had used it so indefatigably. The two figures uttered no sound as they laboured. Both were prying the log with improvised levers, which were tree-limbs of stout proportions.
It was Lightning who had made the terrible discovery. In the half-light he had literally tripped over the body of the crushed farmer. It was a hideous moment for both.But for Molly it was a time of complete despair. One look at the position of the fallen man had confirmed her worst fears, and, with a cry of agony, she had flung herself upon her knees, embracing the remains of the sturdy parent who had been her all in life.
The loyal Lightning had proved himself the man he was in emergency. With harsh words and rough hands he had forced the girl to abandon her wild demonstration of grief. Then his practical mind had shown her the thing that must be done.
Now his plan was being operated. It was terribly hazardous if life yet remained beneath that log. They worked silently at their levers, and inch by inch the log was lifted, and blocked up with carefully placed tree-limbs. At last the reward they were seeking came to them. The log was sufficiently raised to free the crushed body.
Slowly, and with infinite care, the still form of George Marton was drawn clear of the tree. But no sound escaped the injured man as they moved him. And the omen of it shattered the girl’s last shadow of hope. She crouched on her knees beside him, passing one hand tenderly over the crushed and broken body in a vain endeavour to estimate the damage. And the while Lightning had gone back to the cutter for her basket of remedies.
When the man returned with the basket, Molly had abandoned her examination. She gazed up at the tall, shadowy figure standing over her. The expression of her despairing eyes was hidden in the darkness. But the tone of her voice smote the loyal creature to the depths of his old heart.
“He’s—dead,” she cried. “Oh, Lightning, he’s dead. And he was all I had.”