Joan of Arc of the North Woods Part 45

Except for the roar of the sluiceway and the gasping of the men who were getting breath there was something like calm after the uproar of the battle.

Out of the fog sounded the voice of Director Craig.

"We have given you your chance to show how you respect the law. What you have done after a legal warning is chalked up against you. Now that you have proclaimed yourselves as outlaws I have something of my own to proclaim to you. I am up here----"

A stentorian voice slashed in sharply, and Craig's speech was cut off.

The voice came from one who was veiled in the fog, but they all knew it for Ward Latisan's. "Yes, Craig, you're here--here about five hours ahead of me because you had the cash to hire a special train. However, I know the short cuts for a man on horseback. I'm here, too!"

His men got a dim view of him in the mists; he loomed like a statue of heroic size on the horse. Then he flung himself off and came running down the sh.o.r.e.

He went straight to Lida and faced her manfully; but his eyes were humbly beseeching and his features worked with contrite apology. "I know now who you are, Miss Kennard. I don't mean to presume, in the case of either you or your men. But will you allow me to speak to them?"

"Yes," she a.s.sented, trying to hold her poise, helped by his manner.

He turned quickly from her eyes as if her gaze tortured him.

"I have been a coward, men. I ran away from my job. I'm ashamed of myself. I can't square myself, but let me do my bit to-day."

"I don't know what you can do--with that gang o' sneaks--after real men have had to quit," growled Vittum, unimpressed.

"Maybe I'm sneak enough these days to know how to deal with 'em,"

confessed Latisan, bitterly. "I stayed back there just now while the fight was on, but I knew a man fight wouldn't get us anything from them."

The men of the crew made no demonstration; they were awkwardly silent.

The arrival of the deserter who confessed that he had been a coward did not encourage them at a time when they had failed ridiculously in their first sortie. He had ceased to be a captain who could inspire. He was one man more in a half-whipped crew, that was all.

They who had been dumped over the dam dragged slimy mud from their faces and surveyed him with sullen rebuke, remembering sharply that he had run away from the girl whose cause they had taken up.

The others, their faces marked with welts from blows, gazed and sniffed disparagingly.

But when he spoke out to the girl and her crew they listened with increasing respect because a quick shift to manly resolution impressed them.

His tone was tensely low and the noise of the tumbling water shielded his voice from eavesdroppers on the dam. "I stood back there in the fog and I heard what was said about an injunction. It's bad business, running against the courts, men. That injunction hangs over the crew of Echford Flagg. I am not one of that crew. What I may do is on my own account, and I'll stand the blame of it. All I ask is that you step aside and let me alone."

"That ain't the way we want to play this game," declared Vittum.

"It isn't a square game, men, and that's why you mustn't play it. It isn't a riverman fight to-day. I came north from New York on the train with Craig. He brought a gang of gunmen with him. They're hidden there in the fog. He means to go the limit, hoping to get by with it because you made the first attack. It's up to me from now on."

"What in the name of the horn-headed Sancho do you think you can do all alone against guns?" demanded Vittum, scornfully.

"Think?" repeated Latisan. "I've had plenty of time for thinking on my way up here. Let me alone, I say!"

Lida went to him and put her hand on his arm, and he trembled; it seemed almost like a caress. But by no tenderness in his eyes or his expression was he indicating that he considered himself back on his former footing with her.

"Miss Kennard, don't keep me from trying to square myself with the Flagg crew, if I can. I'm not hoping that anything can square me with you; it's past hope."

He moved away, but she clung to him. "I must know what you intend to do. I'll not accept a reckless sacrifice--no, I'll not."

"One evening in Adonia you gave me a lecture on duty and self-respect, Miss Kennard. I wish I'd taken your advice then. But that advice has never left my thoughts. I'm taking it now. I entreat you, don't let me shame myself again. This is before men," he warned her, in low tones.

"Give me my fighting chance to make good with them--I beg you!"

He set back his shoulders, turned from her, and shouted Craig's name till the Comas director replied.

"Craig, yon in the fog! Do you hear?"

"I hear you, Latisan!"

"Do our logs go through Skulltree by your decent word to us?"

"I'll never give that word, my man!"

"Then take your warning! The fight is on--and this time I'm in it."

"I'm glad to be informed. I have an announcement of my own to make.

Listen!" He gave a command. Instantly, startlingly, in the fog-shrouded s.p.a.ces of the valley rang out a salvo of gun fire. Many rifles spat. The sound rolled in long echoes along the gorge and was banged back by the mountain sides.

"Latisan, those bullets went into the air. If you and your men come onto this dam----"

"There's only one kind of a fight up here among honest men--and you won't stand for it, eh?"

"We've got your number! You're declared outlaws. These men will shoot to kill."

In the chorus from the Flagg crew there were howls and groans.

"And argument won't bring to you any sense of reason and decency, will it?" demanded the drive master.

"We shall shoot to kill!" insisted the magnate of the Comas corporation.

"All right! If those are your d.a.m.nable principles, I'll go according to 'em."

The girl caught his hands when he started away. "You must not! No matter what you are--no matter what you know I am, now. He'll understand when we tell him--down there! There's more to life than logs!"

"I have my plans," he a.s.sured her, quietly. "You must realize how much this thing means to me now."

The unnatural silence in the ranks of the Flagg crew, after Latisan's declaration had been voiced, provoked Craig to venture an apprehensive inquiry. "You don't intend to come ramming against these guns, do you?"

"Hold your guns off us! I'm going away. And these men are going with me."

"That's good judgment."

"But I'm coming back! I won't sneak up on you. That isn't my style of fighting. You'll hear me on the way. I'll be coming down almighty hard on my heels. Remember that, Craig!"

Lida was at his side when he marched away up the sh.o.r.e toward the Flagg camp at the deadwater, and his men trailed him, mumbling their comments on the situation and wondering by what sort of miracle he would be able to prevail over armed gangsters who were paid to kill.

"I'm going to ask you all to excuse me for playing a lone hand from now on, boys," said the drive master, standing in front of them when they were gathered at the camping place. "If they weren't working a dirty trick with their guns, I'd have you along with me just as I intended in the past. But you have had your fun while I've been making a fool of myself! Give me my chance now!"

He bowed to Lida and walked up the sh.o.r.e alone. No one stayed him. The girl locked together her trembling fingers, straining her eyes till he disappeared.