Man Size Part 32

The slow brain of West functioned. He had been taken wholly by surprise, but as his cunning mind Worked the situation out, he saw how much it would be to Whaley's profit to get rid of him. The gambler would get the girl and the reward for West's destruction. He would inherit his share of their joint business and would reinstate himself as a good citizen with the Mounted and with McRae's friends.

Surlily the desperado yielded. "All right, if you're so set on it."

"Drop the whip."

The fingers of West opened and the handle fell to the floor. Deftly the other removed a revolver from its place under the outlaw's left armpit.

West glared at him. That moment the fugitive made up his mind that he would kill Whaley at the first good opportunity. A tide of poisonous hatred raced through his veins. Its expression but not its virulence was temporarily checked by wholesome fear. He must be careful that the gambler did not get him first.

His voice took on a whine intended for good-fellowship. "I reckon I was too pre-emtory. O' course I was sore the way you two left me holdin' the sack. Any one would 'a' been now, wouldn't they? But no use friends fallin' out. We got to make the best of things."

Whaley's chill face did not warm. He knew the man with whom he was dealing. When he began to b.u.t.ter his phrases, it was time to look out for him. He would forget that his partner had brought him from Faraway a dog-team with which to escape, that he was supplying him with funds to carry him through the winter. He would remember only that he had balked and humiliated him.

"Better get into the house the stuff from the sled," the gambler said.

"And we'll rustle wood. No telling how long this storm'll last."

"Tha's right," agreed West. "When I saw them sun dogs to-day I figured we was in for a blizzard. Too bad you didn't outfit me for a longer trip."

A gale was blowing from the north, carrying on its whistling breath a fine hard sleet that cut the eyeb.a.l.l.s like powdered gla.s.s. The men fought their way to the sled and wrestled with the knots of the frozen ropes that bound the load. The lumps of ice that had gathered round these had to be knocked off with hammers before they could be freed.

When they staggered into the house with their packs, both men were half-frozen. Their hands were so stiff that the fingers were jointless.

They stopped only long enough to limber up the muscles. Whaley handed to Jessie the revolver he had taken from West.

"Keep this," he said. His look was significant. It told her that in the hunt for wood he might be blinded by the blizzard and lost. If he failed to return and West came back alone, she would know what to do with it.

Into the storm the two plunged a second time. They carried ropes and an axe. Since West had arrived, the gale had greatly increased. The wind now was booming in deep, sullen roars and the temperature had fallen twenty degrees already. The sled dogs were nowhere to be seen or heard. They had burrowed down into the snow where the house would shelter them from the hurricane as much as possible.

The men reached the edge of the creek. They struggled in the frozen drifts with such small dead trees as they could find. In the darkness Whaley used the axe as best he could at imminent risk to his legs.

Though they worked only a few feet apart, they had to shout to make their voices carry.

"We better be movin' back," West called through his open palms. "We got all we can haul."

They roped the wood and dragged it over the snow in the direction they knew the house to be. Presently they found the sled and from it deflected toward the house.

Jessie had hot tea waiting for them. They kicked off their webs and piled the salvaged wood into the other end of the cabin, after which they hunkered down before the fire to drink tea and eat pemmican and bannocks.

They had with them about fifty pounds of frozen fish for the dogs and provisions enough to last the three of them four or five meals. Whaley had brought West supplies enough to carry him only to Lookout, where he was to stock for a long traverse into the wilds.

As the hours pa.s.sed there grew up between the gambler and the girl a tacit partnership of mutual defense. No word was spoken of it, but each knew that the sulky brute in the chimney corner was dangerous. He would be held by no scruples of conscience, no laws of friendship or decency. If the chance came he would strike.

The storm raged and howled. It flung itself at the cabin with what seemed a ravenous and implacable fury. The shriek of it was now like the skirling of a thousand bagpipes, again like the wailing of numberless lost souls.

Inside, West snored heavily, his ill-shaped head drooping on the big barrel chest of the man. Jessie slept while Whaley kept guard. Later she would watch in her turn.

There were moments when the gale died down, but only to roar again with a frenzy of increased violence.

The gray day broke and found the blizzard at its height.

CHAPTER XXV

FOR THE WEE LAMB LOST

Beresford, in front of the C.N. Morse & Company trading-post, watched his horse paw at the snow in search of gra.s.s underneath. It was a sign that the animal was prairie-bred. On the plains near the border gra.s.s cures as it stands, retaining its nutriment as hay. The native pony pushes the snow aside with its forefoot and finds its feed. But in the timber country of the North gra.s.s grows long and coa.r.s.e. When its sap dries out, it rots.

The officer was thinking that he had better put both horse and cariole up for the winter. It was time now for dogs and sled. Even in summer this was not a country for horses. There were so many lakes that a birch-bark canoe covered the miles faster.

Darkness was sweeping down over the land, and with it the first flakes of a coming storm. Beresford had expected this, for earlier in the day he had seen two bright mock suns in the sky. The Indians had told him that these sun dogs were warnings of severe cold and probably a blizzard.

Out of the edge of the forest a man on snowshoes came. He was moving fast. Beresford, watching him idly, noticed that he toed in. Therefore he was probably a Cree trapper. But the Crees were usually indolent travelers. They did not cover ground as this man was doing.

The man was an Indian. The soldier presently certified his first guess as to that. But not until the native was almost at the store did he recognize him as Onistah.

The Blackfoot wasted no time in leading up to what he had to say.

"Sleeping Dawn she prisoner of Bully West and Whaley. She say bring her father. She tell me bring him quick"

Beresford's body lost its easy grace instantly and became rigid. His voice rang with sharp authority.

"Where is she?"

"She at Jasper's cabin on Cache Creek. She frightened."

As though the mention of Sleeping Dawn's name had reached him by some process of telepathy, Tom Morse had come out and stood in the door of the store. The trooper wheeled to him.

"Get me a dog-team, Tom. That fellow West has got Jessie McRae with him on Cache Creek. We've got to move quick."

The storekeeper felt as though the bottom had dropped out of his heart. He glanced up at the lowering night. "Storm brewing. We'll get started right away." Without a moment's delay he disappeared inside the store to make his preparations.

Onistah carried the news to McRae.

The blood washed out of the ruddy-whiskered face of the Scot, but his sole comment was a Scriptural phrase of faith. "I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken..."

It was less than half an hour later that four men and a dog-train moved up the main street of Faraway and disappeared in the forest.

Morse broke trail and McRae drove the tandem. Onistah, who had already traveled many miles, brought up the rear. The trooper exchanged places with Morse after an hour's travel.

They were taking a short-cut and it led them through dead and down timber that delayed the party. Tom was a good axeman, and more than once he had to chop away obstructing logs. At other times by main strength the men lifted or dragged the sled over bad places.

The swirling storm made it difficult to know where they were going or to choose the best way. They floundered through deep snow and heavy underbrush, faces bleeding from the whip of willow switches suddenly released and feet so torn by the straps of the snowshoes that the trail showed stains of blood which had soaked from the moccasins.

Onistah, already weary, began to lag. They dared not wait for him.

There was, they felt, not a moment to be lost. McRae's clean-shaven upper lip was a straight, grim surface. He voiced no fears, no doubts, but the others knew from their own anxiety how much he must be suffering.

The gale increased. It drove in bitter blasts of fine stinging sleet.

When for a few hundred yards they drew out of the thick forest into an open grove, it lashed them so furiously they could scarcely move in the teeth of it.

The dogs were whimpering at their task. More than once they stopped, exhausted by the wind against which they were battling. Their eyes turned dumbly to McRae for instructions. He could only drive them back to the trail Morse was breaking.