Shadows of Shasta Part 11

"I do not know. But yonder lies the only being who ever befriended me; and somehow I get lonesome when I get far away from her grave. And I go round and round, like the sun around the world, and come back to where I started from."

"But you must go--go far away--go now."

"Do you know what you are saying? I was never outside of this. All would be strange. I would be lost, lost there. And then, do you not imagine they are waiting for me there--everywhere? Look at my face! This tinge of Indian blood, that all men abhor and fear, and call treacherous and b.l.o.o.d.y. Across my brow at my birth was drawn a brand that marks me forever--a brand--a brand as if it were the brand of Cain."

The man bows his head, and turns away.

Slowly and timidly Carrie approaches him, and she lays her hand on his arm and looks in his face. The boy still watches by the door.

"But you will fly from here?"

His arm drops over her hair, down to her shoulder, and he draws her to his breast, as she looks up tenderly in his face, and pleads:

"You will go now--at once? For you will die here."

"Ah, I will die here." He says this with a calm and dogged determination. "Carrie, I have one wish, one request--only one. I know you are weak and helpless yourself, and can't do much, and I ought not to ask you to do anything."

Stumps has left the door as he hears the man mention that there is something to be done, and stands by their side.

"Whatever it is you ask, John Logan, we will do it--we will do it."

The girl says this with a firmness that convinces him that it will be done.

"We will do it! we will do it! so help me, we will do it!" blubbers Stumps.

"What is it, John Logan, we can do?"

"I will not fly from here." He looks down tenderly into their faces.

Then he lifts his face. It is dark and terrible, and his lips are set with resolution. "I will die here. It may be to-night, it may be to-morrow. It may be as I turn to go out at that door they will send their bullets through my heart; it may be while I kneel in the snow at my mother's grave. But, sooner or later, it will come--it will come!"

"But please, John Logan, what is it we can do?"

Her voice is tremulous, and her eyes stream with tears.

"Carrie, I am a man--a strong man--and ought not to ask anything of a helpless girl. But I have no other friend. I have had no friends. All the days of my life have been dark and lonely. And now I am about to die, Carrie, I want you to see that I am buried by my mother yonder. I am so weary, and I could rest there. And then she, poor broken-hearted mother, she might not be so lonesome then. Do you promise?"

"I do promise!" and the boy echoes this scarcely audible but determined answer.

"Thank you--thank you! And now good night. I must be going, lest I draw suspicion on you. Good night, good night; G.o.d bless you, Carrie!"

He presses her to his heart, hastily embraces her, and tearing himself away, stoops and kisses the boy as he pa.s.ses to the door. Drawing his tattered shirt closer about his shoulders, and turning his face as if to conceal his emotion, he lays his hand upon the latch to suddenly dart forth.

Two dark figures pa.s.s the window, and in a moment more the latch-string is clutched by a rough, unsteady hand from without.

"Here, here!" cries the girl, as she springs back to the dingy curtain that divides off a portion of the cabin into a bed-room. "Here! in here!

Quick! quick!" as she draws the curtain aside, and lets it fall over the retreating fugitive. Forty-nine and Gar Dosson enter. The former is drunk, and therefore dignified and silent. His companion is drunk, and therefore garrulous and familiar. Wine floats a man's real nature nearly to the surface.

Forty-nine lifts his hat, bows politely and respectfully to the children, brushes his hat with his elbow as he meanders across the floor to the peg in the wall, but cannot quite trust himself to speak.

"Hullo, Carats!" cries Gar Dosson, as he chucks her under the chin.

"Knowed I was coming, didn't you? Got yourself fixed up. Pretty, ain't she?" and he winks a blood-shot eye toward Stumps. "And when is it going to be my Carats? Pretty soon, now, eh?" and he walks, or rather totters, aside.

"Umph! I have got 'em again, Carrie. Fly around and get us something to eat. Fly around, Carrie, fly around! Oh, I've got the shakes again!"

groans Forty-nine.

"Poor old boy!" and she brushes the snow from his beard and his tattered coat. "Why, Forty-nine, you're shaking like a leaf."

"He's drunk--that's what's the matter with him." Gar Dosson growls this out between his teeth as he sets his gun in the corner.

"He's not drunk! Its the ager!" retorts Stumps fiercely.

Gar Dosson, glaring at the boy, steadies himself on his right leg, and diving deep in his left hand pocket, draws forth a large bill or poster.

With both hands he manages to spread this out, and swaggering up to the wall near the window he hangs it on two pegs that are there to receive coats or hats.

"Look at that!" and he crookedly points with his crooked fingers at the large letters, and reads: "One thousand dollars (hic) dollars reward for the capture of John Logan! What do you say to that, Carats? That's a fine fellow to have for a lover, now, ain't it?--a waluable lover, now, ain't it? Worth a thousand dollars! Oh, don't I wish he was a-hanging around here now! Wouldn't I sell him, and get a thousand dollars, eh?

Yes, I would. I just want that thousand dollars. And I'm the man that's going to get it, too! Eh, old Blossom-nose?" Forty-nine jerks back his dignified head as the bully gesticulates violently.

"You will, will you? Well, may-be you will (hic), but if you get a cent of that money (hic) for catching that man you don't enter that door again; no, you don't lift that latch-string again as long as old Forty-nine has a fist to lift!" and he thrusts his doubled hand hard into the boaster's face.

"Good for you!" cries Carrie. "Dear, good, brave old Forty-nine; I like you--I love you!" and the girl embraces him, while the boy flourishes his club at the back of the bully.

"No, don't you hit a man when he's down, sah," continues Forty-nine.

"That's the true doctrine of a gentleman--the true doctrine of a gentleman, sah." He flourishes his hand, totters forward, totters back, and hesitates--"The true doctrine of a gentleman, sah. The little horse in the horse-race, sah--the bottom dog in the dog-fight, sah. The--"

And the poor old man totters back and falls helplessly in the great, home-made chair near the corner, where stands the gun. His head is under water.

"The true doctrines of a gentleman," snaps Dosson; and he throws out a big hand toward the drooping head. "Old Blossom-nose!" Then turning to Carrie. "The sheriff's a coming; he gave me that 'ere bill--yes, he did.

He's down to the grocery, now. He's going around to all the cabins, and a-swearing 'em in a book, that they don't know nothing about John Logan.

The sheriff, he's a comin' here, Carats, right off."

There is a rift in the curtain, and the pitiful face of the fugitive peers forth.

"The sheriff coming here!" He turns, feels the wall, and tries the logs with his hands. Not a door, not a window. Solid as the solid earth.

"Coming here? But what is he coming here for?" demands Carrie.

"Coming here to find out what you know about John Logan. Oh, he's close after him."

"Close after me!" gasps Logan. The man feels for something to lay hand upon by which to defend himself. "I will not be taken alive; I will die here!" He clutches at last, above the bed, a gun. "Saved, saved!" He holds it tenderly, as if a child, or something dearly loved. He takes it to the light and looks at the lock; he blows in the barrel; he mournfully shakes his head. "It is not loaded! Well, no matter; I can but die," and he clubs the gun and prepares for mortal battle.

"Oh, come, Carats," cries Gar Dosson, "let's have a little frolic before the sheriff comes--a kiss, eh? Come, my beauty!"

The rough man has all this time been stealing up, as nearly as he could to the girl, and now throws his arm about her neck.

"Shall I brain him--be a murderer, indeed?"

All the Indian is again aroused, and John Logan seems more terrible, and more determined to save her than to defend his own life.

"Stand back!" shouts the Girl to Dosson. She attempts to throw him off, but his powerful arm is about her neck. "Forty-nine! Help!" but the old man is unconscious. John Logan is about to start from his corner.