The Courage of Marge O'Doone Part 24

He faced them, huge, terrible, quivering with rage. A step behind him was Hauck, and there was no longer in his face an effort to conceal his murderous intentions. Close behind Hauck there gathered quickly his white-faced whisky-mongers like a pack of wolves waiting for a lead-cry.

David expected that cry to come from Brokaw. The Girl expected it, and she clung to David's shoulders, her bloodless face turned to the danger.

It was Brokaw who gave the signal to the men.

"Clear out the cage!" he bellowed. "This d.a.m.ned spy has killed my bear and he's got to fight me! Do you understand? Clear out the cage!"

He thrust his head and bull shoulders forward until his foul, hot breath touched their faces, and his red neck was swollen like the neck of a cobra with the pa.s.sion of his jealousy and hatred.

"And in that fight--I'm going to kill you!" he hissed.

It was Hauck who put his hands on the Girl.

"Go with him," whispered David, as her arms tightened about his shoulders. "You must go with him, Marge--if I am to have a chance!"

Her face was against him. She was talking, low, swiftly, for his ears alone--with Hauck already beginning to pull her away.

"I will go to the house. When you see me at that window, fall on your face. I have a rifle--I will shoot him dead--from the window...."

Perhaps Hauck heard. David wondered as he caught the glitter in his eyes when he drew the Girl away. He heard the crash of the big gate to the cage, and Tara, ambled out and took his way slowly and limpingly toward the edge of the forest. When he saw the Girl again, he was standing in the centre of the cage, his feet in a pool of blood that smeared the ground. She was struggling with Hauck, struggling to break from him and get to the house. And now he knew that Hauck had heard, and that he would hold her there, and that her eyes would be on him while Brokaw was killing him. For he knew that Brokaw would fight to kill. It would not be a square fight. It would be murder--if the chance came Brokaw's way.

The thought did not frighten him. He was growing strangely calm in these moments. He realized the advantage of being unenc.u.mbered, and he stripped off his shirt, and tightened his belt. And then Brokaw entered.

The giant had stripped himself to the waist, and he stood for a moment looking at David, a monster with the l.u.s.t of murder in his eyes. It was frightfully unequal--this combat. David felt it, he was blind if he did not see it, and yet he was still unafraid. A great silence fell. Cutting it like a knife came the Girl's voice:

"_Sakewawin--Sakewawin...._"

A brutish growl rose out of Brokaw's chest. He had heard that cry, and it stung him like an asp.

"To-night, she will be with me," he taunted David and lowered his head for battle.

CHAPTER XXIV

David no longer saw the horde of faces beyond the thick bars of the cage. His last glance, shot past the lowered head and hulking shoulders of his giant adversary, went to the Girl. He noticed that she had ceased her struggling and was looking toward him. After that his eyes never left Brokaw's face. Until now it had not seemed that Brokaw was so big and so powerful, and, sizing up his enemy in that moment before the first rush, he realized that his one hope was to keep him from using his enormous strength at close quarters. A clinch would be fatal. In Brokaw's arms he would be helpless; he was conscious of an unpleasant thrill as he thought how easy it would be for the other to break his back, or snap his neck, if he gave him the opportunity. Science! What would it avail him here, pitted against this mountain of flesh and bone that looked as though it might stand the beating of clubs without being conquered! His first blow returned his confidence, even if it had wavered slightly. Brokaw rushed. It was an easy attack to evade, and David's arm shot out and his fist landed against Brokaw's head with a sound that was like the crack of a whip. Hauck would have gone down under that blow like a log. Brokaw staggered. Even he realized that this was science--the skill of the game--and he was grinning as he advanced again. He could stand a hundred blows like that--a grim and ferocious Achilles with but one vulnerable point, the end of his jaw. David waited and watched for his opportunity as he gave ground slowly. Twice they circled about the blood-spattered arena, Brokaw following him with leisurely sureness, and yet delaying his attack as if in that steady retreat of his victim he saw torture too satisfying to put an end to at once. David measured his carelessness, the slow almost unguarded movement of his great body, his unpreparedness for a _coup de main_--and like a flash he launched himself forward with all the weight of his body behind his effort.

It missed the other's jaw by two inches, that catapeltic blow--striking him full in the mouth, breaking his yellow teeth and smashing his thick lips so that the blood sprang out in a spray over his hairy chest, and as his head rocked backward David followed with a swift left-hander, and a second time missed the jaw with his right--but drenched his clenched fist in blood. Out of Brokaw there came a cry that was like the low roar of a beast; a cry that was the most inhuman sound David had ever heard from a human throat, and in an instant he found himself battling not for victory, not for that opportunity he twice had missed, but for his life.

Against that rushing bulk, enraged almost to madness, the ingenuity of his training alone saved him from immediate extinction. How many times he struck in the 120 seconds following his blow to Brokaw's mouth he could never have told. He was red with Brokaw's blood. His face was warm with it. His hands were as if painted, so often did they reach with right and left to Brokaw's gory visage. It was like striking at a monstrous thing without the sense of hurt, a fiend that had no brain that blows could sicken, a body that was not a body but an enormity that had strangely taken human form. Brokaw had struck him once--only once--in those two minutes, but blows were not what he feared now. He was beating himself to pieces, literally beating himself to pieces as a ship might have hammered itself against a reef, and fighting with every breath to keep himself out of the fatal clinch. His efforts were costing him more than they were costing his antagonist. Twice he had reached his jaw, twice Brokaw's head had rocked back on his shoulders--and then he was there again, closing in on him, grinning, dripping red to the soles of his feet, unconquerable. Was there no fairness out there beyond the bars of the cage? Were they all like the man he was fighting--devils? An intermission--only half a minute. Enough to give him a chance. The slow, invincible beast he was hammering almost had him as his thoughts wandered. He only half fended the sledge-like blow that came straight for his face. He ducked, swung up his guard like lightning, and was saved from death by a miracle. That blow would have crushed in his face--killed him. He knew it. Brokaw's huge fist landed against the side of his head and grazed off like a bullet that had struck the slanting surface of a rock. Yet the force of it was sufficient to send him crashing against the bars--and _down_.

In that moment he thanked G.o.d for Brokaw's slowness. He had a clear recollection afterward of almost having spoken the words as he lay dazed and helpless for an infinitesimal s.p.a.ce of time. He expected Brokaw to end it there. But Brokaw stood mopping the blood from his face, as if partly blinded by it, while from beyond the cage there came a swiftly growing rumble of voices. He heard a scream. It was the scream--the agonized cry--of the Girl, that brought him to his feet while Brokaw was still wiping the hot flow from his dripping jaw. It was that cry that cleared his brain, that called out to him in its despair that he _must_ win, that all was lost for her as well as for himself if he was vanquished--for more positively than at any other time during the fight he felt now that defeat would mean death. It had come to him definitely in the savage outcry of joy when he was down. There was to be no mercy.

He had read the ominous decree. And Brokaw....

He was like a madman as he came toward him again. There was no longer the leer on his face. There was in his battered and swollen countenance but one emotion. Blood and hurt could not hide it. It blazed like fires in his half-closed eyes. It was the desire to kill. The pa.s.sion which quenches itself in the taking of life, and every fibre in David's brain rose to meet it. He knew that it was no longer a matter of blows on his part--it was like the David of old facing Goliath with his bare hands.

Curiously the thought of Goliath came to him in these flashing moments.

Here, too, there must be trickery, something unexpected, a deadly stratagem, and his brain must work out his salvation quickly. Another two or three minutes and it would be over one way or the other. He made his decision. The tricks of his own art were inadequate, but there was still one hope--one last chance. It was the so-called "knee-break" of the bush country, a horrible thing, he had thought, when Father Roland had taught it to him. "Break your opponent's knees," the Missioner had said, "and you've got him." He had never practised it. But he knew the method, and he remembered the Little Missioner's words--"when he's straight facing you, with all your weight, like a cannon ball!" And suddenly he shot himself out like that, as Brokaw was about to rush upon him--a hundred and sixty pounds of solid flesh and bone against the joints of Brokaw's knees!

The shock dazed him. There was a sharp pain in his left shoulder, and with that shock and pain he was conscious of a terrible cry as Brokaw crashed over him. He was on his feet when Brokaw was on his knees.

Whether or not they were really broken he could not tell. With all the strength in his body he sent his right again and again to the bleeding jaw of his enemy. Brokaw reached up and caught him in his huge arms, but that jaw was there, unprotected, and David battered it as he might have battered a rock with a hammer. A gasping cry rose out of the giant's throat, his head sank backward--and through a red fury, through blood that spattered up into his face, David continued to strike until the arms relaxed about him, and with a choking gurgle of blood in his throat, Brokaw dropped back limply, as if dead.

And then David looked again beyond the bars. The staring faces had drawn nearer to the cage, bewildered, stupefied, disbelieving, like the faces of stone images. For a s.p.a.ce it was so quiet that it seemed to him they must hear his panting breath and the choking gurgle that was still in Brokaw's throat. The victor! He flung back his shoulders and held up his head, though he had great desire to stagger against one of the bars and rest. He could see the Girl and Hauck--and now the girl was standing alone, looking at him. She had seen him! She had seen him beat that giant beast, and a great pride rose in his breast and spread in a joyous light over his b.l.o.o.d.y face. Suddenly he lifted his hand and waved it at her. In a flash she was coming to him. She would have broken her way through the cordon of men, but Hauck stopped her. He had seen Hauck talking swiftly to two of the white men. And now Hauck caught the girl and held her back. David knew that he was dripping red and he was glad that she came no nearer. Hauck was telling her to go to the house, and David nodded, and with a movement of his hand made her understand that she must obey. Not until he saw her going did he pick up his shirt and step out among the men. Three or four of the whites went to Brokaw. The rest stared at him still in that amazed silence as he pa.s.sed among them.

He nodded and smiled at them, as though beating Brokaw had not been such a terrible task after all. He noticed there was scarcely an expression in the faces of the Indians. And then he found himself face to face with Hauck, and a step or two behind Hauck were the two white men he had talked to so hurriedly. One of them was the man David had brushed against in pa.s.sing through the big room. There was a grin in his face now. There was a grin in Hauck's face, and a grin in the face of the third man, and to David's astonishment Hauck thrust out his hand.

"Shake, Raine! I'd have bet a thousand to fifty you were loser, but there wasn't a dollar going your way. A great fight!"

He turned to the other two.

"Take Raine to his room, boys. Help 'im wash up. I've got to see to Brokaw--an' this crowd."

David protested. He was all right. He needed only water and soap, both of which were in his room, but Hauck insisted that it wasn't square, and wouldn't look right, if he didn't have friends as well as Brokaw. Brokaw had forced the affair so suddenly that none of them had had time or thought to speak an encouraging or friendly word before the fight.

Langdon and Henry would go with him now. He walked between the two to the Nest, and entered his room with them. Langdon, the tall man who had looked hatred at him last night, poured water into a tin basin while Henry, the smaller man, closed his door. They appeared quite companionable, especially Langdon.

"Didn't like you last night," he confessed frankly. "Thought you was one of them d.a.m.ned police, running your nose into our business mebby."

He stood beside David, with the pail of water in his hand, and as David bent over the basin Henry was behind him. He had drawn something from his pocket, and was edging up close. As David dipped his hands in the water he looked up into Langdon's face, and he saw there a strange and unexpected change--that deadly malignity of last night. In that moment the object in Henry's hand fell with terrific force on his head and he crumpled down over the basin. He was conscious of a single agonizing pain, like a hot iron thrust suddenly through him, and then a great and engulfing pit of darkness closed about him.

CHAPTER XXV

In that chaotic night in which he was drifting, David experienced neither pain nor very much of the sense of life. And yet, without seeing or feeling, he seemed to be living. All was dead within him but that last consciousness, which is almost the spirit; he might have been dreaming, and minutes, hours, or even years might have pa.s.sed in that dream. For a long time he seemed to be sinking through the blackness; and then something stopped him, without jar or shock, and he was rising.

He could hear nothing at first. There was a vast silence about him, a silence as deep and unbroken as the abysmal pit in which he seemed to be floating. After that he felt himself swaying and rocking, as though tossed gently on the billows of a sea. This was the first thought that took shape in his struggling brain--he was at sea; he was on a ship in the heart of a black night, and he was alone. He tried to call out, but his tongue seemed gone. It seemed a long time before day broke, and then it was strange day. Little needles of light p.r.i.c.ked his eyes; silver strings shot like flashes of wave-like lightning through the darkness, and he began to feel, and to hear. A dozen hands seemed holding him down until he could move neither arms nor feet. He heard voices. There appeared to be many of them at first, an unintelligible rumble of voices, and then very swiftly they became two.

He opened his eyes. The first thing that he observed was a bar of sunlight against the eastern wall of his room. That bit of sunlight was like a magnet thrown there to rea.s.semble the faculties that had drifted away from him in the dark night of his unconsciousness. It tried to tell him, first of all, that it was afternoon--quite late in the afternoon.

He would have sensed that fact in another moment or two, but something came between him and the radiance flung by the westward slant of the sun. It was a face, two faces--first Hauck's and then Brokaw's! Yes, Brokaw was there! Staring down at him. A fiend still. And almost unrecognizable. He was no longer stripped, and he was no longer b.l.o.o.d.y.

His countenance was swollen; his lips were raw, one eye was closed--but the other gleamed like a devil's. David tried to sit up. He managed with an effort, and balanced himself on the edge of his cot. His head was dizzy, and he felt clumsy and helpless as a stuffed bag. His hands were tied behind him, and his feet were bound. He thought Hauck looked like an exultant gargoyle as he stood there with a horrible grin on his face, and Brokaw....

It was Brokaw who bent over him, his thick fingers knotting, his open eyes fairly livid.

"I'm glad you ain't dead, Raine."

His voice was husky, m.u.f.fled by the swollen thickness of his battered lips.

"Thanks," said David. The dizziness was leaving him, but there was a steady pain in his head. He tried to smile. "Thanks!" It was rather idiotic of him to say that. Brokaw's hands were moving slowly toward his throat when Hauck drew him back.

"I won't touch him--not now," he growled. "But to-night--oh, G.o.d!"

His knuckles snapped.

"You--liar! You--spy! You--sneak!" he cursed through his broken teeth.

David saw where they _had_ been--a cavity in that cruel, battered mouth.

"And you think, after that...."

Again Hauck tried to draw him away. Brokaw flung off his hands angrily.

"I won't touch him--but I'll _tell_ him, Hauck! The devil take me body and soul if I don't! I want him to know...."