The Foreigner Part 33

"Just keep them moving," he cried to Kalman. "I will need to go to the house a meenit."

"All right. Don't hurry for me," said Kalman, proud of his new responsibility and delighted with his new achievement.

"Keep them straight, mind. And watch your turning," warned Mackenzie. "I will be coming back soon."

In less than half an hour he returned in a most gracious frame of mind.

"Man, but you are the smart lad," he said as Kalman swung his team around. "You will be making a great rancher, Tommy."

"My name is Kalman."

"Well, well, Callum. It iss a fery good name, whatefer."

"Kalman!" shouted the boy.

Mackenzie nodded grave rebuke.

"There is no occasion for shouting. I am not deef, Callum, my boy.

Go on. Go on with your harrows," he continued as Kalman began to remonstrate.

Kalman drew near and regarded him narrowly. The truth was clear to his experienced eyes.

"You're drunk," he exclaimed disgustedly.

"Hoot, toot! Callum man," said Mackenzie in tones of grieved remonstrance, "how would you be saying that now? Come away, or I will be taking the team myself."

"Aw, go on!" replied Kalman contemptuously. "Let me alone!"

"Good boy," said Mackenzie with a paternal smile, waving the boy on his way while he betook himself to the bluff side and there supine, continued at intervals to direct the operation of harrowing.

The sun grew hot. The cool morning breeze dropped flat, and as the hours pa.s.sed the boy grew weary and footsore, travelling the soft furrows. Mackenzie had long ceased issuing his directions, and had subsided into smiling silence, contenting himself with a friendly wave of the hand as Kalman made the turn. The poor spiritless horses moved more and more slowly, and at length, coming to the end of the field, refused to move farther.

"Let them stand a bit, Callum boy," said Mackenzie kindly.

"Come and have a rest. You are the fine driver. Come and sit down."

"Will the horses stand here?" asked Kalman, whose sense of responsibility deepened as he became aware of Mackenzie's growing incapacity.

Mackenzie laughed pleasantly. "Will they stand? Yes, and that they will, unless they will lie down."

Kalman approached and regarded him with the eye of an expert.

"Look here, where's your stuff?" said the boy at length.

Mackenzie gazed at him with the innocence of childhood.

"What iss it?"

"Oh, come off your perch! you blamed old rooster! Where's your bottle?"

"What iss this?" said Mackenzie, much affronted. "You will be calling me names?"

As he rose in his indignation a bottle fell from his pocket. Kalman made a dash toward it, but Mackenzie was too quick for him. With a savage curse he s.n.a.t.c.hed up the bottle, and at the same time made a fierce but unsuccessful lunge at the boy.

"You little deevil!" he said fiercely, "I will be knocking your head off!"

Kalman jibed at him. "You are a nice sort of fellow to be on a job.

What will your boss say?"

Mackenzie's face changed instantly.

"The boss?" he said, glancing in the direction of the house.

"The boss? What iss the harm of a drop when you are not well?"

"You not well!" exclaimed Kalman scornfully.

Mackenzie shook his head sadly, sinking back upon the gra.s.s. "It iss many years now since I have suffered with an indisposeetion of the bowels. It iss a coalic, I am thinking, and it iss hard on me. But, Callum, man, it will soon be denner time. Just put your horses in and I will be following you."

But Kalman knew better than that.

"I don't know how to put in your horses. Come and put them in yourself, or show me how to do it." He was indignant with the man on his master's behalf.

Mackenzie struggled to his feet, holding the bottle carefully in his outside coat pocket. Kalman made up his mind to possess himself of that bottle at all costs. The opportunity occurred when Mackenzie, stooping to unhitch the last trace, allowed the bottle to slip from his pocket.

Like a cat on a mouse, Kalman pounced on the bottle and fled.

The change in Mackenzie was immediate and appalling. His smiling face became transformed with fury, his black eyes gleamed with the cunning malignity of the savage, he shed his soft Scotch voice with his genial manner, the very movements of his body became those of his Cree progenitors. Uttering hoa.r.s.e guttural cries, with the quick crouching run of the Indian on the trail of his foe, he chased Kalman through the bluffs. There was something so fiendishly terrifying in the glimpses that Kalman caught of his face now and then that the boy was seized with an overpowering dread, and ceasing to tantalize his pursuing enemy, he left the bluffs and fled toward the house, with Mackenzie hard upon his track. Through the shed the boy flew and into the outer room, banging the door hard after him. But there was no lock upon the door, and he could not hope to hold it shut against his pursuer. He glanced wildly into the inner room.

French was nowhere to be seen. As he stood in unspeakable terror, the door opened slowly and stealthily, showing Mackenzie's face, distorted with rage and cunning hate. With a silent swift movement he glided into the room, and without a sound rushed at the boy.

Once, twice around the table they circled, Kalman having the advantage in quickness of foot. Suddenly, with a grunt of satisfaction, Mackenzie's eye fell upon a gun hanging upon the wall. In a moment he had it in his hand. As he reached for it, however, Kalman, with a loud cry, plunged headlong through the open window and fled again toward the bluffs. Mackenzie followed swiftly through the door, gun in hand. He ran a few short steps after the flying boy, and was about to throw his gun to his shoulder when a voice arrested him.

"Here, Mackenzie, what are you doing with that gun?"

It was French, standing between the stable and the house, dishevelled, bloated, but master of himself. Mackenzie stopped as if gripped by an unseen arm.

"What are you doing with that gun?" repeated French sternly.

"Bring it to me."

Mackenzie stood in sullen, defiant silence, his gun thrown into the hollow of his arm. French walked deliberately toward him.

"Give me that gun, you dog!" he said with an oath, "or I'll kill you where you stand."

Mackenzie hesitated but only for a moment, and without a word surrendered the gun, the fiendish rage fading out of his face, the aboriginal blood l.u.s.t dying in his eyes like the snuffing out of a candle. In a few brief moments he became once more a civilized man, subject to the restraint of a thousand years of life ordered by law.

"Kalman, come here," French called to the boy, who stood far off.

"Mackenzie," said French with great dignity as Kalman drew near, "I want you to know that this boy is a ward of a dear friend, and is to me like my own son. Remember that. Kalman, Mackenzie is my friend, and you are to treat him as such. Where did you get that?" he continued, pointing to the bottle which Kalman had kept clutched in his hand through all the exciting pursuit.

The boy stood silent, looking at Mackenzie.

"Speak, boy," said French sharply.