The One-Way Trail Part 48

"Best kill him now," he said. "He's a devil. He's smashed me all up.

He's smashed my sick body, and things feel queer inside me. Kill him, Jim! Kill him!"

Watching the working face, the man sickened at the inhuman desire of the boy. Where did he ever get such a frightful nature from? It was monstrous.

"Here," he said almost sternly, "can you walk?"

"I guess." The tone had that peculiar sullenness which generally portended an outbreak of the most vicious side of the boy's temper.

"Then get over there by my horse and wait till I come. I'll put you on him, and you can ride back home."

"What you going to do?"

The demand was an eager whisper. It suggested the hope that Jim was perhaps after all going to do as he asked--and kill Will Henderson.

"I'm going to see--how bad Will is. Be off now."

"Can't I stay--an' watch you?"

"No. Get on after that horse."

Elia turned away, and Jim watched his painful gait. Once he thought he saw him stagger, but, as he continued to hobble on, he turned again to the injured man. One glance at his face showed him the extent of his handiwork. He was ripped open right along the jaw, and the bone itself was badly broken.

He instantly whipped out his sheath-knife and a handkerchief. The latter he cut up into a bandage. Then, removing the silk scarf at his neck, he folded it into a soft pad, and bound it over the wound.

Curiously he felt he must lend what aid he could first, and then send out adequate help from the village.

He stood up, took a final glance at the wounded face, and turned coldly away toward his horse.

But now events took an unexpected and disconcerting turn. When he reached his horse Elia was nowhere to be seen. He called, but received no answer. He called again, but still no answer. And suddenly he became alarmed. He remembered the boy's condition. He must have collapsed somewhere.

He promptly began to search. Taking his horse as a central point he moved round it in ever widening circles, calling at intervals, and with his eyes glued to the long gra.s.s which swished under his feet.

For more than ten minutes he searched in vain; and then, once more, he found himself beside the man he had knocked out.

He was thoroughly alarmed now. Eve was still anxiously awaiting news of her brother. The thing was quite inexplicable. He could never have attempted to walk home. Why should he? Finally he decided that he must have strolled into the bush and sat down, and----

His glance fell upon the man lying at his feet. How still he lay.

How---- h.e.l.lo, what was this? He had left him lying on his side. Now his pale face was turned directly up at the sky. And--he dropped on his knees at his side--his bandage had been removed. He glanced about.

There it was, a yard away in the gra.s.s. In wondering astonishment his eyes came back to the ghastly face of the unconscious man. Somehow it looked different, yet----

A glance at his body drew an exclamation of horror from his lips. For a moment every drop of blood seemed to recede from his brain, leaving him cold. A clammy moisture broke out upon his forehead at what he beheld. The man's clothing had been torn open leaving his chest bare, and he now beheld his own knife plunged to the hilt in the white flesh. Will Henderson was dead--stabbed through the heart by----

He sprang to his feet with a cry of horror, and his eyes flashed right and left as though in search of the murderer. Who had done this thing?

Who----? As though in answer to his thought, Elia's voice reached him from out of the bushes.

"He's sure dead. I hate him."

Then followed a rustling of the brushwood, as though the boy had taken himself off.

Jim made no attempt to follow him. He remained staring into the black woods whence that voice had proceeded. He was petrified with the horror of the boy's deed.

He stood for some minutes thus. Then thought became active once more. And curiously enough it was cool, calm, and debating. The possibilities that had so suddenly opened up were tremendous.

Tremendous and--hideous. Yet they stirred him far less than might have been expected. Black, foul murder had been committed, and in a way that threw the entire blame on himself.

He saw it all in a flash. It needed but the smallest intelligence to do so. There was no mind in Barnriff but would inevitably fix on his guilt--even his friend Peter. How could it be otherwise? There was his knife. There were his handkerchiefs. The white one had his name on it.

The knife had his initials branded on its handle. His last words to Eve had been a threat to kill her husband.

And Elia had done this hideous thing. A weak, sickly boy. It was terrible, and he shuddered. What hatred he must have had for the dead man. He found himself almost sympathizing with the lad's feelings.

Yes, Will had certainly brought this thing upon himself. He--deserved his fate. Yet Elia--the thought revolted him.

But suddenly a fresh significance came to him. He had missed it before. What would this mean to Eve? Elia's guilt. What would Will's death mean to her? But now his thoughts ran faster. Elia's guilt? Eve would never believe it. Besides, if she did it would break her heart.

The boy was something like a pa.s.sion to her. He was almost as though he were part of herself. She loved him as though he were flesh of her own flesh.

No, even if it were possible to convince her, she must never be told.

His crime must be covered up someway. But how?

The man stood lost in thought for nearly half an hour. They were the thoughts of a man who at last sees the end of all things earthly looming heavily upon his horizon. There was no cowardly shrinking, there was very little regret. What he must do he felt was being forced upon him by an invincible fate, but the sting of it was far less poignant than would have been the case a few months ago. In fact the sting was hardly there at all.

At all costs Eve must be protected. She must never know the truth. It was bad enough that her husband was dead. He wondered vaguely how far her love had survived the man's outrages. Yes, she loved him still. He could never forget her the night he had volunteered to carry the warning to Will. Strange, he thought, how a woman will cling to the man who has once possessed her love.

Ah, well, he had never known the possession of such a priceless jewel as a good woman's love. And now he was never likely to have the chance, he admitted with a simple regret. It seemed pretty hard. And yet--he almost smiled--it would be all the same after a few painful moments.

And only a brief hour ago he had been yearning to fight, with his back to the wall, against the suspicion and feeling against him in the village. He smiled with a shadow of bitterness and shook his head.

Useless--quite useless. The one-way trail was well marked for him, and he had traveled it as best he knew how. As Peter said, there were no side paths. Just a narrow road, and the obstructions and perils on the way were set there for each to face. Well, he would face this last one with a "stiff upper-lip."

One thing he was irrevocably determined upon, never by word or action would he add to Eve's unhappiness. And, if the cruel fate that had always dogged him demanded this final sacrifice, he would at least have the trifling satisfaction of knowing, as he went out of the world, that her future had been rendered the smoother by the blow that had removed Will from his sphere of crime.

He walked briskly back to his horse and leaped upon its back. Then, turning its head, he sat for a moment thinking. There was still a way out. Still a means of escape without Eve's learning the truth. But it was a coward's way, it was the way of the guilty. It was quite simple, too. He only had to go back and withdraw the knife from the man's body, and gather up the two handkerchiefs, and--ride away. It sounded easy; it was easy. A new country. A fresh people who did not know him.

Another start in life. There was hope in the thought. Yes, a little, but not much. The accusing finger would follow him pointing, the shadow of the rope would haunt him wherever he went in spite of his innocence.

"Psha! No!" he exclaimed, and rode away toward the village.

CHAPTER x.x.xI

THE DISCOMFITURE OF SMALLBONES

Never in all his recollection had Silas Rocket had such a profitable night. From sundown on, his saloon was packed almost to suffocation, and he scarcely had time to wipe a single gla.s.s between drinks, so rapidly were the orders shouted across his bar. All the male portion of Barnriff were present, with the addition of nearly thirty men from the outlying ranges. It was a sort of ma.s.s meeting summoned by Doc Crombie, who had finally, but reluctantly, been driven to yield to the public cry against Jim Thorpe.

The doctor understood his people, and knew just how far his authority would carry him. He had exerted that authority to the breaking point to protect a man, whom, in his heart, he believed to be innocent of the charges laid at his door. But now the popular voice was too strong for him, and he yielded with an ill-grace.

Smallbones was the man responsible for this rebellion against a long-recognized authority. He was at the bottom of the campaign against Jim Thorpe. Whether he was himself convinced of the man's guilt it would have been difficult to say. For some reason, which was scarcely apparent, he meant to hang him. And, with all the persistence of a venomous nature, he shouted his denunciation, until at last his arguments gained credence, and his charges found echo in the deep throats of men who originally had little or nothing to say in the matter.

The meeting was in full swing, tempers were roused in proportion to the arguments flung about at haphazard, and the quant.i.ties of liquor consumed in the process of the debate. At first the centre of the floor had been kept clear for the speakers, and the audience was lined up around the walls, but as the discussion warmed there was less order, and Doc Crombie, in spite of his sternest language, was powerless to keep the judicial atmosphere necessary to treat the matter in a dignified manner. Smallbones kept up a fiery run of comment and spleenful argument on every individual who backed the doctor in his demand for moderation. He ridiculed, he cursed, he showered personal abuse, until he had everybody by the ears, and by the sheer power of his venom herded the majority to side with him.

One of the men he could not influence was Peter Blunt. He did his utmost to provoke the big man to a personal attack upon himself that he might turn loose personalities against him, and charge him with complicity in some of Jim's doings, however absurdly untrue they might be. He had all a demagogue's gift for carrying an audience with him.

He never failed to seize upon an opportunity to launch a poisonous shaft, or sneer at the cla.s.s to which Jim and such men as Peter belonged. Before he left that saloon he meant to obtain a verdict against his man.