The Promise Part 16

"An' comin' from Appleton hisself he'll hate ye worse'n ever, f'r he'll think ye'll be afther crimpin' his bird's-eye game. Take advice, Bill, an' kape on th' good side av um av ye can. He'll t'row ut into ye wid all manner av dhirty thricks, but howld ye're timper, an' maybe ye'll winter ut out--an' maybe ye won't."

"What is a bird's-eye game?"

Fallon glanced at him sharply. "D'ye mane ye don't know about th'

bird's-eye?" he asked.

"Not a thing," replied Bill.

"Thin listen to me. Don't ye niver say bird's-eye in this camp av ye expect to winter ut out."

Bill was anxious to hear more about the mysterious bird's-eye, but the sled suddenly emerged into a wide clearing and Irish was pointing out the various buildings of the log camp.

Bright squares of light showed from the windows of the bunk-house, office, and grub-shack, with its adjoining cook-shack, from the iron stovepipe of which sparks shot skyward in a continuous shower.

Fallon shouldered the wolf and, accompanied by Bill, made toward the bunk-house, while the Frenchman turned the team toward the stable.

"Ag'in' we git washed up, supper'll be ready," announced Irish, as he deposited the wolf carca.s.s beside the door and entered.

Inside the long, low room, lined on either side by a double row of bunks, were gathered upward of a hundred men waiting the supper call.

They were big men, for the most part, rough clad and unshaven. Many were seated upon the edges of the bunks smoking and talking, others grouped about the three big stoves, and the tobacco-reeking air was laden with the rumble of throaty conversation, broken here and there by the sharp scratch of a match, a loud laugh, or a deep-growled, good-natured curse.

Into this a.s.sembly stepped Irish Fallon, closely followed by Bill, the sight of whose blood-stained face attracted grinning attention. The two men pa.s.sed the length of the room to the wash-bench, where a few loiterers still splashed noisily at their ablutions.

"I heard it plain, I'm tellin' you," some one was saying. "'Way off to the south it sounded."

"That ain't no lie," broke in another, "I hearn it myself--jest before dark, it was. An' I know! Didn't I hear it that night over on Ten Fork?

The time she got Jack Kane's woman, four year ago, come Chris'mus. Yes, sir! I tell you the werwolf's nigh about this camp, an' it's me in off the edges afore dark!"

"They say she never laughs but she makes a kill," said one.

"G.o.d! I was at Skelly's when they brought old man Frontenelle in,"

added a big man, whose heavy beard was shot with gray, as he turned from the stove with a shudder.

"They's some Injuns trappin' below; she might of got one of them,"

opined a short, stockily built man who, catching sight of the newcomers, addressed Fallon:

"Hey, Irish, you was down on the tote-road; did you hear Diablesse?"

Fallon finished drying his face upon the coa.r.s.e roller-towel and turned toward the group who waited expectantly. "Yis, Oi hear-rd her, all roight," he replied lightly. "An' thin Oi _see'd_ her."

Others crowded about, hanging upon his words. "An' thin, be way av showin' me contimpt," he added, "Oi dhrug her a moile or more t'rough th' woods be th' tail."

Loud laughter followed this a.s.sertion; but not a few, especially among the older men, shook their heads in open disapproval, and muttered curses at his levity.

"But me frind Bill, here," Irish continued, "c'n tell ye more about her'n phwat Oi kin. He's new in th' woods, Bill is; an' so d.a.m.ned green he know'd nayther th' manein' nor use av th' rackets. So, be gad, he come widout 'em. Mushed two whole days t'rough th' shnow.

"But, listen; no mather how ignorant, nor how much he don't know, a good man's a man--an' to pr-rove ut he jumps wid his axe roight into th' middle av th' werwolf's own an' kills noine, countin' th' three cripples Oi finished.

"But wid D'ablish herself, moind, he t'row'd away his axe an' goes to a clinch wid his knoife in his fisht. An' phwin 'tis over an' he picks himsilf up out av th' shnow an' wipes th' blood from his eyes--her blood--f'r he comes out av ut widout scratch nor scar--D'ablish lays at his feet dead as a nit."

Fallon gazed triumphantly into the incredulous faces of the men, and, with a smile, added, "'Twas thin Oi dhrug her be th' tail to th' sled, afther shmashin' her head wid th' axe to make sure."

"An' where is she now, Irish?" mocked one. "Did she jump off the sled an' make a get-away?"

Over at the grub-shack the cook's half-breed helper beat l.u.s.tily upon the discarded saw-blade that hung suspended by a wire, and the men crowded noisily out of the doors.

"Oi'll show ye afther supper, ye d.a.m.ned shpalpeen, how much av her got away!" shouted Irish, who waited for Bill to remove the evidence of his fight before piloting him to the grub-shack.

A single table of rough lumber covered with brown oilcoth extended the full length of the center of the room. Above this table six huge "Chicago burners" lighted the interior, which, as the two men entered, was a hive of noisy activity.

Men scuffled for places upon the stationary benches arranged along either side of the table. Heavy porcelain thumped the board, and the air was filled with the metallic din of steel knives and forks being gathered into bearlike hands.

Up and down the wide alleys behind the benches hurried flunkies bearing huge tin pots of steaming coffee, and the incessant returning of thick cups to their saucers was like the rattle of musketry.

But the thing that impressed the half-famished Bill was the profusion of food; never in his life, he thought, had he beheld so tempting an array of things to eat. Great trenchers of fried pork, swimming in its own grease, alternated the full length of the table with huge pans of baked beans.

Mountains of light, snowy bread rose at short intervals from among foot-hills of baked potatoes, steaming dishes of macaroni and stewed tomatoes, canned corn, peas, and apple sauce, and great yellow rolls of b.u.t.ter into which the knives of the men skived deeply.

The two pa.s.sed behind the benches in search of vacant places when suddenly an undersized flunky stumbled awkwardly, dropping the coffee-pot, which sent a wash of steaming brown liquid over the floor.

Instantly a great, hulking man with a wide, flat face and low forehead surmounted by a thick thatch of black hair, below which two swinish eyes scintillated unevenly, paused in the act of raising a great calk-booted foot over the bench.

The thick, pendulous lips under his ragged mustache curled backward, exposing a crenate row of jagged brown teeth. He stepped directly in front of the two men and, reaching out a thick hand caught the unfortunate flunky by the scruff as he regained his balance.

From his lips poured an unbroken stream of vile epithets and soul-searing curses while he shook the whimpering wretch with a violence that threatened serious results, and ended by pinning him against the log wall and drawing back his huge arm for a terrific shoulder blow.

The vicious brutality of the attack following so trivial an offense aroused Bill Carmody's anger. The man's back was toward him, and Bill grasped the back-drawn arm at the wrist and with an ungentle jerk whirled the other in his tracks.

The man released the flunky and faced him with a snarl. "Who done that?" he roared.

"I did. Hit me. I tripped him."

Bill's voice was dead level and low, but it carried to the farthest reaches of the room, over which had fallen a silence of expectation.

Men saw that the hard gray eyes of the stranger narrowed ominously.

"An' who the h.e.l.l are _you_?" The words whistled through the bared teeth and a flush of fury flooded the man's face.

"What do you care? I tripped him. Hit me!" and the low, level tone blended into silence. It seemed a _thing_--that uncanny silence when noise should have been.

There were sounds--sounds that no one heeded nor heard--the heavy breathing of a hundred men waiting for something to happen--the thin creak of the table boards as men leaned forward upon hands whose knuckles whitened under the red skin, and stared, fascinated, at the two big men who faced each other in the broad aisle.

The swinish eyes of the brutish man glared malignantly into the gray eyes of the stranger, in which there appeared no slightest flicker of rage nor hate, nor any other emotion.

Only a cold, hard stare which held something of terrible intensity, accentuated by the little fans of whitening wrinkles which radiated from their corners.

In that instant the other's gaze wavered. He knew that this man had lied; and he knew that every man in the room knew that he had lied.

That he had deliberately lied into the row and then, without raising his guard, had dared him to strike.