The Promise Part 33

But, nevertheless, deep in his heart was the _terror_--nameless, unreasoning, haunting,--that clung to him night and day. So that a hundred times a day, alone in the timber, he would start and cast quick, jerky glances over his shoulder and jump, white-faced and trembling, at the snapping of a twig.

As the days went by the nameless terror grew, d.o.g.g.i.ng his footsteps, phantomlike by day, and haunting him at night, as he lay shaking in his bunk in the double-locked little office.

With the single exception of Blood River Jack, he had seen no human being since the drive, and his frenzied desire for companionship would have been pitiful, had it been less craven.

He slept fitfully with his rifle loaded and often c.o.c.ked in his bunk beside him, while during the day it was never out of reach of his hand.

In his daily excursions to the bird's-eye rollway he never took the same route twice, but skulked, peering fearfully about in the underbrush, avoiding even the game trails.

And always he detoured widely the place where he had seen the greener disappear beneath the muddy, log-ridden waters.

And so it was that upon this particular morning Creed sat close against the pyramid of logs--waiting.

At a sound from the river he jerked his rifle into readiness for immediate action and sat nervously alert, his thumb twitching on the hammer. Approaching down-stream came a canoe.

Creed leaped to his feet with a maudlin grin of relief as he recognized the three occupants. Apparently they had not seen him, and he stepped to the bank fearful lest they pa.s.s.

"Hey! You, Jack!" he called, waving his cap.

The bow-man ceased paddling and gazed sh.o.r.eward in evident surprise; the man on the bank was motioning them in with wide sweeps of the arm.

The half-breed called a few hasty words over his shoulder and the canoe shot toward sh.o.r.e.

"Where y' goin'?" asked Creed, as the three stepped onto the bank.

Blood River Jack replied with an indefinite sweep of his arm to the southward.

"Well, y' ain't in no hurry. Never seen a Injun yet cudn't stop long 'nough to take a drink o' licker. Har, har, har!"

He laughed foolishly, with an exaggerated wink toward the old Indian.

"How 'bout it, Wabishke; leetle fire-water make yer belt fit better?

'Tain't a goin' to cost y' nawthin'."

The Indian grinned and grunted acquiescence, and Creed inserted his arm between two logs and withdrew a squat, black bottle.

"Here's some reg'lar ol' 'rig'nal red-eye. An' here's lookin' at ye,"

he said, as he removed the cork and sucked greedily at the contents.

"Jest tuk a taste fust, 'cause I don't like to give vis'tors whisky I wudn't drink m'self, har, har, har! Anyways, the way I figger, it's white men fust, then half white, then Injuns." He pa.s.sed the bottle to Jacques.

"'Fraid's little too strong fer ladies," he smirked, at Jeanne, and, reaching out quickly, jerked the upturned bottle from Wabishke's lips.

"Hey, y' ol' pirate! Y' don't need fer to empty it all to wunst. Set roun' a while, an' bimeby we'll have 'nother. 'S all on me to-day; this here's my party."

They seated themselves on the ground and engaged in conversation, in which Creed did most of the talking.

"Trade rifles?" asked Blood River Jack, idly picking up Creed's gun and examining it minutely.

"Beats all how a Injun allus wants to be a tradin'," grinned Creed.

"Don't know but what I mought, though, at that. What's yourn?"

"Winchester, 30-40," replied Jacques, handing it over for inspection.

"Mine, too," said Creed; "only mine's newer. What'll y' give to boot?"

Jacques did not hurry his answer, being engaged in removing the cartridges for the better inspection of magazine and chamber.

"Mine's better kep'," he opined after a careful squinting down the muzzle.

"Kep' nawthin'! 'S all nicked up. An', besides, it pulls hard."

Jacques was deliberately refilling the magazine, but so intent was Creed in picking out fancied defects in the other's weapon that he failed to notice that the cartridges which were being placed in his own rifle had had their bullets carefully drawn, while his original cartridges reposed snugly in the pocket of the half-breed's mackinaw.

"Tell y' what I'll do," said Creed, speaking in a tone of the utmost generosity. "Give me ten dollars to boot, an' we'll call it a trade."

Jacques laughed loudly and, handing the other his rifle, picked up his own.

"We must be goin'," he observed, and rose to his feet.

"Better have 'nother drink 'fore y' go," said Creed, tendering the bottle. They drank around and Creed returned the bottle to its cache, while the others took their places in the canoe.

"Make it five, then," Creed extended the rifle as though giving it away.

Jacques shook his head, and pushed the canoe out into the stream.

The man on sh.o.r.e eyed the widening strip of water between the bank and the canoe.

"I'll make it three, seein' ye're so h.e.l.l-bent on a trade," he called.

But his only answer was a loud laugh as the canoe disappeared around a sharp bend of the river.

Creed resumed his position with his back against the ends of the logs.

At a point some fifty feet up-stream from the diminutive rollway, and about the same distance from the sh.o.r.e, a blackened snag thrust its ugly head above the surface of the water, and against this snag brushwood and drift had collected and was held by the push of the stream which gurgled merrily among its interstices.

Creed's gaze, resting momentarily upon this miniature island, failed entirely to note that it concealed a man who stood immersed in the river from his neck down, and eyed him keenly through narrowed gray eyes; and that also this man was doing a most peculiar thing.

Reaching into the pocket of his water-soaked shirt he withdrew several long, steel-jacketed bullets and, holding them in the palm of his hand, grinned broadly.

Then, one by one, he placed them in his mouth, drew a long breath, and dived. The water at this point was about four feet in depth and the man swam rapidly, close to the bottom.

Creed's glance, roving idly over the river, was arrested by a quick commotion upon the surface of the water almost directly in front of him.

He seized his rifle and leaped to his feet, hoping for a shot at a stray otter. The next instant the rifle slipped from his nerveless fingers and struck upon the ground with a m.u.f.fled thud.

Instead of an otter he was looking directly into the face of a man.

"G.o.d A'mi'ty," he gurgled, "it's the greener!" He leaned heavily against the logs, plucking foolishly at the bark. His scalp tingled from fright.

His mouth sagged open and the lolling, flabby tongue drooled thickly.

His face became a dull, bloodless gray, glistening glaireously with clammy sweat, and his eyes dilated until they seemed bulging from their sockets.