The Promise Part 58

"G.o.d!" breathed a man, and turned away. "It's his teeth!"

The yelling had ceased and men stared white faced. This was not the fighting they were used to; they understood only the quick, frenzied fighting of fury, where men pummel each other in blind rage, fighting close--as tigers fight--gouging and biting one another as they roll upon the ground locked in each other's grip.

The men gazed in awe, with a strange, unspoken terror creeping into their hearts, upon the vicious battering blows, the coldly gleaming eyes and smiling lips of the man who fought, not in any fume of pa.s.sion, but deliberately, smoothly, placing his terrific blows at will with a cold, deadly accuracy that smashed and tore.

Moncrossen rushed again.

"And now for the other things," Bill continued; "the attacks upon the defenseless girl--the attempted murder from ambush--and the starving of an old woman."

Blow followed blow, until in the crowd men cried out sharply, and those who had watched a hundred fights turned away white lipped.

Moncrossen fought blindly now. His eyes were closed and his face one solid ma.s.s of blood. And still the blows fell. Smash! Smash! Smash! It was horrible--those deliberate, tearing blows, and the lips that smiled in cold, savage cruelty.

No blow landed on the point of the jaw, on the neck, on the heart, or the pit of the stomach--blows that bring the quiet of oblivion; but each landed with a cutting twist that ground into the flesh.

At last, with his face beaten to a crimson pulp, Moncrossen sagged to his knees, tried to rise, and crashed limp and lifeless to the ground.

And over him stood Bill Carmody, smiling down at the broken and battered wreck of the bad man of the logs.

Gradually the circle that surrounded the fighters broke into little groups of white-faced, silent men who shot nervous, inquiring glances into each other's faces and swore softly under their breath--the foolish, meaningless oaths of excitement.

Minutes pa.s.sed as Ethel stood gazing in terrible fascination from the big man to the thing on the ground at his feet. And as she looked, a hideous old squaw, apparently too weak to stand, struggled from her place of vantage among the feet of the men, and crawled to the limp, sprawled form.

Leaning close she peered into the shapeless features, crooning and gurgling, and emitting short, sharp whines of delight. Her beady eyes glittered wickedly, like the eyes of a snake, and the withered lips curled into a horrid grin, exposing the purple snag-toothed gums.

Suddenly the bent form knelt upright, the skeleton arms raised high above the tangle of gray-black hair, the thin, high-pitched voice quavered the words of a weird chant, the clawlike fingers twitched in short, jerky spasms, and the emaciated body swayed and weaved to the wild, barbaric rhythm of the chanted curse.

Terrible, blighting, the words were borne to the ears of the girl.

Bearded men looked, listened, and turned away, shuddering. The sun burst suddenly through a rift in the flying clouds, and his golden radiance fell incongruously upon the scene.

Ethel gazed as at some horrid phantasm--the rough men with gaudy shirts of red and blue and multicolored checks, standing in groups with tense, set faces--the other man--_her_ man--standing alone, silent and smiling, by the side of his blood-bathed victim, and the old crone, whose marcid form writhed in the swing of the thin-shrieked chant.

And then before she sensed that he had moved he stood before her. She raised her eyes to his in which the hard, cold gleam had given place to a look of intense longing, of infinite love, and the long-pent yearning of a soul.

He stretched his arms toward her and she saw that the bruised and swollen hands were stained with blood. Suddenly she realized that this man was her _husband_. A sickening fear overcame her, and she shrank, shuddering, from the touch of the blood-smeared hands.

A look of terror came into her face; she covered her eyes with her hands as if to shut out the horror of it all, and, turning, fled blindly--she knew not where.

As she ran there still sounded in her ears the words of the high, thin chant--the blighting curse of Yaga Tah.

CHAPTER LII

THE BIG MAN

Darkness settled over the North country. The sky had cleared, the wind gone down, and the air was soft and balmy with the feel of spring. A million stars sparkled overhead and above the intense blackness of the pines the moon rose, flooding the timberland with the mystery of her soft radiance.

Ethel tossed uneasily in her cot and glanced across to where her aunt and Mrs. Sheridan slumbered heavily. Then she arose and stood at the window gazing out on the moonlit clearing with its low, silent buildings, and clean-cut, black shadows.

Noiselessly she dressed and stole into the silvery world. Utterly wretched, dispirited, heartsick, she wandered aimlessly, neither knowing nor caring whither her slow, dragging steps carried her.

Somewhere in the distance, sounding faint and far, came the shouts of men. Unconsciously she wandered toward the river. On the edge of a high bluff overlooking the rollways and the rushing waters she paused, leaning wearily against the bole of a giant birch.

Thanks to the quick action of Bill Carmody Moncrossen's scheme of fouling the upper drive had taken no toll of human life. The few rollways that were broken out, however, were sufficient to cause a nasty jam, and far below where the girl stood the men of both crews worked furiously among the high-piled logs.

Weird and unreal it seemed to Ethel as she gazed down upon the flare of huge fires built upon the bank, the tiny flash of lanterns and the flicker of torches, where the men swarmed out upon the uncertain footing.

Rough calls of rough men sounded above the crash and pound of logs and the roar of the rushing waters. Now and then a sc.r.a.p of rude chantey reached her ears, a hoa.r.s.e oath, or a loud, clear order in a voice she knew so well.

It was like some eery fantasy, born of an overwrought brain. And yet she knew it was real--intensely real. Down there among the flashing lights men played with death--big, rough men who laughed loud as they played, and swore mighty oaths, and sang wild, full-throated songs.

From the shadow almost at her side came the sound of a half-stifled sob. She started. There was a soft footfall on the leaf-mold, and before her stood Jeanne Lacombie. The soft moonlight touched with silvery sheen the long hairs of the great, white wolf-skin which the girl wore thrown loosely across her shoulders.

As Ethel gazed upon the wild, dark beauty of the Indian girl her tiny fists clenched, and her breath came in short, quick gasps.

Why was she here? Had she followed to taunt her to her face? A mighty rage welled up within her, her shoulders stiffened, and as she faced the girl her blue eyes flashed.

And then the Indian girl spoke, and at the first words of the soft, rich voice, the rage died in her heart. She looked closely, and in the dark, liquid eyes was a look the white girl will never forget.

She listened, and with few words and all the dramatic eloquence of the pure Indian the half-breed girl told of the rescue from the river; of her own love for M's'u' Bill, "The-Man-Who-Cannot-Die"; of his firm rejection of that love; of her pursuit of him when he started for the land of the white man; of the scene at the camp-fire when old Wa-ha-ta-na-ta called him "The One Good White Man"; of the broken knife; of The Promise; of her peril at the hand of Moncrossen, and of the cold-blooded shooting of her brother.

And then she told of Bill's all-absorbing love for her, Ethel. And of how he always loved her, even when he believed she hated and despised him; of his deep hurt and the misery of his soul when he believed that she was to marry another.

Until suddenly there in the moonlight the girl of the city saw for the first time the bigness of the man--_her man_. She saw him as he was now and as he had been in the making--the man who had been dubbed "Broadway Bill, the sport"; the "souse," who had "soaked a cop" and then "beat it in a taxi."

And then the man who, without name or explanation, had won the regard of such a keen judge of men as Appleton, and who, under the stigma of theft, held that regard without question; the man who beat the booze game after he had lost his heart's desire, and had been sneered at as a coward and a quitter; the man who having gained his heart's desire, in the very bigness of him, had unhesitatingly risked wrecking his whole life's happiness to keep his promise to an old, toothless, savage crone; and who, in brute fashion, bare-fisted, had all but pounded the life from the body of the hulking Moncrossen in defense of a woman's honor.

And _this_ was the man who, eighteen short months before, had turkey-trotted upon the sidewalk in front of a gay resort, and had "pulled it too raw even for Broadway!"

The flood-gates of her soul opened, as is the way of women in all the world. The great sobs came, and with them tears, and in the tree-filtered moonlight the two girls--the tutored white girl and the half-savage Indian--women both--wept in each other's arms.

Up the trail from the river, almost at their feet, wearily climbed a man, dog-tired from physical exertion; and worn out with responsibility and heart-rack he toiled slowly up the steep ascent.

At the top he paused and removed his cap to let the cool air blow against his throbbing temples. At the sight of the two forms he drew back; but at the same moment they saw him.

With one last, long look, and no word of farewell save a dry, choking sob, the Indian girl glided silently into the darkness of the forest, which was her home, and the home of her people.

On the edge of the bluff the other stood silhouetted against the star-flecked sky. She, too, gazed at the man who stood motionless in the moonlight. Then with a lithe, quick movement she opened her arms to him, her lips parted, and in the blue eyes blazed the love of all the ages.

As her body poised to meet his the man sprang toward her. His arms closed about her, their lips met; and for a long, long time they looked deep into each other's eyes.

Then slowly the tiny fingers closed about his, the girl raised them reverently to her lips and covered with kisses the great, bruised, and swollen hands.

THE END