The Trail Of The Axe Part 53

"You're a great little woman, Betty," he said at last. "When I think of all you have done for me--well, I just feel that my life can never be long enough to repay you in. Throughout this business you have been my second self, with all the freshness and enthusiasm of a mind and heart thrilling with youthful strength. I can never forget the journey down from the camp. When I think of the awful physical strain you must have gone through, driving day and night, with a prisoner beside you, and a useless hulk of a man lying behind, I marvel. When I think that you had to do everything, feed us, camp for us, see to the horses for us, it all seems like some fantastic dream. How did you do it? How did I come to let you? It makes me smile to think that I, in my manly superiority, simply lolled about with a revolver handy to enforce our prisoner's obedience to your orders. Ah, little Betty, I can only thank Almighty G.o.d that I have been blest with such a little--friend."

The girl laid the tips of her fingers over his mouth.

"You mustn't say these things," she said, in a thrilling voice.

"We--you and I--are just here together to work out your--your plans.

G.o.d has been very, very good to me that He has given me the power, in however small a degree, to help you. Now let us put these things from our minds for a time and be--be practical. Talking of our prisoner, what are you going to do with--poor Jim?"

It was some moments before Dave answered her. It was not that he had no answer to her question, but her words had sent his mind wandering off among long past days. He was thinking of the young lad he had so ardently tried to befriend. He was thinking of the "poor Jim" of then and now. He was recalling that day when those two had come to him with their secret, with their youthful hope of the future, and of all that day had meant to him. They had planned, he had planned, and now it was all so--different. His inclination was to show this man leniency, but his inclination had no power to alter his resolve.

When he spoke there was no resentment in his tone against the man who had so cruelly tried to ruin him, only a quiet decision.

"I want you to tell Simon Odd to bring him here," he said. Then he smiled. "I intend him to spend the night with me. That is, until the first log comes down the river."

"What are you going to do?"

The man's smile increased in tenderness.

"Don't worry your little head about that, Betty," he said. "There are things which must be said between us. Things which only men can say to men. I promise you he will be free to go when the mill starts work--but not until then." His eyes grew stern. "I owe you so much, Betty," he went on, "that I must be frank with you. So much depends upon our starting work again that I cannot let him go until that happens."

"And if--just supposing--that does not happen--I mean, supposing, through his agency, the mill remains idle?"

"I cannot answer you. I have only one thing to add." Dave had raised himself upon his elbow, and his face was hard and set. "No man may bring ruin upon a community to satisfy his own mean desires, his revenge, however that revenge may be justified. If we fail, if Malkern is to be made to suffer through that man--G.o.d help him!"

The girl was facing him now. Her two hands were outstretched appealingly.

"But, Dave, should you judge him? Have you the right? Surely there is but one judge, and His alone is the right to condemn weak, erring human nature. Surely it is not for you--us."

Dave dropped back upon his pillow. There was no relenting in his eyes.

"His own work shall judge him," he said in a hard voice. "What I may do is between him and me."

Betty looked at him long and earnestly. Then she rose from her chair.

"So be it, Dave. I ask you but one thing. Deal with him as your heart prompts you, and not as your head dictates. I will send him to you, and will come back again--when the mill is at work."

Their eyes met in one long ardent gaze. The man nodded, and the smile in his eyes was very, very tender.

"Yes, Betty. Don't leave me too long--I can't do without you now."

The girl's eyes dropped before the light she beheld in his.

"I don't want you to--do without me," she murmured. And she hurried out of the room.

CHAPTER x.x.xII

TWO MEN--AND A WOMAN

It took some time for Betty to carry out Dave's wishes. Simon Odd, who was Jim Truscott's jailer while the mills were idle, and who had him secreted away where curious eyes were not likely to discover him, was closely occupied with the preparations at the other mill. She had to dispatch a messenger to him, and the messenger having found Simon, it was necessary for the latter to procure his prisoner and hand him over to Dave himself. All this took a long time, nearly an hour and a half, which made it two o'clock in the morning before Truscott reached the office under his escort.

Odd presented him with scant ceremony. He knocked on the door, was admitted, and stood close behind his charge's shoulder.

"Here he is, boss," said the man with rough freedom. "Will I stand by in case he gits gay?"

But Dave had his own ideas. He needed no help from anybody in dealing with this man.

"No," he said at once. "You can get back to your mill. I relieve you of all further responsibility of your--charge. But you can pa.s.s me some things to prop my pillow up before you go."

The giant foreman did as he was bid. Being just a plain lumberman, with no great nicety of fancy he selected three of the ledgers for the purpose. Having propped his employer into a sitting posture, he took his departure in silence.

Dave waited until the door closed behind him. His cold eyes were on the man who had so nearly ruined him, who, indirectly, had nearly cost him his life. As the door closed he drew his right hand from under the blankets, and in it was a revolver. He laid the weapon on the blanket, and his fingers rested on the b.u.t.t.

Jim Truscott watched his movements, but his gaze was more mechanical than one of active interest. What his thoughts were at the moment it would have been hard to say, except that they were neither easy nor pleasant, if one judged from the lowering expression of his weak face.

The active hatred which he had recently displayed in Dave's presence seemed to be lacking now. It almost seemed as though the rough handling he had been treated to, the failure of his schemes for Dave's ruin, had dulled the edge of his vicious antagonism. It was as though he were indifferent to the object of the meeting, to its outcome. He did not even seem to appreciate the significance of the presence of that gun under Dave's fingers.

His att.i.tude was that of a man beaten in the fight where all the odds had seemed in his favor. His mind was gazing back upon the scene of his disaster as though trying to discover the joint in the armor of his attack which had rendered him vulnerable and brought about his defeat.

Dave understood something of this. His understanding was more the result of his knowledge of a character he had studied long ago, before the vicious life the man had since lived had clouded the ingenuous impulses of a naturally weak but happy nature. He did not fathom the man's thoughts, he did not even guess at them. He only knew the character, and the rest was like reading from an open book. In his heart he was more sorry for him than he would have dared to admit, but his mind was thinking of all the suffering the mischief of this one man had caused, might yet cause. Betty had displayed a wonderful wisdom when she bade him let his heart govern his judgment in dealing with this man.

"You'd best sit down--Jim," Dave said. Already his heart was defying his head. That use of a familiar first name betrayed him. "It may be a long sitting. You're going to stay right here with me until the mill starts up work. I don't know how long that'll be."

Truscott made no answer. He showed he had heard and understood by glancing round for a chair. In this quest his eyes rested for a moment on the closed door. They pa.s.sed on to the chair at the desk. Then they returned to the door again. Dave saw the glance and spoke sharply.

"You'd best sit, boy. That door is closed--to you. And I'm here to keep it closed--to you."

Still the man made no reply. He turned slowly toward the chair at the desk and sat down. His whole att.i.tude expressed weariness. It was the dejected weariness of a brain overcome by hopelessness.

Watching him, Dave's mind reverted to Betty in a.s.sociation with him. He wondered at the nature of this man's regard for her, a regard which was his excuse for the villainies he had planned and carried out against him, and the mills. His thoughts went back to the day of their boy and girl engagement, as he called it now. He remembered the eager, impulsive lover, weak, selfish, but full of pa.s.sion and youthful protestations. He thought of his decision to go away, and the manner of it. He remembered it was Betty who finally decided for them both. And her decision was against his more selfish desires, but one that opened out for him the opportunity of showing himself to be the man she thought him. Yes, this man had been too young, too weak, too self-indulgent. There lay the trouble of his life. His love for Betty, if it could be called by so pure a name, had been a mere self-indulgence, a pa.s.sionate desire of the moment that swept every other consideration out of its path. There was not that underlying strength needed for its support. Was he wholly to blame? Dave thought not.

Then there was that going to the Yukon. He had protested at the boy's decision. He had known from the first that his character had not the strength to face the pitiless breath of that land of snowy desolation.

How could one so weak pit himself against the cruel forces of nature such as are to be found in that land? It was impossible. The inevitable had resulted. He had fallen to the temptations of the easier paths of vice in Dawson, and, lost in that whirl, Betty was forgotten. His pa.s.sion died down, satiated in the filthy dives of Dawson. Then had come his return to Malkern. Stinking with the contamination of his vices, he had returned caring for nothing but himself. He had once more encountered Betty. The pure fresh beauty of the girl had promptly set his vitiated soul on fire. But now there was no love, not even a love such as had been his before, but only a mad desire, a desire as uncontrolled as the wind-swept rollers of a raging sea. It was the culminating evil of a manhood debased by a long period of loose, vicious living. She must be his at any cost, and opposition only fired his desire the more, and drove him to any length to attain his end. The pity of it! A spirit, a bright buoyant spirit lost in the mad whirl of a nature it had not been given him the power to control. His heart was full of a sorrowful regret. His heart bled for the man, while his mind condemned his ruthless actions.

He lay watching in a silence that made the room seem heavy and oppressive. As yet he had no words for the man who had come so nearly to ruining him. He had not brought him there to preach to him, to blame him, to twit him with the failure of his evil plans, the failure he had made of a life that had promised so much. He held him there that he might settle his reckoning with him, once and for all, in a manner which should shut him out of his life forever. He intended to perform an action the contemplation of which increased the sorrow he felt an hundredfold, but one which he was fully determined upon as being the only course, in justice to Betty, to Malkern, to himself, possible.

The moments ticked heavily away. Truscott made no move. He gave not the slightest sign of desiring to speak. His eyes scarcely heeded his surroundings. It was almost as if he had no care for what this man who held him in his power intended to do. It almost seemed as though the weight of his failure had crushed the spirit within him, as though a dreary la.s.situde had settled itself upon him, and he had no longer a thought for the future.

Once during that long silence he lifted his large bloodshot eyes, and his gaze encountered the other's steady regard. They dropped almost at once, but in that fleeting glance Dave read the smouldering fire of hate which still burned deep down in his heart. The sight of it had no effect. The man's face alone interested him. It looked years older, it bore a tracery of lines about the eyes and mouth, which, at his age, it had no right to possess. His hair, too, was already graying amongst the curls that had always been one of his chief physical attractions. It was thinning, too, a premature thinning at the temples, which also had nothing to do with his age.

Later, again, the man's eyes turned upon the door with a calculating gaze. They came back to the bed where Dave was lying. The movement was unmistakable. Dave's fingers tightened on the b.u.t.t of his revolver, and his great head was moved in a negative shake, and the ominous shining muzzle of his revolver said plainly, "Don't!" Truscott seemed to understand, for he made no movement, nor did he again glance at the door.

It was a strange scene. It was almost appalling in its significant silence. What feelings were pa.s.sing, what thoughts, no one could tell from the faces of the two men. That each was living through a small world of recollection, mostly bitter, perhaps regretful, there could be no doubt, yet neither gave any sign. They were both waiting. In the mind of one it was a waiting for what he could not even guess at, in the other it was for something for which he longed yet feared might not come.

The hands of the clock moved on, but neither heeded them. Time meant nothing to them now. An hour pa.s.sed. An hour and a half. Two hours of dreadful silence. That vigil seemed endless, and its silence appalling.

Then suddenly a sound reached the waiting ears. It was a fierce hissing, like an escape of steam. It grew louder, and into the hiss came a hoa.r.s.e tone, like a harsh voice trying to bellow through the rushing steam. It grew louder and louder. The voice rose to a long-drawn "hoot," which must have been heard far down the wide spread of the Red Sand Valley. It struck deep into Dave's heart, and loosed in it such a joy as rarely comes to the heart of man. It was the steam siren of the mill belching out its message to a sleeping village. The master of the mills had triumphed over every obstacle. The mill had once more started work.